Welcome to Plymouth with Google Maps

Plymouth 3D

Google Maps is such a great tool for promoting towns and cities I'm surprised there aren't more sites like 3D Plymouth. 3D Plymouth is a Google Maps based guide to the picturesque town of Plymouth, Michigan.

Plymouth 3D uses the Google Earth browser plug-in to allow you to explore the town in glorious 3D. If you don't like the 3D option you can select Google Maps to view all the information with a normal map view.

And what a lot of information there is.

Plymouth 3D can show you the location of any store in the town. If you need a hair cut, select 'Barber' and you can view the location of all the town's barbers, or maybe you fancy an icecream, if so just select 'Candies & Ice Cream'. There is in fact over 40 categories of store to choose from.

If you have finished your shopping then Plymouth 3D can even help you find some entertainment. The 'Locate Events' section can show you the location of upcoming entertainment and sporting events in the town.

There are also options to view the weather, local traffic, road closures, schools, Street View and local property for sale. There are so many options with this map that I'm sure I've even missed a few.

New Google Earth Imagery - July 4

It's been a few weeks since the last update, and now Google has just started pushing out their latest imagery update. Thanks to GEB reader 'Alsay' for being the first to let us know about it!

As is often the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn't in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what's new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they're not identical, that means that you've found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!

[UPDATED -- 4-July, 11:52am EST]

• Brazil: Parts of Sao Luis -- thanks 'Anthony' and 'Florent'
• Bulgaria: Near Hamanli and Stara Zagora -- thanks 'JI'
• Hungary: Various areas -- thanks 'hhgygy'
• Iceland: Reykjavík -- thanks 'AKB' and 'Noel'
• India: Various areas -- thanks 'hhgygy'
• Indonesia: Depok -- thanks 'krz9000'
• Kazakhstan: Three Gorges Dam and Pavlodar -- thanks 'Drone'
• Netherlands: Amsterdam, Almere, Hengelo, Rijssen, Holton -- thanks 'Stefan'
• Saudi Arabia: Jeddah and Makkah -- thanks 'Alsay'
• Thailand: Southern areas -- thanks 'Dominus'
• United States: Parts of Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Washington -- thanks 'Andreas', 'ChrisK', 'cristi', 'JI', 'Jun' and 'Meryl'
• Vietnam: Danang -- thanks 'Stvn'

If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!

Secure Zone Location Sharing

SpotWalla

SpotWalla is a location sharing service with some excellent privacy settings to ensure that you only share your personal data with those that you have given permission.

SpotWalla users can share their location information via trips and / or location pages. Tracks of your trips can be shared on their own Google Map and can be embedded on your own website or blog. Location pages allow multiple users to share their last known location on a single Google Map. 

The SpotWalla home page features links to the most popular tracks created with the service. You can also choose to view the most recent and the most active tracks.

With SpotWalla you can define secure zones in which your location will never be displayed. You can set-up secure zones for your home, your place of work or any other location. Once you have defined a secure zone your location will not be shared when you enter those areas.

Celebrate the 4th with fireworks, BBQs, and new imagery

We’re happy to announce our latest imagery update, and with America’s 234th birthday today, it’s fitting that we’ve got some great updates for over a dozen cities in the US. Maybe I just have summer travel on the brain, but much of what caught my eye relates to transportation. From left to right, enjoy an airshow in Everett, WA north of Seattle, the battleship New Jersey docked in Camden, NJ near Philadephia, and the Goodyear Blimp off the coast of Miami:

There’s also beautiful imagery of some of the places your family might be interested in visiting, such as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the Epcot Center in Orlando, or a tailgate before a baseball game in Philadelphia:

You’ll also find updates in several countries around the globe. One that we found notable is the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China:

This imagery is now live in Google Earth and will be available in Google Maps shortly. Of course, if you’re looking at it in Google Earth, don’t forget to use the Historical Imagery feature to compare the newest imagery to what we had before.

Whether today is just another Sunday for you, or you'll be taking in fireworks to celebrate your country’s national holiday, have a happy Fourth of July!