Ready for your regular reminder that technology is magic?
Google has just rid the earth of clouds. Well, Google Earth, at least*. They’ve just pushed an update to the satellite imagery found in Google Earth and Google Maps, offering a higher-res (and now cloud free) view of the earth than ever before.
By tapping the tools they built for the Planetary Time Machine project they showed last month, Google was able to process and combine all of the photos they had for each region of earth — that’s hundreds of terabytes of data — until they had an almost completely clear shot of the entire globe. Go, now, Brave Adventurer! Explore the world from the comforts of your five-wheeled vessel, the SS Herman Miller!
As part of the update, they’ve also updated the satellite imagery in places that haven’t been refreshed in a while, focusing mostly on Russia, Central Africa, and Indonesia.
You can check out the new, mostly-cloudless view of the planet on Google Maps now. Just flip on satellite view.
[* Dear Google: Please don’t try to remove the clouds from actual earth. We would probably die very quickly and I would be sad. Thanks. Your friend, Greg.]
Check out these before and after shots, compliments of the Googles:
Central Papua, Indonesia — Before And After The Cloud Patch:
Saudi Arabia:
South America:
