Around the World in 80 Seconds

After dinner at the Reform Club yesterday I took a seat in the reading-room beside the open fire. I was soon joined by my usual five whist partners.

It was during the ensuing conversation that I somehow found myself betting twenty thousand pounds that it was possible to travel around the world in 80 seconds using the newly opened Google Earth browser plug-in.

What follows is my attempts to circumnavigate the globe in less than 80 seconds ...

Washington

This virtual tour of Washington D.C. takes in the White House, The Lincoln Memorial, The Jefferson Memorial, The Washington Monument, the United States Capitol and many other buildings in the United States Capital.

This 3D tour uses the Google Earth Browser plug-in and at the moment will only work in Windows.

Paris

This Paris tour takes in many of the most famous sights in the French capital. The tour includes 3D models of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and The Louvre.

The tour requires the Google Earth browser plugin and is Windows only.

Where's Stephen Fry?

British comedian, author, television presenter and actor Stephen Fry is currently filming in Africa. Fry is using Twitter to update people on his location. Obviously, when I saw his Twitter location updates, I had to map them.

Here is Stephen's current journey through Africa in a map called Where's Stephen Fry?

Rome

Do you fancy a virtual tour of Rome? This tour of the buildings of Rome takes in the Colosseum, The Vatican, the Trevi Fountain and all your other favourite sights.

The 3D tour uses the Google Earth Browser plug-in and at the moment only works in Windows.

NGC 1275

I've just added Hubblecast 18 to the Star Viewer Map. Hubblecast 18 explains how the Hubble Space Telescope has solved a long-standing puzzle about the giant but delicate filaments around the active galaxy NGC 1275.

The central cluster galaxy of NGC 1275 contains a massive network of spectral line emitting filaments, which appear to be being dragged out by rising bubbles of relativistic plasma generated by the central active galactic nucleus. The amount of gas contained in a typical thread is round one million times the mass of our own Sun.

Tokyo 3D Tour

This Tokyo 3D Tour takes you on a fly-through tour of many of the shrines, museums and other interesting buildings of the Japanese capital.

To view the tour you will need the Google Earth Browser plug-in (you will be prompted to install it if you haven't already) and is Windows only.

Pyramid Tour

The Pyramid Tour is a tour of the world's great pyramids (ancient and modern) with the new GoogleEarth browser plug-in.

The Google Earth browser plug-in brings the functionality of Google Earth to your web browser. With this tour we take you around the world to view the pyramids of Egypt and South America ( and Las Vegas).

To view the tour you will need to have the Google Earth browser plug-in and be using Windows.

Video Map Update

I've added two layers to the Video Map. Now, as well as displaying over 300 videos, the map contains thousands of photographs from Panoramio and thousands of articles from Wikipedia.

It can be a little hard to spot the video icon in amongst all the photos and Wikipedia articles. If you click on one of the video links on the right of the map the video marker (a little black square) will appear in the centre of the map.