Google Ocean: Review Roundup

Here's the blogosphere's reaction, D-Day plus one, on Google Earth's new ocean feature:

ZDNet: "I just had to turn off my Santa Tracker since it kept pulling me from Bermuda ship wrecks to the North Pole."

Los Angeles Times: "Google board member and former Vice President Al Gore, who attended the [product launch] event, called the latest version of Google Earth 'an extremely powerful educational tool' that he hoped would influence the Climate Conference in Copenhagen later this year.'"

Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Nova Scotia: "About a year ago, Halifax-based Shipwreck Central Inc. teamed up with Google Earth to create a cool new ocean feature that allows people to explore underwater shipwrecks with just the click of a mouse. ... For example, if you click on the gold icon along the coast of Nova Scotia near Richmond County, a box pops up with information on the 1970 wreck of the bulk carrier SS Arrow. It also includes a YouTube video of divers exploring the kelp-covered rusting hull of the vessel."

CNet: "Google Earth ... gives the company a new way to bring its brand to the world, notably with students for whom the software will help supplant atlases and encyclopedias. And in the long run, as Google Earth and Maps—either as standalone software or used through a browser—will likely become a widely used virtual window on the real world. Google will control the technology and commercialization of that portal."

New York Times, quoting Google collaborator and former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Sylvia Earle: "I've been struggling my whole life to figure out how to reach people and get them to understand they're connected to the ocean. ... But I go to the supermarket and still see the United Nations of fish for sale. ... Google Earth gets all this information now and puts it in one place for the littlest kid and the stuffiest grownup to see in a way that hasn't been possible in all preceding history."