It was recently discovered that if you use Google Earth to view the Salford Lads Club in the UK you will find an image of the Mozster hanging out in front of the club, just like in this iconic photo of the Smiths from their The Queen Is Dead LP.

Now that’s what I call a dedicated Morrissey fan! I wonder who will have their image hacked into Google Earth next? My prediction- Elvis at Graceland.

Link

Even driving down the highway can be a virtual experience! With this Google Earth application, just enter your location and destination, hit “go” to find your route, then go to the simulator panel and hit “start.” You can adjust your speed as you drive along. Now, slow down and enjoy the scenery! Requires the Google Earth plug-in. The screenshot shown here is where I’m either getting on the Brooklyn Bridge or plunging into the East River. Link -via Metafilter

The above image is from San Francisco. Artist Clement Valla discovered that if you zoom and direct Google Earth just right, you’ll end up with some really weird and distorted images. It’s like Salvador Dali spend time working as a civil engineer:

The images are screenshots from Google Earth with basic color adjustments and cropping. I am collecting these new typologies as a means of conservation – as Google Earth improves its 3D models, its terrain, and its satellite imagery, these strange, surrealist depictions of our built environment and its relation to the natural landscape will disappear in favor of better illusionistic imagery. However, I think these strange mappings of the 2-dimensional and the 3-dimensional provide us with fabulous forms that are purely the result of algorithmic processes and not of human aesthetic decision making. They are artifacts worth preserving.

Link via Nerdcore

Weather has been available on Google Earth for several years, but the latest version has the capacity to show real-time weather information.

To see it, you must first enable the clouds layer, and then zoom in to a location where it’s raining or snowing. Google Earth displays rain and snow only in certain parts of North America and Europe; to see where exactly the new feature is available, enable the radar layer.

Henceforth it will no longer be necessary to get up from one’s desk and go to the window to see whether it’s raining.

Link and image credit.

Marc Ward, a spokesman for the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office, said Barnes discovered the abandoned 18-foot 1986 Four Winns 190 Horizon on Feb. 23. The vehicle identification number and registration had been removed, so the deputy took his investigation online.

"He used Google Earth to look around the surrounding area," Ward said. "He was looking for anyone who had that boat at the time the satellite image was taken." [...]

Barnes saw the fuzzy image of the boat at [Dwight] Foster’s home. The undeveloped subdivision is nearby.

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When we last left the Google Street View Guys, the pair had the simple task of photographing every address on every road on earth. Their new assignment is for Google Earth: to photograph everything on earth from every angle and every altitude. Animation by Dan Meth. Content warning: NSFW language.

Wanna-be pilots have Flight Simulator, Microsoft’s iconic computer game, but what about those who want to steer a cargo ship? Enter PlanetInAction’s "Ships", an online simulation that uses Google Earth to let you get in touch with your inner helmsman and steer your own fleet of ships from barges to the cruise ship Queen Mary 2.

Link | YouTube Clip – via Kris Abel’s Tech Life

Dutch conceptual artist Helmut Smits (blogged before on Neatorama here) came up with this idea: a "Dead Pixel" in Google Earth that is actually 82 cm x 82 cm (~ 2¾ sq. ft.) square of scorched earth – the size of a pixel from the altitude of 1 km!

Link – via mikolka

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by mikolka.

Has Google Ocean finally found the missing city of Atlantis? A curious rectangular pattern 100 miles wide was spotted off the coast of Spain, in 17,800 ft deep water:

Situated in an area called the Madeira Abyssal Plane, the grid was spotted by aeronautical engineer Bernie Bamford as he browsed through Google Ocean.

Bernie, 38, of Chester, said: “It looks like an aerial map of Milton Keynes. It must be man-made.”

Link – via Cliff Pickover’s Reality Carnival

While using Google Earth, Swiss police discovered that not all green masses on their screen are trees and jungles. In fact, they discovered a huge  marijuana plantation hidden inside a corn field!

I don't know what I'm more suprised with: the weed farm or the police using rudimentary software available to any internet user to crack the case.

Officers discovered the hemp field in the northeastern canton (state) of Thurgau last year while investigating an alleged drug ring, said the head of Zurich police's specialist narcotics unit Norbert Klossner.

The plantation, measuring almost two acres (7,500 square meters), was hidden inside a field of corn. But officers using Google Earth to locate the address of two farmers suspected of involvement in the drug operation quickly spotted the illegal crop.

"It was an interesting chance discovery," said Klossner.

Link

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by sisyphus33.

Google just launched a Google Earth feature that lets you view select paintings from The Prado Museum in astonishing details:

The Prado Museum has become the first art gallery in the world to provide access to and navigation of its collection in Google Earth. Using Google Earth, art historians, students and tourists everywhere can zoom in on and explore the finer details of the artist’s brushwork that can be easily missed at first glance.

The paintings have been photographed in very high resolution and contain as many as 14,000 million pixels (14 gigapixels). With this high level resolution you are able to see fine details such as the tiny bee on a flower in The Three Graces (Las Tres Gracias), delicate tears on the faces of the figures in The Descent from the Cross (El Descendimiento) and complex figures in The Garden of Earthly Delights (El Jardin de las Delicias)

Link (with a pretty nifty embedded YouTube clip for those of us who don’t have Google Earth installed) – via The Lede Blog