Google Ocean rumoured for launch in San Francisco next week

Google Earth and Google Sky have already proved to be powerful classroom resources and now Google Ocean could be on its way? According to cnet news Google put together a group of oceanographers over a year a go where they, ‘discussed plans for creating a 3D oceanographic map’.

Obviously these are just rumours but on February 2^nd 2009 Google is hosting an event at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's newly rebuilt aquarium and natural history museum. They have also secured a number of impressive key note speakers including Al Gore and Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. One of the other speakers will be the National Geographic Societies oceanographer Sylvia Earle.

The inclusion of Sylvia Earle in the speaker line up and the fact that the event is being hosted at an aquarium has once again got the rumour mills suggesting that the 2^nd February could be the Google Ocean announcement that many Google fans have been waiting for.

Apparently, an invitation to the event in San Francisco described it only as an announcement of "the next big step in the evolution of Google Earth." – my invite must have got lost in the post?

PC Pro Magazine also provides some more information on what Google Ocean might be like:

 ‘[Google Ocean] is expected to provide underwater topography, with a layer showing the depth of the sea floor. It will allow users to search for particular points of interest, such as famous shipwrecks. Google Ocean is also expected to include underwater photography, although experts have stated that it would take hundreds of years of ship time to photograph the entire ocean bed at high resolution.’

If the rumours are true and Google Ocean is launched next week it could provide another excellent resource for classroom teachers. In particular, it will add an extra dimension to the study of place for geography teachers. I’m sure it will also be incredibly useful when teaching oceanic circulation in the Scottish higher geography course!

My eyes will be fixed on the Google Lat / Long Blog next week for any announcements.

Comments

[guineapigmum]

I like the sound of this but it looks like my invite got lost as well.