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A friend of mine alerted me to the latest developments in Google Earth with respect to Davao City. There are now 3-D renderings of some of the city’s more prominent buildings! Check out these images from Google Earth.

Image #01. The Marco Polo Hotel and the Ateneo de Davao University-College Campus — two of the most recognizable structures in the Davao vista. The 3 succeeding images display this pair in various points of view.

Image #02.

Image #03.

Image #04. Which building is that dark-hued structure at the lower right-hand side?

Image #05. Gaisano Mall of Davao. That reddish edifice to the right, where is that?

Can you guess the names of these other buildings?

Image #06.

Image #07.

Image #08. Two more very recognizable landmarks.

Image #09. The above buildings, seen from another angle.

Image #10. And then from a higher perspective.

Image #11. This deceptively looks like a Shangri-la kind of scenery, doesn’t it?

I just wish Google would update Davao’s satellite maps so that those sections covered by clouds would become visible. Plus, of course, there’ve been a lot more buildings that have been added to the landscape since the last satellite pass!

[Media Release]

Users can dive into the ocean, travel back in time and visit Mars in the newest version of Google Earth

Manila, Philippines (February 3, 2009) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Ocean in Google Earth, a new feature that enables users of Google Earth to dive beneath the water surface, explore 3D underwater terrain and browse ocean-related content contributed by leaders in ocean science and advocacy. The new version of Google Earth also introduces Historical Imagery, a feature that enables users to virtually travel back in time through archival satellite and aerial imagery, Touring, which makes it simple to create a narrated tour in Google Earth and share it with the world and Mars 3D, which features hi-res imagery and terrain of the red planet.

“With this latest version of Google Earth you can not only zoom into whatever part of our planet’s surface you wish to examine in closer detail, you can now dive into the world’s ocean that covers almost three-quarters of the planet and discover new wonders that had not been accessible in previous versions of this magical experience,” said The Honorable Al Gore at the launch event in San Francisco. “Moreover, with the new historical imagery feature, you can look back in time and see for yourself the unprecedented pace of change taking place on the Earth – largely because of human influences. For example, you can watch the melting of the largest glacier in Glacier National Park–the Grinnell Glacier–image by image, for the last decade.”

“In discussions about climate change, the world’s oceans are often overlooked despite being an integral part of the issue,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt. About one-third of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere ends up in the oceans. Furthermore, biodiversity loss in our oceans in the next 20-30 years will be roughly equivalent to losing an entire Amazon rainforest, but this goes unnoticed because we can’t see it. This is why today’s launch of Google Earth 5.0 is so important – it gives us an opportunity to change everyone’s perspective.”

Ocean in Google Earth combines underwater terrain and expert content to provide users with an opportunity to explore some of the most difficult-to-reach parts of the world. Now the Philippines’ very own underwater attractions come alive via videos, images, and informative articles in Google Ocean. Filipino users can not only see vivid images of Apo Reef, the world’s second largest contiguous coral reef and the largest in the Philippines, but can also witness the archipelago’s full biodiversity with exciting visuals of sea animals in action, like a paragliding crab or rare deepwater snail that lives on a dog skull. Users in foreign countries can experience the Philippines’ beauty first-hand through Google Ocean, for example by exploring famous dive spots like Siargao’s Cloud Nine and Boracay’s Bulabog Lagoon, seeing videos about the exotic marine life of the region, reading about nearby shipwrecks like the USS Gambier Bay, and contributing photos and videos of favorite surf spots.

The Ocean feature is on by default in the newest version of Google Earth. As users zoom in on the ocean they will see a dynamic water surface, and once they dive beneath the surface they can navigate 3D sea floor terrain. The feature includes 20 content layers, containing information contributed by the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers (see the full list of partners). These include:

• An “Explore the Ocean” layer containing photos and videos about ocean hot spots around the world contributed by over 80 individuals and organizations
• A National Geographic Magazine geo-quiz and overlays from their new Atlas of the Ocean
• Videos from the archives of Jacques Cousteau, featuring never-before-seen footage of historic ocean expeditions

“What this project helped me begin to understand,” said John Hanke, Director of Google Earth and Maps, “is the role the ocean plays in global climate change and the impact that humans are having on the oceans and the creatures that live in it. It was a serious omission on our part not to include a better treatment of the oceans when we launched Google Earth, and I’m very happy that we’ve been able to address that. We now have a good substrate for publishing and exploring data about the ‘other’ two-thirds of the planet.”

