Now this is very cool: The Wii meets Google Earth. This is what happens when technologies marry into something completely new.
It doesn't take much imagination to realize that we're not far off from virtually skiing down slopes from any mountain right in the comfort of your living room. For now you'll just have to be satisfied with surfing the planet. So cool.
Google has just announced that it is adding underwater imagery and seabed maps to the Google Earth project, according to The Guardian of London. The site will also provide detailed environmental data on the impact of climate change in the world’s bodies of water. The move will take Google Earth closer to its aim of creating a complete digital representation of the planet.The existing site, accessed by 400 million people, already includes three-dimensional representations of large cities around the world and includes images from street-level and aerial photography covering thousands of miles across the United States and elsewhere.Another new feature of Google Earth, Historical Imagery, provides the ability to scroll back through decades of satellite images and watch the spread of suburbia or erosion of coasts.More, from The New York Times.
I am in Kalamazoo, for the Michigan Library Association Annual Conference, always a worthwhile event.This afternoon, I attended an excellent workshop – Tech Tools for Reference – presented by Holly Hibner, from the Salem-South Lyon District Library, and Christine Tobias, from Michigan State University Libraries.Hibner’s presentation, directed toward public libraries, was especially interesting to me. She presented twelve Web 2.0 – free – technologies that all librarians should incorporate into our tool chest.Take a look at these:Delicious.com – a social bookmarking site and one of The Tech Desk’s favorites.Twitter.com – a microblog, and another of our favorites.LinkBunch.com – put multiple links into one short link can be sent easily via text message, IM or email.Drop.io – drop files that are too big to email onto this site and share them via a variety of outputs.Meebo.com – chat across platforms, with no software download required.Scribd.com – publish and share doc, xls, pdf, txt, and Open Office files with the world.Slideshare.net – publish and share your presentations with the world. To view this workshop’s presentation using slideshare, go to www.slideshare.net/hhibner.
Camstudio.org – create AVI files by recording screen and audio activity on your computer.Googlelittrips.com – an experiment in teaching literature, by using Google Earth to help students discover where in the world the greatest road trip stories of all time took place.Cueprompter.com – turn your computer into a teleprompter.Readthewords.com – create an audio file out of text.Zamzar.com – convert files without needing special software.
The coolest of these? It has to be googlelittrips.com. Follow the journey of John Steinbeck’s Joad family from The Grapes of Wrath.
What do you think?
