How To Accessorize With Tiny Birds: April 26, 2011 -- Google celebrates the 226th birthday of John James Audubon.  So do Tiny Birds, as they appreciate Audubon's interest in aviary creatures.

Hi, this is Greg Peters, from Netflix product development. We recently announced the availability of Netflix on Windows Phone 7 devices, which, alongside the iPhone, represents the second mobile phone platform we have enabled for streaming from Netflix. Notably absent from current supported mobile devices is Android and I wanted to provide an update on where things stand with this important platform.

Satire for the Dutch Nu.nl news website, about the rise of the Google Android operating system.

Sevensheaven images and prints are for sale at sevensheaven.nl

Title picture and menu background for the Google Android version of the puzzle game Clockwiser.

Clockwiser is also a free online game.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine are not visiting the Juan Fernandez islands for the upcoming TV series, so I thought I'd take a quick tour of the area in Google Earth, and share it with you using their new "Record a Tour" feature.

First, make sure you have the latest version 5 of Google Earth, then download this Tour of Juan Fernandez KMZ file which should open automatically. Expand the new folder using the "+" icons, and click the "Tour" option to run the recorded sequence. The picture at the left shows you where you need to be clicking.

Google Earth should now "take control" and fly you around the world, down to the Juan Fernandez Islands, around "Alejandro Selkirk Island", then across the ocean to "Robinson Crusoe Island", around the airstrip, and finally down to a small town on the island. The sequence was all recorded in real-time using the the fabulous "3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator". Using this device it really is remarkably easy to explore the world, smoothly and intuitively, as you'll shortly see. The SpaceNavigator is also available at Amazon.co.uk.

The ARKive video of the Juan Fernandez Fur Seals we featured the other day came from the fabulous new "Google Ocean" layer under ARKive:Endangered Ocean Species and is located on Robinson Crusoe Island.

This is just a first experiment with the "Record a Tour" feature. I hope to do some more soon with a bit more content.

There's a fairly simplistic model of the Three Gorges Dam created by SugarSmax up on the Google 3D Warehouse. It can be downloaded into Google Sketchup or Google Earth and viewed from any angle, but it does give a nice idea of how the Chinese landscape has been modified by such a massive construction as this dam.

To aid in your Google Earth navigation, I still HEARTILY recommend the "3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator" from 3DConnexion. It's remarkably affordable, and brings the whole Google Earth experience to life. Lots of fun!

Try flying around the Last Chance To See locations which you'll find in our Another Chance To See KMZ file, and also the Jane Goodall Chimpanzee Google Earth blog which is a very clever use of Google Earth. The Space Navigator brings so much to the whole experience, and it's thoroughly addictive! The device is not just for Google Earth though. It also works with Google Sketchup, Autodesk products, and much more besides. I highly recommend it.

**REPOST TO TEST GOOGLE MAPS API-KEY PROBLEM**

On their visit to China to see the Baiji Dolphin, Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine visited Tiananmen Square in Beijing. They joined the queue to enter the mausoleum and filed past the body of Chairman Mao...

We joined the line after some hesitation, half-expecting that we might be there all day, but we were kept constantly on the move by the barking marshals, and even found that we were accelerating as we got closer to the front. Less than three hours after we had tagged on to the end of the line we were hurried into the red-pile-carpeted inner sanctum and ran past the tiny, plump, waxy body as respectfully as we could.

The queue which had been so tightly and rigorously controlled as it was lined up to be fed into the mausoleum, disintegrated amongst the souvenir stalls as it emerged from the other side. I imagined that from the air the building must resemble a giant mincing machine.

Out of pure curiosity, I went looking for Kakapos in Google Book Search to see what I could find. Lo and behold, Google did pull up a few interesting "digitized publications", including what must be one of the oldest photographs of a Kakapo (or Owl Parrot) around. This is a picture of a Kakapo from "The World's Birds: A Simple and Popular Classification of the Birds of the World" by Frank Finn, published in 1908. I wonder if he or she is the great-great grandparent of any of the remaining 86 Kakapos?

If we now travel further back in time to 1865, we find a fascinating multi-page appendix devoted to the Kakapo in John Gould's book "Handbook to the Birds of Australia". Here's a couple of brief extracts from the book, which obviously covers New Zealand as well...

Long before 1845, when a skin of this extraordinary Parrot was for the first time sent to Europe, we had conclusive evidence of the existence of the species, from the circumstance of plumes made of its feathers being worn by the Maories. It is somewhat strange, however, that such a lengthened period should have elapsed after the discovery and possession of New Zealand before so singular a bird should have found its way to Europe.

On their ability to fly like bricks...

The only occasion on which the Kakapo was seen to fly was when it got up one of these hollow trees and was driven to an exit higher up. The flight was very short, the wings being scarcely moved ; and the bird alighted on a tree at a lower level than the place from whence it had come, but soon got higher up by climbing, using its tail to assist it.

Finally, this supposed cave gathering behaviour is an interesting idea indeed...

The cry of the Kakapo is a hoarse croak, varied occasionally by a discordant shriek when irritated or hungry. The Maories say that during winter they assemble together in large numbers in caves, and at the times of meeting, and, again before dispersing to their summer haunts, that the noise they make is perfectly deafening.

