A couple of days ago Google launched a new way of viewing images, the Image Swirl. Still in Beta phase, it attempts to collect groups of related images together, presenting them in clusters. The user selects a cluster of interest, which then expands into it's one circle, still connected to previous 'higher' circles on the tree. In this way you dive down into ever more specific types of images. Concept shown below for the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the opening screen showing the main image clusters:
Screenshot of Eiffel Tower top part of Swirl
And then, several steps in showing the expanded, yet still linked, sub sets of images of the Eiffel Tower. Eventually you get to single images which then link to the sites they are placed in. This reminds me a bit of diving into fractal images, but is, naturally, of much more immediate use.
Eiffel Tower - several steps into the Swirl.
It is a much more relaxing and playful way of looking for images than a straight image search. The rationale and background blurb, taken from the Google Blog, states: - 'Back in 2001, to give people a new, quicker way to find images, we launched Image Search. When you do a search for [eiffel tower] you'll find an array of images of the tower in the daytime, in black and white, at sunset and more. With Similar Images, which recently graduated from Google Labs, you can click "Find similar images" to narrow your search to, say, pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. Today, we've launched an experimental feature in Labs called Google Image Swirl, which builds on new computer vision research to cluster similar images into representative groups in a fun, exploratory interface.'
Google recently launched a Google Earth plugin API allowing Google Earth data to be viewed in websites in much the same way as the Google Maps data can be used. Panoramic Earth has added this to the viewing options for the panoramas in the site. Thus it is now possible to view the panoramas liked to the Google Earth view in addition to the map, satellite and terrain views previously available. Simply slelct 'Earth' from the Map tab to activate. You may need to download the plugin for this to work. Below is a screenshot of a Brooklyn Bridge panorama from New York in the Google Earth view. 
A couple of cautionary notes though, the Google Earth plugin is very memory hungry and the geplugin.exe process does not stop when you change back to another view, but keeps collecting data as other map views are moved around. It is also not stopped if that tab / window using it is closed, but the browser is still running. It can, of course, be ended in the Task Manager. Interestingly, the Google Earth plugin is not supported by Google's Chrome browser.
Since it's launch earlier this year it seems that, even with the huge power of Google to promote things, the take up of Google's own browser, Google Chrome, has been quite slow. Panoramic Earth has seen the use of Chrome grow to only 0.67% of it's visitors in the last few months. In addition to this the browser seems to sometimes have problems loading up Google maps at first, though this is resolved when the page is refreshed.
Most of the comments thus far on the web about Google Chrome come from Fire Fox users who have taken a look. They seem pretty unanimous in agreeing that it is a faster browser and, while taking more memory to run when first open, does not suffer from memory bloat like other browsers. However, they also seem pretty unanimous in thier disapointment that there is, to date, little in the way of Add-ons that make Fire Fox so popular among it's users. Most often noted are those like Ad-Block Plus and Informenter. Therefore it seems that unless and until Google Chrome encourages the use and development by such add-ons by the wider community then this browser is not going to see wide uptake in the near future.
We are finding increasingly that images added to Panoramic Earth are becoming rapidly indexed by Google and also found in the searches. Panoramas of the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas, one of the tourist attractions in Hong Kong, was found position 9 and 10 within Google within 24 hours using general search terms relevant to it. Of course, that might all have changed now. For the current status of this page within Google follow this 10000 Buddha Temple search
About the Singapore MASH Website: "This website is a combination of information from many websites. Using geographical, location, bus arrival time, business etc from these many websites, Singapore MASH Website is able to show the different information on a single location."
The Screen shot above shows the mashup done with the Singapore panorama locations listed on Panoramic Earth. Each pin links back to the panorama on the parent site.
Screenshot of Eiffel Tower top part of Swirl
Eiffel Tower - several steps into the Swirl.
