Live Satellite Images in Google Earth!
As part of the Google Earth image update released last week Google quietly added a major new feature to Google Earth - live satellite images!
Using the live satellite mode I created a screen capture of cars driving down a road, which you can see in the animated thumbnail below.
Live Satellite only works for the city of Edinburgh, UK but will be rolled out to other cities in the near future. Apparently Google wanted to keep this amazing new feature quiet so as to not overload the satellite’s built-in web server.
If you’d like to see the Live Satellite Mode in action yourself then load up this placemark file.
Be warned that Edinburgh is very cloudy today, so you may have to search around a bit to find a gap in the clouds.
We’re told that as Google add the Live Satellite feature to more and more cities they plan to rename Google Earth to Google Live Local.
OMG that is awesome. Cant WAIT until its done for the whole of the UK!!! I still CANT BELIEVE THIS IS REAL!!!!1
I guess it’s a 1st April joke…!!!
LOL, especially the current mapping of Edinburgh
Bit late for a April Fool though? Unless you’re in the far western hemisphere…
No you’re quite wrong. I just tried it and it works. Im watching some traffic on Google Earth now. Download it seriously, its amazing!
Damn, you really got my hopes up. T_T
Speaking of April Fool’s Day, in 2006 Google Earth had the UFO at Area 51, and the cartoon dog on the White House lawn. Has anyone found any April Fool’s Day jokes in Google Earth today?
Well, can someone tell my why my overlay still is the same? What did I miss here? It probably is a 1st April joke.. too bad..
By the way: why didn’t anyone notice that this is only for Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.?? This is where Google Sightseeing.com ’s HQ is:
“Google Sightseeing HQ is located in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.” as said here:
http://googlesightseeing.com/faq/#16
Very coincidental.. Who’s with me?
Isn’t it a coincidence Edinburgh being the first place? Are you sure Google Sightseeing isn’t affiliated with Google? I bet your city will be the first in the UK to receive Google’s new free broadband offer.
Hah, that was a good one. best one i’ve seen today, the gif was good work too (look at the shadows)
Still don’t believe me? Double click on the google earth bookmark, would google put the ‘google sightseeing’ logo in the bookmark they made?
also, the bookmark overlays the clouds
You would have had me, if it wasn’t clear blue skies here in Edinburgh today.
Nice one…. you had me going for a sec… That would be a cool idea though… that sure is a big cloud…
This is nearly as cool as the x-ray function where you can see inside buildings:
http://googlesightseeing.com/2007/03/22/whale-spotting-in-google-earth/#comments
@Adrian,
The official timezone of Google Sightseeing was previous defined as UTC-12, meaning that even as I post this comment we’re not past the midday mark!
I had TiSP installed yesterday, and it seems that there’s plenty of hidden content to see in Google Earth when you use TiSP. Amazing!
Well, I came onto the internet today, saw this story in my RSS feeds so took a look, today is not the 1st of April and this story is top of the list, therefore it can;t be an April fool joke
do you have to have google earth plus, its just a big old cloud so far
I suppose this could be a Google Maps April fool joke as well… (number 23 is pretty hard to do by car)
My bet is 12 - 18 months this wont be a joke but a possibility - anyone else guess at a date?
Corse its a wind-up. The cloud is a picture which is overlayed with the bookmark, and if you zoom into the cloud you can see geometric chapes around the edges where it has been photoshopped to remove streets etc. from the original image.
I doubt they’ll ever be able to get the rights to do it, people will see it as invading peoples privacy plus how many satellites are we suppost to believe to be up there?? it would be the greatest thing ever if it were to happen though!
But in the meantime, I’d just be happy for my car SATNAV to have the google maps / hybrid feature!
Nice april fool joke - I guess in a couple of years (decades?) that this’ll be possible - and I’ll be able to keep an on the builders renovating my house! Just daily updates would be pretty sweet…
“people will see it as invading peoples privacy” - Woldn’t you see it that way? It is bad enough ‘normal’ camera surveillance is getting out of hand more and more…
i am a travel agent here in pakistan involving in hajj & umrah tours , i like to show my clients the real live street & hotel swhere they can or will stay during their trip.
therefore i need real close up live picture of both cities of Makkah & madinah in kingdom of saudi arabia
there is a massive cloud over this pom city. it’s not live!
Lol wait till we can control them
LOL nice
would have loved to see myself walking and waving my hands on the streets of Brasilia 
[quote]I doubt they’ll ever be able to get the rights to do it, people will see it as invading peoples privacy plus how many satellites are we suppost to believe to be up there??[/quote]
There are hundreds of active satellites orbiting and hundreds more that have expired.
But forget the debate about “getting the rights”… think of the COST!!??
Do you have any idea how much it costs to re-task a satellite to a specific location?
this time its not a joke
I love google earth… and what a joke? for april fools? not cool! i thought this was real! live satalite would be cool… so that i can spy on my co-stars! hahaha!!
Lots of LOve, to my fans out there!
Who are these people who are saying that this is no April fools joke? they must be workers for Google because this is not a live image.
how the earth have sattelite
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