Discover Your World in 3D, again
We recently unveiled a redesigned Your World in 3D website. If you’re new to geo-modeling -- the term given to creating 3D buildings for Google Earth and Google Maps -- the Your World in 3D website has all the tools and info you’ll need to get up and running quickly. The new website showcases several examples of what fellow modelers are building and will help connect with other geo-modelers around the world. You can also visit the Google Lat Long blog to learn more.

Celebrate Marine Day by exploring the shinkai
The ocean covers approximately 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and yet remains one of the most mysterious places on the planet. In Japan, bodies of water with depths over 200m (656 feet) are referred to as shinkai, or deep sea. We've teamed up with the manned Shinkai 6500 submarine to share this hidden world through Google Earth. Dive beneath the surface to explore the shinkai, as well as shipwrecks, research discoveries, surf spots and more.

South Sudanese map their way to independence
On July 9, South Sudan officially became independent, becoming Africa’s 54th state. In anticipation of this significant development, the World Bank, UNOSAT, RCMRD, Satellite Sentinel Project and Google organized a South Sudan Community Mapping event in Nairobi on June 30. This was the second in a series of mapping events intended to encourage local people to create accurate and detailed maps of South Sudan. Visit the Google Lat Long blog to learn how songs became maps!

Street View digitally archives Japan’s disaster zones
Here at Google we try to find ways to use our technology to support relief activities around natural disasters. On July 8, we announced that Street View cars will drive across major cities and coastal areas of the Tohoku region in Japan to capture current street-level imagery. We hope these images will help communicate the current state of the disaster-affected area and also serve as a digital archive for future generations. Visit the Japan Crisis Response site to learn more.

Keeping an ‘eye’ on the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons
With current forecasts suggesting this year's hurricane activity will be above average, we've added the ability to track current tropical storms on Google Earth (make sure “Places” is checked in the left "Layers" panel). Information such as a storm's intensity, heading, along with the latest advisories is available to keep you up to date. Visit the Google Lat Long blog to learn about new storm tracking tools on both Google Earth and Google Search.

New and Updated Imagery
This month we added new and updated imagery, including high-resolution aerial updates for the USA. Many countries also received high-resolution satellite updates, including Australia, Canada, Estonia, Somalia, United Arab Emirates and more. Take a look at these changes and many more in our update post here, or view this file directly in Google Earth. Don't forget you can use the View > Historical Imagery option to see imagery choices through the time slider.