Posted on 06/12/2006 8:52:28 PM PDT by mastercylinder
Photos of IDF bases and top secret IAF facilities have recently become available to the public courtesy of Google’s satellite imagery service, Google Earth .
Google Earth, launched a year ago, initially featured low-resolution photos of Israel. Lately, however, the company improved the resolution of those satellite images, and last Friday they succeeded in matching the images’ standards to those of all other Google photos.
This allows users to see detailed aerial photos of IAF bases and the top-secret power station located near the southern city of Ashkelon.
The current resolution is two meters per pixel and it allows for a detailed view of the ground.
Israeli internet users demanded better resolution
For security reasons and in accordance with an agreement Israeli has with US-based companies that provide satellite imagery, images of Israel with resolution higher than 2 meters per pixel are barred from sale.
In addition, in 1996 Congress approved a law stating that US commercial companies must apply for a special permit before selling such high-resolution images of Israel.
In other words, if up until now Google had treated Israel differently, now it is treated with the same standards Google applies to other countries. However, Google does not feature images of the nuclear facility in the Negev desert.
Immediately following the launch of Google Earth last year, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other world leaders complained that this service was a risk to their nations’ security.
Nevertheless, in the past several months, Israeli internet users demanded that Google improve the resolution of the Israeli images.
I was trying to find Z-Man's safe house with Google Earth last night and couldn't.
Palestinians?
Me, too. Resolution's terrible.
Isn't one of the Google founders of Arabic descent?
Do they ever update their images? I was checking out Chicago on their and the view of Soldier Field was when it was being rebuilt.
I live in Cebu in the Philippines and they've recently updated the image for Cebu City, were in the past it was cloud covered, now it's sunny with decent resolution.
I wonder if Google would go so far as to place false images of secure areas into their map collection.
how are the area 51 images?
I'm surprised. Baghdad and my old base show up clear as a bell. I can tell which building I slept in.
Hmmmm you think the founders of Google know who they are messing with??? Maybe they should do a search
The free version had a UFO with alien wrenching on it on April Fools Day !
Yeah, I have seen clouds blocking the ground too. It just struck my brain they have a lot of images to produce, so it would take a while to update if necessary.
Wright Patt AFB comes in clear as day. I don't know which buildings have aliens, though.
Palestinians?
My guess would be leftists/anti-war types.
Look at post #14 and read what I said.
So does March AFB in CA. I don't think they have any aliens though. I use to live near there. I went there for an air show once. I didn't notice anything strange. Of course I could be wrong. LOL!!!
No flying saucers visible at Area 51.
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