

Great Barrier Reef underwater panoramas in Google Maps  - mgdiaz
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/dive-into-great-barrier-reef-with-first_25.html

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snogglethorpe
haha, I can imagine the discussion in the google maps office.

"Well, we've finished with all the planet's landmasses...can you make this
thing waterproof?"

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mayneack
I'd personally vote for a tour of the trails in national parks.

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dannyr
Street View goes on a road trip through California's national parks

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/street-view-goes-
on-r...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/street-view-goes-on-road-trip-
through.html)

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snogglethorpe
What's sad, though, is that are there roads (and parking lots) in those
places... The streetviews just sort of rub it in. :(

A backpack-cam, on the other hand would be great, and give a much truer sense
of what it's like to be out there in the middle of nowhere.

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ccozan
Well, here you are: [http://www.togtech.com/trekker-google-streetview-camera-
in-a...](http://www.togtech.com/trekker-google-streetview-camera-in-a-
backpack/)

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jtreminio
Just tried this on my android phone and it works beautifully.

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Tsagadai
All that coral bleaching makes me pretty sad. The reef was much more colourful
but it has been declining for a long time now. I wonder how much will be left
in another 10 years.

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anonymous543
I might be missing something, but why is everyone so excited about this? If
you want a great experience of the oceans and reefs out there, you could load
up an HD video on YouTube of the Great Barrier Reef, and view something much
more immersive.

I'm a huge fan of street view, and I love being able to virtually drive to
where I'm going, and find landmarks to help along the way, like for example, a
large orange building next to the shop I'm planning to visit. How is ocean
street view practical in anyway though? If it's for the user experiencing the
ocean or planning their trip, they could upload a quick video of common
snorkelling and diving points around coastlines and islands. It would give the
user much more information. As of now, it's like flicking through a slideshow,
and the navigation is brutal. I'm scratching my head here trying to come up
with one thing this does well. As someone else said, I'd like to see more
trails added to street view, or even more streets.

Google, since you have free time, here are a couple of ideas...

1\. Street view for different seasons. In certain countries, towns and streets
look completely different depending on the month. I frequently use street view
to browse areas I'm looking to live, or travelling. It would be useful if I
could switch the images to summer, winter, etc.

2\. Video street view. Much more time consuming to create, since the camera
would need to stay in a single spot for a minute at a time, and blurring
sensitive information would be more challenging. However, imagine choosing a
location on the map, and feeling like you're in that area of the city, or on
that quiet road in the middle of the forest where you rotate the camera and
follow a bird flying by.

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reledi
_you could load up an HD video on YouTube of the Great Barrier Reef_

You can't control a video to see what you want to. You have some control with
this underwater Street View. It's the same reason why I find Street View much
more valuable than watching videos on YouTube of people driving.

~~~
anonymous543
Sure you can, here's an example.

[http://www.nimmobay.com/media/360-video/360-video-nimmo-
bay-...](http://www.nimmobay.com/media/360-video/360-video-nimmo-bay-
helicopter-resort)

Attach one of those to a diver at popular destinations. On Google maps, show a
little video icon. Click the icon, watch, and look around as they swim the
location. It's now easier to navigate, and gives you a better representation
of snorkelling or diving in that area.

~~~
reledi
I was expecting a response like this, since I'm aware of these Immersive Media
videos. But YouTube doesn't handle these type of videos (yet). They also don't
let you control which direction you'd like to travel in.

Street View is more convenient as it offers the same 360 degree view as the
Immersive Media videos yet more control like zoom and navigation.

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dasil003
They didn't blur the face of the turtle.

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mahmud
Most beautiful thing I have ever seen. We went diving there for our honeymoon.
Spectacular.

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mayneack
How does apple expect to beat this now?

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enraged_camel
Low Earth orbit panoramas.

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cryptoz
Apple's 2011 net income significantly exceeded NASA's budget (About $25
billion to $18 billion). Orbital panoramas shouldn't be out of their reach.

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hcarvalhoalves
The difference is that Apple is a for-profit company so they have to reinvest
a portion of that back into the company, while NASA can - in fact, should -
spend the entire budget :)

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cryptoz
For sure - I wasn't advocating that Apple devote most resources to space
travel, science and exploration. Just that they could afford to buy a launch
or two from SpaceX like NASA does. It may even be in their financial interest
to put up their own satellites with high-res cameras and telescopes. Mac
desktop background images are celestial objects already. "Our latest
innovation. Our best work. From Space."

Plus we know that Apple Maps could use a little help.

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Magenta
Finally, they added it. Well I can tick that off of my list of dream holiday
destinations!

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dmix
Living life through Google.

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Magenta
I am hoping they add the forest behind my house so I don't have to take walks
any more

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mcantelon
You can't move around under the sea. It just seems like a geolocation-specific
panorama integrated into Google Maps. I want to move around like a submarine!

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oscilloscope
Zoom out, there are white arrows that appear in the middle-bottom of the
screen. Click those to travel in that direction. It's kind of like a choose
your own adventure.

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artursapek
Indeed. Wow. <http://goo.gl/maps/uCnD2>

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Paul_S
Thanks for the link, the original link results in a graphic of gears turning
forever and not loading anything.

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notlion
I can't wait til these are available via the API :)

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jarajelissa
Google added street view to the Great Barrier Reef. This is easily the coolest
thing they've done since earth.

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shreeshga
i demand a narrative about the turtle by David Attenborough in the background.

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bennyfreshness
the world is becoming so small, its great I guess but takes away from the
mystery

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lclarkmichalek
And adds to it so much. At first glance, yes there is less of the world to
explore, but there is suddenly so much more of the world to understand, and
we've hardly touched the surface of that.

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ilija139
Game over, apple maps.

