Google and Samsung team up to show Apple what's a map app

[Image via Shutterstock]

Published Wednesday, September 26, 2012

By Vicky Kapur

Even as Apple gets inundated with complaints about its maps app, Google Maps today unveiled its striking Underwater Street View of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, captured on specially designed Samsung Galaxy Tabs.

“For the first time in human history, anyone with an Internet connection will be able to take a virtual dive on selected sites on the Great Barrier Reef,” Google said in its media statement this morning.

“Armed with cutting-edge cameras and underwater robots controlled by specially designed Samsung Galaxy tablets, the team are able to capture up to 50,000 panoramic underwater images and stitch them together into a navigable ‘reef view’ panorama,” it said.

Click below to take an immediate underwater tour of:

• Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef

• Lady Elliot Island, GBR

• Wilson Island, Great Barrier Reef

Or, watch the video here

The Underwater Earth project uses data and imagery from the ground-breaking Catlin Seaview Survey project – a series of expeditions aiming to explore and survey the health of coral reefs worldwide.

Google believes this is as big as man landing on moon. “In what could possibly be the biggest technological announcement since the moon landing, Google will today reveal the launch of underwater Street View for Google Maps,” its statement noted.

It may not really be that huge, but the view is mind-boggling and a boon for non-snorkelers such as yours truly.

Based at the underwater research station on Heron Island, the team, currently anchored on the northern reefs of the Coral Sea, surveyed and captured the underwater environments of Heron and Lady Elliot Island.

“As well as enabling the casual punter to go for a virtual dive and learn more about the marine environment, the expedition will also make a significant contribution to our knowledge of the world’s oceans through a publicly available Global Reef Record database,” the statement noted.

This database will enable scientists worldwide to monitor the health of coral reef systems worldwide and their response to climate change.

The project’s chief scientist, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute calls the project a “game-changing scientific tool that scientists around the world will have at their fingertips”.

“They will be able to monitor change in the marine environment now and in the future,” he said.

“Marine scientists researching any aspect of the reef will be able to study these environments from any of the surveys we conduct.”

The first Catlin Seaview expedition launched on September 16 this year with 20 separate reefs on the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea scheduled for surveying before the team moves on to overseas locations in 2013.

The project is funded by international insurance company Catlin and University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute.