Google snaps up Spanish photo start-up

GOOGLE is turning the acquisition of “interesting” technology into an art form. The company’s voracious appetite for new ideas has this time led it to Spain, where it bough photo-sharing site Panoramio.

The Google way isn’t always about acquiring technology it finds interesting itself. Often its about buying the technology that one of your competitors might find interesting.

In fact, engineers already joke that the most resume for applying for a job at Google (with a nice sign-on bonus) is to create something that might be valuable to a competitor.

But in the case of Panoramio, Google is already integrating its technology into its online maps.

The Spain-based Panoramio’s photo-sharing system let’s photographer “geo-locate” their pictures, linking them to the points on Google Earth where the pictures were taken.

“Panoramio is a community photos website that enables digital photographers to geo-locate, store and organize their photographs – and to view those photographs in Google Earth,” Google director of Maps, Earth and Local, John Hanke, said on the company blog.

“We've been working with Panoramio for some time – its photos have been a default layer in Google Earth since the beginning of the year,” Mr Hanke said.

“This layer will remain in place as our teams work together toward further integrating this amazing content, generated by many, into our mapping technologies.”

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Google maps crisis in Sudan

GOOGLE has joined an unusual collaboration with the Holocaust Memorial Museum in the US to turn the focus of its Google Earth mapping service onto the unfolding crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The company says the collaboration would give internet uses access to tools to visualise and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur.

The Holocaust Museum has assembled photographs, data and eyewitness testimony that has been brought together in Google Earth. The information would appear as a Global Awareness layer in Google Earth, the company said.

The ‘Crisis in Darfur’ project is part of the Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative that will over time include information on potential genocides allowing citizens, governments and institutions to access information on atrocities in their nascent stages and respond.

“Educating today’s generation about the atrocities of the past and present can be enhanced by technologies such as Google Earth,” Museum director Sara Bloomfield said.

“When it comes to responding to genocide, the world’s record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most.”

Google said its part in the project was based on the company’s belief that “technology can be a catalyst for education and action.”

“Crisis in Darfur will enable Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur as never before,” Google Earth vice-president Elliot Schrage said.

‘Crisis in Darfur’ content comes from a range of sources – the US State Department, non-governmental organizations, the United Nations, individual photographers, and the Museum. Google Earth lets users zoom into the region to view more than 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages, providing visual, compelling evidence of the scope of destruction.

With this release, the Museum also announced the creation of a similar mapping project on Holocaust history available on the Museum’s website.

To find ‘Crisis in Darfur’, users must download the Google Earth application at no cost from the Google site. Once downloaded, users will find Crisis in Darfur by flying over Africa. Information on the Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative and the Holocaust mapping layer can be accessed from the Museum's Web site at www.ushmm.org/googleearth.

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