Do you know if Google Earth is due to be updated any time soon?

Question

I'm looking at my old town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, and it looks really blurry and dated compared to surrounding towns that have more detail, cannot make out roads I know are there or anything!

Also, the town I live in Bedfordshire now has an old car and skip outside my friends house that was there about 5 years ago! I love Google Earth, I find it fascinating, just wondered if anyone worked at Google HQ that would know these things...!

Answer 1

Satellite images are updated on a rolling basis. Typically, areas with higher population densities are more likely to be updated frequently with high-resolution images. There is no way to tell when an area will be updated next.

Answer 2

Google Earth is being updated constantly. The reason that some places aren't completely mapped yet is to do with the fact that not enough people live there to make it worth their while yet. If you check out some of the world's major population centers (New York is a good example) you will see that people=detail. Eventually the whole world will be mapped in this detail (thats the plan anyways) but they're concentrating first on where the bulk of people are. It seems fair really - population = visitors = advertising revenue (how do you think they manage to do all this for free after all?...).

I live in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall - I assure you that the photo quality for where I am is equally as poor.

If you want to improve Google Earth, get yourself trained in aerial photography - I'm sure they'll be happy to take your contributions.

Rawlyn.

Answer 3

Yes. Only recently the people of Liverpool complained that the imagery of their city was drastically out of date and did not reflect any of the development taking place for the Capital of Culture in 2008. Google Earth are now in the process of updating the imagery of this area.