Star Viewer is a web-based tool for peeking at some of the most interesting and vivid sights in the night sky.
Star Viewer is not as complicated as, say, the previously mentioned open-source and feature-rich astronomy tool Stellarium; the interface, however, is easy to use, and it allows you to quickly navigate to many interesting points in the night sky you’d never be able to see standing outside with your naked eye.The interface won’t take any time to get used to, either.
The project uses Google Maps to drive its navigation. You can pan, zoom, and explore the night sky the same way you would Manhattan. If using Star Viewer has you interested in checking out more astronomy-related tools, we’d highly recommend checking out the aforementioned Stellarium as well as another previously mentioned web-based tool, Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope.
via – LifeHacker
I don’t even have the slightest idea why google people are doing this. I came to notice this from an email i got today. Google shows different maps for US, Indians and Chinese.While some countries or states finish arguing their territories by now, there is one big territorial dispute between China and India.
The region is called Arunachal Pradesh, which means “land of the dawn-lit mountains” or “land of rising sun.” Arunachal Pradesh is located in the northeast corner of the India and bordered on the north by the Tibet region of China and on the east by Myanmar. After Sino-Indian War in late 1962 ended, this territorial dispute also seemed to have ended. This region acquired an independent political status in January 20th, 1972, when it was declared as Union Territory, an administrative division of India ruled directly by the national government, under the name of Arunachal Pradesh. The state of Arunachal Pradesh Bill was passed by the Parliament in 1986 and with effect from February 20th, 1987; Arunachal Pradesh became the 24th state of Indian Union. Even though Arunachal Pradesh is administrated by India as a state, China still claims most of it as a part of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
As the dispute going on, in my opinion, its not fair google to take one side. Or else they could have took completely one side. Now what they are doing is just ridiculous and unproffessional. Showing One version of map to India in which India contains Arunachal Pradesh. Another version to China in which China contains Arunachal Pradesh. And at last in US version, Arunachal Pradesh is a Disputed region. Now here is the screen shots for the 3 versions of GOOGLE MAP.
INDIAN VERSION (http://maps.google.co.in)
US VERSION (http://maps.google.com)
CHINESE VERSION (http://ditu.google.com)
Please give your comments on this issue here.