The full Kakapo entry runs to about 9 pages, and covers their range, the threat to them from cats and rats, diet, behaviour, edibility and more besides. It's quite a fascinating perspective from some 140 years ago, and warrants further Google Book Searches in the future.

Check out this Google Map which shows a large herd of Manatees warming themselves by a (probable) power plant water outlet in West Palm Beach, Florida.


Thanks to Google Sightseeing for finding this amazing phenomenon, and as the Wikipedia article mentions...

Manatees often congregate near power plants, which warm the waters. Some have become reliant on this source of artificial heat and have ceased migrating to warmer waters. Some power plants have recently been closing and The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to find a new way to heat the water for these manatees. The main water treatment plant in Guyana has four manatees that keep storage canals clear of weeds.

Here's a YouTube video of some similar Manatees resting during cold weather. Beautiful creatures.

Here's another Google Maps super-zoom, into one of my favourite National Geographic African Mega-Flyover images. A huge flock of flamingos! Scroll up a little to the NNW and you'll see a boat with about seven or eight people aboard, and at the south of the image tile you'll also see the tail end of the plane's shadow.


See our previous post for another endangered animal close up - Hippos taking a bath.

Philipp Lenssen at GoogleBlogoscoped has in interesting post today that discusses a neat little URL hack on Google Maps. It allows you to zoom in REALLY close and see some of the images that we're used to seeing in Google Earth under the special layers like the National Geographic layer, as well as the recent Australia Day flyover.

However, navigating these images in Google Earth is much easier, especially with the "3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator" which we reviewed back in January.

But for now, here's some Hippos taking a bath...


As I said, for more endangered animals up close, you can either view them in Google Earth (previous post details) or by loading a KML into Google Maps. Thanks to Brian S in Philipp's comments for this neat trick.

If you go to the following KML mapped onto google maps and choose one of the locations, then change the zoom in the URL according to Philipp you can see the high quality images.

maps.google.com/maps?q=bbs.key ...

**UPDATE** I've just posted another super-zoom image, this time of Flamingos in flight.

A team-member at National Geographic magazine wrote to tell me about their Ivory Wars article in the March 2007 edition. It is about the elephants of Zakouma National Park in Chad, and the extreme poaching problems that they face. The story is also covered in some depth on the National Geographic magazine website, with Feature 1 - Ivory Wars and Feature 2 - Eye To Eye by J. Michael Fay plus photographs by Michael Nichols.

The dead elephant, a huge bull, lay on his side, right leg curled as if in wrenching pain. Dirt covered the exposed eye—magic done by poachers to hide the carcass from vultures. The smell of musth and urine, of fresh death, hung over the mound of the corpse. It was a sight I had seen hundreds of times in central Africa. As I passed my hand over his body from trunk to tail, tears poured down my cheeks. I lifted the bull's ear. Lines of bright red blood bubbled and streamed from his lips, pooling in the dust. His skin was checkered with wrinkles. The base of his trunk was as thick as a man's torso. Deep fissures ran like rivers through the soles of his feet; in those lines, I could trace every step he had taken during his 30 years of life.

They also have an information page on their Google Earth feature, with the Zakouma—Ivory Wars KLM file ready to download into Google Earth.

Rich new layers let you zoom in on the park's animal inhabitants, read author Mike Fay's journal entries, see camera-trap photos, and more.

Much like Jane Goodall's Chimpanzee Blog, the Ivory Wars Google Earth layer has (amongst other things) blog entries and lots of stunning photography. Combined with their previous Google Earth content such as the African Megaflyover, National Geographic truly are at the forefront of making the best use of this emerging "geo-browser".

Thanks to Keene Haywood for alerting me to the story, Mike Fay and Michael Nichols, and all the rest of the National Geographic team who worked on this story. I'm pleased to help spread the word about your good work.

P.S. As I've mentioned in a previous blog post, you can take Google Earth way beyond the basic mouse and keyboard control with 3D-Connexion's fabulous "Space Navigator". I highly recommended this intuitive, addictive and very attractively priced device. It makes exploring special layers like Ivory Wars even easier.

Santa Claus was very nice to me this year and dropped the "3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator" 3D navigation device down my chimney. It makes flying around Google Earth an ABSOLUTE BREEZE and really helps to get the most out of the wonderful application that Google Earth is.

In the past week I've flown around my old hometown in England, my new hometown in the USA, along with more cities and famous landmarks than I care to mention. Mt. Everest, Mt. St. Helens, and the Grand Canyon were great places to explore. No more messing around with a regular mouse and CTRL, ALT and SHIFT keys. The Space Navigator is so much more instinctive and natural, and it's very attractively priced too. A fabulous device!

I've also been flying around the Last Chance To See locations which you'll find in our Another Chance To See KMZ file, and also the Jane Goodall Chimpanzee Google Earth blog which is a very clever use of Google Earth. The Space Navigator brings so much to the whole experience, and it's thoroughly addictive! The device is not just for Google Earth though. It also works with Google Sketchup, Autodesk products, and much more besides. I highly recommend it.