Show Your Vote for COP 15

One of the benefits working at Google is the ability to spend 20% of your time on projects you are passionate about. Recently I was lucky enough to attend the Australian Conservation Foundation's Climate Project Summit where I met Al Gore and was trained as a Climate Project Presenter. I developed in my 20% time an open source platform called Show Your Vote to allow people around the world to tell the world's leaders to seal a fair and effective climate deal.

Some major environmental campaigns (including Earth Hour) as well as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are now using Show Your Vote to help visualize the world's public support of the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit, the COP15.

You can see all the ways in which you can participate in the COP15 from wherever you are in the world on their "Virtual participation in COP15" page.

Visiting with the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany to present Show Your Vote

One of the big challenges around activating people on the issue of climate change is that there are a myriad of campaigns, big ones, small local ones, all over the world. I really wanted to address this issue, to provide a single platform that all campaigns and websites can use to collectively show the vote. So I developed a "web element" similar in function to Google's Web Elements, which anyone can insert to allow people to vote, show the vote and provide educational tools on their own website by simply filling out the publisher form, and copying and pasting a single line of HTML code.

Google App Engine provides the hosting solution that makes this all possible.

Show Your Vote has three tabs: Vote, Explore, and Learn. The Vote tab allows individuals and organisations to show their vote.



The Explore tab displays individual votes aggregated by post code, and organisations by their own custom icons. The voting map is powered by Google Maps API. Additionally, social networking tools powered by Google Friend Connect allow people within the global community to share their messages of support. Individual votes are aggregated into post codes, and organisations can upload their own icon to the map.



Finally, the Learn tab contains rich educational pieces, narrated by some of the top names in science, NGOs and the political world. These tours were created by the Google Earth Outreach team using Google Earth's new touring capabilities.



In the countdown to the Copenhagen Climate Conference, I'm hopeful that we can collect enough of the world's public show of support to help amplify the need to change climate change, to drive collective action and to reinforce the need for our world leaders to act now. Please join me in helping to show the vote!

I'd like to thank fellow Googlers Pamela Fox, Bob Aman, Rupert Breheny and Benjamin Kott for volunteering their time in helping to make Show Your Vote possible.

Posted by Justin Baird, Innovationist, Google Australia

The Great Barrier Reef stars in Ocean in Google Earth

Ocean in Google Earth? Wait ... didn't Google Earth always have an ocean? Technically yes, we have always had a big blue expanse and some shading to suggest depth. But starting today, with the launch of Google Earth 5.0, you can drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the sea floor in 3D. While you're there you can view videos and images of ocean life, read about good surf spots, track ocean expeditions and much more.


The new 'Explore the Ocean' layer contains information on 11 'hotspots' around the world, including Galapagos, the Hawaiian Islands, the Antarctic and our very own Great Barrier Reef. The information on the Great Barrier Reef was developed with the help of our friends at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS).


Professor David Bellwood of CoECRS and James Cook University shared his thoughts with us on the importance of the drawing attention to the world's ocean.

"The oceans are out of sight, and out of mind. Only fishermen, scientists, tourism operators and the like really see what is happening, day to day. Our hope is that, through the medium of the internet, millions of people – young people especially – will now be able to develop a better feel for what is happening to our oceans, and maybe will be inspired to visit them and see for themselves. The Great Barrier Reef attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world every year. Thanks to Google Earth it will now receive millions more virtual visitors – many of whom will hopefully decide it is well worth a real visit."

Back in October we worked with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to provide map data and updated satellite imagery of the islands, reefs, cays and rocks of the park and make them available in Google Maps. Their chairman and chief executive Russell Reichelt sees this new development as hugely valuable in helping them continue to educate the public about this remarkable place, presenting its natural wonders to everyone from school children to scientists.

But Ocean in Google Earth is not all we've launched today.

Until today, we were only able to offer one snapshot of a given place in Google Earth. With the new Historical Imagery feature, you can now move back and forth through years of satellite and aerial imagery, experiencing the development of a place over time. We've also added a Touring feature, making it simple to create a narrated tour just by clicking the record button and flying to your first destination

And last but not least, 3D Mars is the latest stop in our virtual tour of the galaxies. By clicking a button in Google Earth you can see high-resolution imagery, 3D terrain of the red planet's surface and more.


For those of you who keep track of version numbers, this is Google Earth 5.0. Why did we skip from 4.3 to 5.0? Because this update literally brings new depth and dimension to Google Earth, and we thought that was a pretty big deal.

Members of the Google Earth team will be publishing in-depth posts about all of the new features in Google Earth 5.0 on the Lat Long blog all week, so be sure to check back there often.



Posted by Raul Vera, Head of Geo Products, Google Australia

Welcome to 2008 from Google Australia

Posted by Julian Persaud, Head of Business Development

Happy new year!

As our regular blog readers will know, 2007 was an amazing year for all of us at Google Australia, with a huge raft of new products, features and local initiatives, from the launch of Google Maps Australia, to the Doodle4Google initiative, to the first ever Google election site, to the announcement of agreements with major Australian businesses such as Fairfax Digital and News Digital Media.

Already in 2008, we've been busy with a number of announcements. For those of you watching at home:

• We launched a new version of Sky in Google Earth which has many great new features. (You may recall that Sky uses images from the Anglo-Australian Observatory).

• As increasing numbers of small Australian businesses, from local cafes to cosmetic dentists, are using Google AdWords, we’re thrilled to reach an agreement under which ReachLocal will become an AdWords reseller in Australia. This will help Australian SMEs participate in the digital economy.

• Australian advertisers can now take advantage of the expanded Conversion Optimiser feature in AdWords. (Available to customers whose campaigns have enabled AdWords Conversion Tracking and accrued at least 200 conversions in the past 30 days).

Stay tuned to this blog - and all the other official Google blogs on the right hand side of this page - for lots more Google news in 2008.

Build Your Campus Competition

Posted by Will Blott, University Programs Manager

The Build Your Campus in 3D Competition has launched in Australia and New Zealand! If you're a college or university student in either country, this is your opportunity to show off your university. All you have to do is model your campus buildings in Google SketchUp, geo-reference them in Google Earth, and submit them through the SketchUp competition website. The winning teams will earn eternal online glory and an all-expenses-paid visit to our office in Sydney.

To enter the competition, you must be a college or university student in Australia or New Zealand, and you must be at least 18 years old. You can take on the project yourself or enlist the help of your classmates, and to do your best possible work, we suggest that you have a faculty advisor. The deadline for entries is October 31st, 2007.

We've recruited a really great panel of judges to help us determine the winners, including Andrew Carter of Utile Design, Karl May of Turner & Associates, and Andrew Maynard of Andrew Maynard Architects. Visit the competition website to learn more about best practices, see example models, and peruse a whole pile of Frequently Asked Questions.

You might not know that a similar Sketchup Competition just ended in the U.S. and Canada; you can read all about it. Check out the winning models, and get ready for some friendly, cross-Pacific rivalry.

We can't wait to see what you create. Good luck and happy sketching!