The new feature was developed in close collaboration with oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle and an advisory council of leading ocean advocates and scientists.

“I cannot imagine a more effective way to inspire awareness and caring for the blue heart of the planet than the new Ocean in Google Earth, ” said Sylvia Earle. “For the first time, everyone from curious kids to serious researchers can see the world, the whole world, with new eyes. In a stroke, Google Earth brings life and character to the blue part of the planet, and makes obvious the many ways land, water, atmosphere and living systems connect. Many ‘aha!‘ moments are sure to come as people discover new patterns, new correlations, and countless personal discoveries while vicariously diving into the waters of the world.”

The announcement was made this morning at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, one of the nation’s leading institutions for scientific education and research. Following the announcement, local fourth graders participated in an interactive lesson on marine ecosystems, designed specifically by Academy educators to use the new Ocean feature. “Information technology is key to the work that Academy scientists and educators do, and Google Earth is a leading example of such technology,” said Dr. Greg Farrington, Executive Director of the Academy. “Ocean in Google Earth opens up a new world of opportunities to explore and educate the public about the least understood parts of our planet.”

Also launched today:

Historical imagery: In previous versions of Google Earth, users could only view only one set of imagery for a given location. Now users can activate a time slider to see both new and older satellite imagery from around the globe, enabling them to observe a single location’s development over time.

Touring is a simple new way for users to create narrated tours of imagery and content in Google Earth. By simply pressing the “record” button, users can fly from place to place, zoom in or out and click on content balloons, providing voiceover narration along the way. Whether creating a tour of one’s family home or an in-depth study of environmental change, the tours are easy to create and even easier to share.

Mars 3D is the latest stop on Google’s virtual tour of the galaxy. Users can travel to Mars with the click of a button and see high resolution imagery and 3D terrain. They can fly to the top of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in our solar system, read geo-located excerpts about different locations on the planet from A Traveler’s Guide to Mars, observe where various Mars Rovers and Landers have touched down and much more.

GPS Tracking – Previously only available in the Plus and Pro versions of Google Earth, now all users can upload tracks from GPS devices to Google Earth, making it easy to visualize and record running, hiking and biking routes.

Google Earth 5.0 is now available in 40 languages (previously 26), including Filipino, as well as, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), Dutch, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Thai, Arabic, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Indonesian, Czech, Greek, Norwegian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Catalan, Latvian, Ukrainian, and Hindi.

Have you noticed the growing number of Filipino companies advertising on Facebook lately? This trend points to two things: 1) the population of Filipino users in Facebook has reached critical mass already; and, 2) businesses in the Philippines are finally grasping the reality behind ‘new media’ and the benefits of online advertising and marketing.

Facebook reports that the site now has upwards of 140 million active users, and that 70% of that is outside the U.S. (I would certainly love to find out the numbers from the Philippines!) And an even more significant demographic that will surely attract advertisers: the fastest growing segment of this population are 25 years old and older.

More statistics to whet an advertiser’s appetite:

• the average user has about 100 friends on Facebook
• worldwide, 2.6 billion minutes are spent on the site everyday
• more than 13 million users login at least once a day (and this probably doesn’t count access from mobile devices)
• 700 million+ photos are uploaded each month
• 15 million+ pieces of content are shared each month

What’s more, Facebook has made it tremendously accessible to publish ads on their site. There’s an easy-to-follow Web form that advertisers can use to create an ad, define its behavior (when to publish, duration and so forth), input the landing site address, and most significantly, set the desired target demographics.

This is something that’s not entirely possible — and is in fact quite hit-and-miss — with advertising on newspapers, TV or radio. On Facebook (and Google for that matter), advertisers can specify which age group, for instance, will be the target viewers of their ads with a certain degree of accuracy. Would you like only married women who are between 21 to 35 years old and are living in Metro Manila to see your ad? Consider it done.

As the number of ad placements from the Philippines rises on Facebook, Google properties, the vast number of Filipino blogs and other websites, conversely, advertising in traditional media seems to be experiencing a gradual decline. The pinch isn’t yet as painful as it is in the U.S. (as reported by TechCrunch as early as last year), but the downhill trend will start to become apparent here in the next couple of years.

