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They’ve kept a low profile so far, but when they came up with it, it was well worth it. The Google Lat Long Blog comes with a post from Wei Luo, a senior GIS Specialist detailing all of the changes and updates that have happened. In decreasing order, based on the level of how exciting the additions are, here they come:
First, they’ve made tremendous work with the roads in 26 countries, adding and updating to have everything up to date in Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Bodies of water will be labeled in whatever language you have the Google Earth software set to, and places names in Taiwan, Russia, Australia, New Zealand Brazil and Turkey will be labeled in their local language. Not very cool, but definitely useful for non-English speakers that want to use Google Earth.
National Geographic, one of their more popular layers, has been expanded to three new continents, Europe, Asia and South America. I don’t know if you understand the magnitude of that, but as an example, they have included everything, "from China's fearsome Taklimakan Desert, where Marco Polo traveled, to the hyacinth macaws of Brazil." I think it’s too much to ask for a complete Discovery History layer, right?
And last but by no means least, a team of USGS scientists have put some work into re-engineering the Earthquake layer to provide better and more accurate information. If you want to, you could even zoom out further enough and observe that quakes most often happen where tectonic plates meet / collide and, by following the line of such natural catastrophes, you easily see the boundaries of the plates. Now, I'd look at it, and I will, especially because every site is linked to information about the magnitude, depth and date of the earthquake.
