If Google's corporate mission is to organize all the information in the universe, then apparently the task for Google Earth is to map and tag the universe itself. All of it. In the recent past, Google engineers have gone beyond mere, ordinary continents and mapped both outer space and the planet's oceans. Until this month, though, the default installation of Google Earth mostly had you zooming aimlessly around the seas. While this setup was fun and occasionally led to some comedy, at the beginning Google Ocean just didn't have the layers and layers of information that are attached to landmasses.

Google spent the last year working to change all that, and today we now have hundreds of informational placemarks spread across 20 layers. There's also a specific Ocean layer, created in large part with the help of Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue Foundation, that alone has hundreds of posts. As of this month that layer has reached critical mass, and from now on will be included by default in Google Earth. ]]> Omri 2010-04-23T16:04:41-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/2/23/92213/4402

Dream on: After a U.K. tabloid boasted it found the mythical lost city of Atlantis on the souped-up Google Ocean, the non-evil giant was forced to issue a statement declaring that the city is, in fact, not real.

According to Plato, the island kingdom of Atlantis was a major naval power before sinking overnight. According to aeronautical engineer Bernie Bamford, the ruins of Atlantis are located at 31 15'15.53N, 24 15'30.53W in Google Ocean -- unless it's some nefarious plan of the supposedly non-evil corporation to drive conspiracy theorists crazy.

Google counters that the strange patterns Bamford spotted are just a by-product of their scanning system, like the shots of nudists or porn-store-visitors captured by their roving cameras. But hey, that's no fun! Who wants to believe that?

Related Stories:
· Google dismisses "Atlantis" find [BBC News]
· Has Google Ocean Found the Missing City of Atlantis? [Jaunted]]]> egw 2009-02-23T10:20:58-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/2/20/73543/5541

According to a British aeronautical engineer, Google Ocean, an extension of Google Earth, has found what many humans could not: the lost city of Atlantis. A near-perfect rectangular grid has shown up about 620 miles off the coast of northwest Africa, near the Canary Islands and it looks like it's on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

For real Google Ocean nerds who want to look for themselves the coordinates are: 31 15'15.53N 24 15'30.53W.]]> juliana 2009-02-20T08:41:07-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/