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What's New in Google Earth 
Each month we highlight the newest additions to the built in Google Earth content. If you haven't been subscribing to Sightseer for long, you might want to check the forum for previous editions.
 New and Updated Imagery - An imagery update for Google Earth occurred on October 23rd. This
update included new and updated imagery for cities and counties, and high resolution
satellite imagery for the entire countries of Tunisia, UAE,
Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Other highlights: New imagery for
several states and cities in the US, and several areas in France, the
UK, and Germany. Also, updated imagery for many areas on all the
continents except Antarctica. See more location details on
the update - check to see if your favorite place has new imagery!
A little bonus with this update: We updated the 3D terrain and imagery
for the Niagra Falls. Check out this
placemark  to see the Niagara Falls in Google Earth. Make sure the Terrain layer is turned on.
 Reorganized Layers - The layers in Google Earth were substantially reorganized in early
November. This was done in our continuing effort to make the layers useful and informative. When you turn on a layer, the information contained
may not reveal itself until you zoom in closer to relevant
places. Other layers are useful at different zoom levels (for example, the
Borders layer). This is a good opportunity to re-explore the layers by
examining what's available in the different layer folders. Open a
folder by clicking on the "+" box next to a layer folder name.
Note the new layer names:
Featured Content is now called Gallery, Populated Places (city names)
falls under Borders and Labels, the many layers describing shopping
centers, dining, lodging, etc. are now under Places of Interest. The
Google Earth Community layer is under the Gallery layer. Don't forget
to try out the Geographic Web layer which also includes a preview sample of many of
the other layers.
Learn more
about using layers.
New and Updated Layers - There have been several new additions to the Google Earth layers since the last Sightseer issue, the first of which adds realism to the view of the Earth:
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NORAD Tracks Santa
 It's that time of year again - the time for good food, good cheer, and, if you've been good, presents! NORAD ( North American Aerospace Defense Command) has been tracking Santa for over 50 years through their NORAD Tracks Santa program. This year NORAD Tracks Santa has partnered with Google to track Santa's trip. The countdown begins on December 1st, on www.noradsanta.org, where children and families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every day until December 24th. You can also countdown the days and hours until Santa's flight and track his real-time location on December 24th by adding the NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget.
On December 24th starting at 1:00 am PST users will be able to track Santa's trip in real-time on www.noradsanta.org or download Google Earth and the special Santa Tracking file from the website for an enhanced, 3D Santa tracking experience.
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Geography Awareness Week
 The third week in November is designated "Geography Awareness Week" in the US. This year we teamed up with My Wonderful World, a National Geographic-led campaign for geographic literacy, to give students, parents and geography enthusiasts a look at "Asia: Continent of Contrasts". Check out My Wonderful Worlds' tours of Asia in Google Earth, featuring photos, videos and interesting tidbits about Asia -- its natural wonders, wildlife, art, cuisine and more. You can also test your knowledge with the "Ultimate Asia Challenge ".
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DOE Energy Efficient Buildings
 The US Department of Energy (DOE) has a database of energy efficent buildings. To highlight the usefulness of the data, we worked with the DOE and BuildingGreen Inc. to build 3D models of nearly 100 energy efficient buildings. View the resulting collection of placemarks showing the locations of the buildings. Make sure to click the "View 3D model in Google Earth" to load each building. There are also links to full in-depth case studies for each building from the DOE. Read more at Gearthblog.com.
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Geo Tools For Good
 Google Earth and Google Maps are enabling new interactive ways for people to grasp geographic information. Increasingly, the news media are taking advantage of these new mapping technologies to inform the public. Take for example maps like those produced by KPBS and Los Angeles Times for the fires in California in October. They provided updated information about the conditions of the fires and evacuation zones to help inform those in danger or those concerned about the fire damage. (See also a collection of California fire imagery viewable in Google Earth - this includes the smoke of the fires which was visible from space).
The news media also produced maps of the San Francisco Bay Oil Spill in mid-November. See the maps by the San Francisco Chronicle and KCBS which included photos and videos documenting the environmental effects and clean-up operations. You can view these maps in Google Earth by clicking on the "KML" link in each map, or by clicking here and here .
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Tips & Tricks: Community Maps Search Results
When you search for places in Google Earth, your search results will often include a section entitled Community Maps. To see these, scroll down to the bottom of your search results in the Search panel and check the Community Maps folder. These maps appear in the 3D viewer as blue markers.
 The Community Maps folder includes content created by users via KML, GeoRSS or the MyMaps feature of Google Maps. For example, if you search for "thai food" in Seattle, community maps include recommendations for places to eat great Thai food in this city. Or if you navigate to Mount Rainer and search for "photo", you can view view images for this scenic area that users have embedded into community maps.
As with all search results, you can save these by dragging them to your My Places folder. |
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Clouds satellite photos showing the clouds of the entire Earth updated within the last 2-3 hours. The clouds update automatically to show current positions.
Radar - Doppler weather radar updated every 15 minutes for the US (we will shortly be rolling out radar for Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, and Europe as well)
