Google Earth

For some strange reason they haven't included Hamilton city in their recent update.

Well, at least they have the city with the 4th biggest Kiwi population.....London ;) (and then Hamilton is #5)

I've definitely been on Google Earth a bit more now that they've got Chch and Welly updated. Haven't looked at Yuckland yet (oops, I meant Auckland. :D)

anyone tried zoomin.co.nz
I use it all the time, surfing for suburbs I never heard of til reading classifieds for houses.
They have satellite images to a fairly high zoom. You can see houses but not actualy items in gardens or anything. Sorry if this is linked elsewhere, I haven't checked. Perhaps MB will add it if she likes it:-)

I posted the link a while ago and it appears on the Master Website, but I don't think I got as far as using it for images. Will have to take a peek again when I've got a minute.

Watch out, Google's about!

Google Earth snaps topless sunbathers
27 September 2006
By STEPHEN HUTCHEON
Sydney Morning Herald

Spotters poring over satellite images housed on the popular Google Earth service have spied what appears to be two topless sunbathers in the Dutch city of The Hague soaking up the rays.

The pair - one apparently a woman and the other seemingly a man - are sunning themselves on rooftops that are about 1.3km apart.The woman appears to be lying face down on a rooftop terrace in a residential area not far from the Dutch Parliament. The man seems to be clad in shorts and can be seen sitting on the roof of a house opposite a canal or river.

Vigilant spotters note that given the lack traffic on the roads, the absence of people on nearby streets and beaches and the angle of shadows, the image was mostly likely taken in the early morning. The leafless trees nearby also suggests that it's springtime.

The sunbathing woman was first reported on the Google Earth Community forums and then picked up by an independent blog called Google Sightseeing, which collects aerial views of land formations and human activity found on the satellite imagery used on Google Earth and the related Google Maps service.

The man was spotted by a Dutch-based blog called Leursism. The author, having loaded up Google Earth for the first time, did what most first-timers do: he searched for his home. Then he zeroed in on his favourite pub nearby and accidentally came across the figure of a person sunbaking on a roof. Or is it a person? One of the commenters on Leursism notes that the proportions of the body compared with the area of the roof seemed to suggest otherwise.

"If the area of the rooftop is 20'x18' (6?5.4 m), the distance between the apparent toes and head looks to be around 9' (2.75m). The person appears to be sitting down (i.e. they’re not even “fully extended”) If they were lying flat on the roof, this person would be over 9' (2.75m) tall!"

The launch of the free Google Earth service in mid-2005 spawned a cottage industry of spotters who now trawl the satellite images looking for oddities. These have included "hovering cars" in Perth, a strange man-made land formation in outback China and a parked Stealth bomber in the deserts of California.

With higher quality satellite imagery being added to the Google Earth data bank, it is now possible to clearly see people going about their daily lives. But these two cases are the first reported instances of this type of partial nudity.(High resolution images of Las Vegas released earlier this year clearly showed swimsuit-clad guests in and around hotel pools.)

A Dutch television station, RTL Nieuws followed up the report of the sunbathing woman and dispatched a reporter to track her down. The reporter found what he said was the sunbather's apartment, but as no one was home at the time he slipped a note and copies of the satellite images under her door.

Ralph Bendrath, a German privacy researcher, has expressed his concerns about this new form of privacy invasion.

"You can not tell the face (yet), but if you know which address it is, it can be easy to find out who this is," he wrote in his blog. "This is not just about the picture itself ... but about the information it contains: there is a topless person on this specific rooftop - welcome peeping toms!"

Satellite images housed on Google Earth and Goolge Maps are usually not much more than two years old and sometimes more recent - especially in more populated areas in the western hemisphere.

Both services are free although Google Earth requires users to download the Google software.

Google Earth has spread its coverage of NZ to include more places. 8-)

[MotherBear]

NZ's 100% Pure and Google Earth in world first
4:05PM Thursday April 12, 2007
By Owen Hembry

Tourism New Zealand's 100% Pure campaign has gone interstellar - or perhaps that's internetstellar - with a world first partnership with Google Earth.

The state-funded international tourism marketing body has provided data for a "layer" of information on visitor centres, points of interest and scenic highlights on Google Earth's photographic satellite map of the planet.

Links through to Tourism New Zealand's official consumer website can then provide greater information, including activities and accommodation.

Other "layers" for Google Earth had been developed including National Geographic and the United Nations Environmental Program but the latest addition was the first to be developed in partnership with a tourism authority.

Google's Craig Nevill-Manning, who unveiled the new overlay, said other countries were likely to follow the lead of Tourism New Zealand - who did not have to pay for the global exposure.

More here

[KiwiHopeful]

In your left-hand frames, go to Layers and open 'Travel and Tourism.' Then check '100% Pure New Zealand.' It's that simple!

More Info Here

You can also find a file here the purports to show the LoTR movie locations. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but will this weekend.