January 24, 2006

Magnify to coolness level 4

Google Local has made another upgrade. In addition to adding new high-resolution imagery (such as the parts of Sydney, Australia that are actually interesting, they've bumped up the zoom resolution in some areas by a couple of levels. This means that we can now make out details like the lines on the roads, make and model of vehicles, and sometimes even individual people.

Interestingly, I don't think that the new images are actually newer. One of my favourite Google Maps shibboleths is Las Vegas, because of the interesting architecture along the Strip. Despite new high-resolution footage, for example, the Vegas images still show the Wynn Las Vegas, which opened last April, as a huge pile of sand In addition, I think at least some of the new hi-res stuff is really just resampled from the extant zoom levels, as it's pretty blurry at times.

Still - it's a lot of fun to zoom in on some of those details you couldn't quite make out before.

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