Google’s free online mapping service is bringing the world into better focus with an updated version of Earth that takes advantage of photos from a US Landsat 8 satellite.
The Internet giant introduced a “cloud-free mosaic” of this planet three years ago at Google Earth, and on Monday began rolling out a new version that uses new techniques to process sharper images gathered by the satellite sent into orbit in 2013, as part of a collaboration between NASA and the US Geological Survey.
Google Earth previously relied on images from a Landsat 7 satellite, which encountered a hardware problem that resulted in large diagonal gaps in pictures, program manager Chris Herwig said.
“Landsat 8 captures images with greater detail, truer colors and at an unprecedented frequency,” Herwig said in a blog post.
Google Earth creates images of the surface of the planet by analyzing millions of images and stitching together the clearest bits, Herwig added.
Google Earth is part of free online mapping services offered by Google’s parent company, California-based Alphabet Inc.
Landsat has observed the Earth from space since 1972, gathering a wealth of information on the changes to the Earth’s surface.
Separately, the EU is bolstering its original antitrust investigation into Google’s search engine as regulators asked the company’s critics to declassify details of meetings and e-mail exchanges related to the probe, according to people familiar with the case.
That is typically a final step before the EU files an antitrust complaint, meaning Google could have to defend itself against a supplementary statement of objections over its shopping-search service.
The EU has expanded its investigations into Google’s business practices since Margrethe Vestager took over as the bloc’s antitrust chief in late 2014. It has opened probes into Google’s Android mobile operating system, filing a formal complaint in April, and people familiar with the inquiry into advertising services on Monday said that the regulator is taking steps toward a statement of objections in that matter, too.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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