As the venerable typewriter has largely been supplanted by the PC, so will the old forms of media become a thing of the past — maybe even during our lifetime. The age of electronic media is firmly upon us, and more people will soon be shifting to the Internet as their primary source of information.

The Symbian S60 on the Nokia N-Series mobile phones offers a wide range of applications that are Internet-enabled. Here are the apps that I currently have on my Nokia N82.

One of my favorites: Nimbuzz. Basically, it’s a chat program that consolidates your accounts on Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM/ICQ, and a few others into one interface. When you login to Nimbuzz on your mobile, you actually go online on all of the IMs that you specify in this app’s community settings. (Thanks to my buddy, Winston, for letting me know about Nimbuzz last year.)

Nimbuzz also lets you do voice via Skype; but I haven’t tried that yet, only the chatting part. It would really be cool if I could use Nimbuzz’s internet calling facility, and not get charged toll fees for international calls!

Another one that I find very useful and one that gives my mobile phone value-added goodness is Gmail for Mobile. Point your phone’s browser to m.google.com and click on the link for Gmail. On the next screen, you will find a link to “Faster Gmail” — this is the download link for the phone app.

What’s great about Gmail for Mobile is that it’s fast and navigates easily with keypad shortcuts. Reading and writing emails is as effortless as it can get on a mobile phone. Attachments are also handled pretty well by this mobile app. But you will have to have the right 3rd-party apps for accessing downloaded files (MS Word, .pdf files, etc).

Also, Gmail for Mobile now lets you add Google Apps email accounts. For example, I have a couple of email accounts powered by Gmail (thanks to Google Apps), and I’ve included those in my phone as well. So, when I access Gmail for Mobile, it’s easy to switch from my Gmail account to the other email accounts.

Nokia has Nokia Maps. But I’ve also installed Google Maps (which is also available for download from m.google.com). Just like with the regular PC-based application, you can add landmarks and other geo-info on the mobile version. Cool feature: it updates your position while you’re moving. Of course, that’ll only work for GPS-enabled cell phones.

The landmarks you embed via Google Maps are also utilized by Nokia Maps, by the way.

The web browser I use on the N82 is Opera Mini (currently at version 4.2). It’s much more intuitive than the S60 browser, supports tabbing, and has keypad shortcuts enabled. Now, if only I could remap the “0″ key to access Opera Mini instead of the default browser…

Compared to the old versions of the Mini, 4.2 now is much more powerful. Zooming is more seamless than before, and it’s much easier to navigate web pages than before. Also, the user interface looks much better now.

Facebook also has a mobile edition, but it’s really just a fancy bookmark — it simply makes use of the S60 browser engine. But it’s still a cool way of keeping your Facebook account up-to-date. Another online community that I access via mobile is Plurk. On your mobile browser, just go to http://www.plurk.com/m.

What about you? What Internet-capable mobile applications do you have on your phone?

After introducing an air ticket booking service that’s completely online and automated, Cebu Pacific has introduced new features into their Web-based reservation system. This is one thing that I’ve long been pining for ever since I started using this airline’s Web site: the facility to not only book tickets but reserve seats as well. And now they have it.

Booking for my flight to Manila in October, I noticed that the Web site’s interface had undergone slight changes — some layout changes and minor improvements in the user interface. Then I was pleasantly surprised when I was presented with the Seat Selector screen (screen capture below).

It’s pretty neat! But, it’s a premium service — meaning, it ain’t free. After choosing my preferred seats, I noticed an extra charge of P448 on my total airfare. Oh well. Anyway, reserving seats isn’t compulsory. But at least passengers now have a choice, especially people who are particular about seating, like me.

Another change that I’ve noticed is an option to prepay for excess baggage. I find it deplorable that Cebu Pacific lowered the baggage allowance to 15kg per passenger on domestic flights, and this new online service doesn’t really alleviate the pain. However, I do appreciate it that the airline has put in place this measure that makes it less of a hassle for passengers to check in.

CebuPacificAir.com also now has a way for passengers to donate to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines). To quote: “Your donation will be used to support the WWF-Philippines climate adaptation work in Mindoro. The amount is based on the estimated carbon dioxide emission versus the actual flight distance being purchased.”

Kudos to Cebu Pacific!