Fridaygram: Google Maps Views, preventing blackouts, astronomical photos
By +Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog
Editor
This week we launched Google Maps
Views, a site where you can see and
share
photo
spheres of your favorite places. You can enjoy photo spheres of beautiful and
amazing locations, such as the
Northwest
Territories, Canada and
Masvingo,
Zimbabwe.
Photo Spheres displayed on the Views site include a handy “View on Google Maps” link, which
enables you to see the photo sphere’s location displayed on a large map. And because Views is
a community site, we encourage you to
contribute your own photo
spheres, which you can create using an
Android phone or DSLR
camera.
Our phones and cameras run on batteries, but it’s hard to get by without electric power in the
wall. Power system engineers have studied the massive
U.S. power blackout of
2003 and are working to prevent similar failures from happening again. Their primary
tool is using
phasor
measurement units to monitor the interconnected power grid. These devices give early
warning when something isn’t right, such as when a generating plant starts to fail. This gives
operators time to take action before cascading problems can cause catastrophic failures, as in
2003. So your local power might be out, but at least it won’t knock out the lights for the
next 10 cities down the road.
Finally, if you want to contemplate what’s beyond the bounds of Earth, take a look at some of
the
amazing
photos submitted in the 2013 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. If you
really love astronomy photos, you can see
all 13,000 photos sent in since
2008. That should give you something to look at while you take a break from coding
this weekend.
We’ll share anything nerdy here on Fridaygram.
For example, if astronomy photos aren’t your thing, visit these simple
animated GIFs that show how machines work. You might get inspired to build something
of your own!
