Google Earth plans to bring even more than Earth and Sky


It was only a matter of time until the Mountain View-based company started looking for new worlds to explore so, after reaching the earth and the sky, Google
gets ready for the ocean. Elinor Mills of CNET reports that Google may be interested in developing a 3D version of the ocean which would be integrated into Google's downloadable tool, Google Earth.

A few weeks ago, Google rolled out Google Earth 4.3 beta, a brand new version of the application which incorporates many new functions such as Street View. Moreover, the Sky support was implemented a long time ago so the Ocean would be an obvious addition.

According to the same source mentioned above, Google refused to comment the speculations, saying that the Mountain View-based company has "nothing to announce right now." However, Elinor Mills writes that Google "has assembled an advisory group of oceanography experts, and in December invited researchers from institutions around the world to the Mountain View, Calif., Googleplex." Moreover, "they discussed plans for creating a 3D oceanographic map, according to sources familiar with the matter."

Obviously, such an improvement would be an amazing update and an extremely useful function for oceanographers because it would help them explore the underwater world. In fact, it's already known the fact that Google Earth is currently being used by numerous scientists out there for all kinds of purposes including monitoring volcano activity in different regions of the world.

"There is no real terrain or depth model for the ocean in Google Earth. You can't get in a submarine and in essence fly through the water and explore ocean canyons yet," Tim Haverland, a geospatial application developer at the Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told CNET

A controller developed at Carnegie Mellon University allows computer users to manipulate three-dimensional images and explore virtual environments not only through sight and sound, but by using their sense of touch.
The device, expected to be used mainly for research, training and industrial purposes, comes close to the sensitivity of the human hand.
Using magnetic fields, the socalled haptic device replicates the response a hand might have to textures and gravitational forces, the devices convey the sense of touch.
The controller — like a joystick topped with a block that can be grasped — has just one moving part and rests in a bowl-like structure connected to a computer. Two of the controllers can be used simultaneously to pick up and move virtual objects on a monitor.
Researchers had built 10 of the devices, six of which were to be sent to other universities across US and in Canada, and that a new company, Butterfly Haptics, would begin marketing the device in June or July.
The controller, which will cost “much less” than $50,000, could enable a would-be surgeon to operate on a virtual human organ and sense the texture of tissue or give a designer the feeling of fitting a part into a virtual jet engine.
The interface might also convey the feeling of wind under the wings of unmanned military planes.