On a lighter note... with all the horrible k@k going on... something positive and cool is afoot. Google has updated all their South African imagery of cities. Lydon mentioned a while back Cape Town was going 3D, but seems it's much bigger than just The Mother City!

All these cities have this year's latest aerial photos:


Bloemfontein
Cape Town
Durban
Johannesburg
Nelspruit
Port Elizabeth
Polokwane
Pretoria


All these cities are now all 3D with upgraded high-res digital elevation modeling... uber WOW!


Bloemfontein
Cape Town
Durban
Port Elizabeth
Pretoria


Johannesburg seems to be in the process of being 3D modeled.

:banana: Just a little good news.

Just did a little flying around Durban's beachfront upgrade in the flight sim on Google Earth. It's addictive.

when is south africa going to have streetview?

*drops jaw*

damn thats awesome... love it love it love it!

Oh and as for the Streetview thing, I've seen the googlemobile in and around Durban a few times...

when is south africa going to have streetview?

Google said before the World Cup, so I assume soon.

Oh and as for the Streetview thing, I've seen the googlemobile in and around Durban a few times...

I saw it in Grahamstown about 6 months ago...was really impressed.

wow they have update the Durban even they update the Moses Mabhida stadium. looking great! Also i can see my car at my driveway eish...

That was so cool! If only they had done Centurion :( Pretoria looks nice and green though :)

yip mentioned this a while back in the Durbs discussion, that time it was only Durbs that was in 3D, good to see all the cities in it.

wow they have update the Durban even they update the Moses Mabhida stadium. looking great! Also i can see my car at my driveway eish...
show us a screen-grab:nuts:

Google said before the World Cup, so I assume soon.

wow thats good news :banana:

Wow! Amazing!

Here we go. I'm such a nerd...

Port Elizabeth:

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/ae296/method111_2010/Google%20earth/PortElizabeth.jpg

Bloemfontein:

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/ae296/method111_2010/Google%20earth/Bloemfontein.jpg

Durban:

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/ae296/method111_2010/Google%20earth/Durban2.jpg

Pretoria:

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/ae296/method111_2010/Google%20earth/Pretoria2.jpg

Cape Town:

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/ae296/method111_2010/Google%20earth/CapeTown2.jpg

New Hominid Species Discovered in South Africa

In a South African cave spotted through Google Earth, a 9-year-old boy discovered the first known fossils of a primitive pre-human species that has scientists arguing anew over the roots of the human family tree.

The bones belong to an adult female and teenage male who apparently fell to their death down a deep cave shaft near Johannesburg between 1.78 million and 1.95 million years ago—a time when four or more different ape-like hominid species existed in Africa and the founding human line was taking shape. They may be remains of an evolutionary dead end—or the first hint of a new beginning.

.Matthew Berger, first noticed the fossils in March 2008 during a field trip to the unexplored Malapa caves with his father, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger at the University of the Witwatersrand, who then led 60 scientists in analyzing and identifying the new species. They named it Australopithecus sediba, after the word for "well-spring" in the local Sesotho language.

"Matthew ran off the site and within about a minute and a half said: Dad, I found a fossil," said Dr. Berger. "I realized he had a hominid clavicle. He did indeed make the first discovery."

The collection of 130 bones was made public Thursday at a news conference at the United Nations' Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, which encompasses the cave site, near Johannesburg, and detailed in research papers published in the journal Science.

The team is excavating at least two other skeletons there belonging to the same species, which they would not discuss. By surveying the area with Google Earth and satellite images, they located dozens of caves and what may prove to be several other unexplored fossil sites.

"I think he is on to a gold mine," said paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who wasn't involved in the discovery.

Taken together, the partial skeletons made public so far combine primitive characteristics of the burly, small-brained predecessors to the human family, known generally as Australopithecines, and advanced features more typical of the modern genus Homo, the broad family classification that encompasses the direct ancestors of modern humankind.

.The bones may require scientists to revise the history of human evolution again. Previous fossil finds in Africa, Asia and the Middle East in recent decades have turned the story of human development from a straight-forward saga of evolutionary progress, in which species one-by-one led directly to the next more advanced form, into a more confusing family drama in which at various times many primitive pre-human prototypes lived simultaneously.

So far, there are few clues about which of those, like the Neanderthals, simply died out leaving no descendants, which were only distantly related cousins, and which became the most direct ancestors of modern homo sapiens, as contemporary humankind is known.

"This [newest find] is a thing that has a unique relationship to us," said paleoanthropologist William Kimble at Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins. "They are extraordinarily important."

These creatures were a mosaic of evolution's experiments in human biology. They easily walked upright but still took refuge in trees, the evidence suggests. They were tall for the era but still squat, measuring about four feet, four inches tall. They had an almost human face, with dainty teeth and a protruding nose, but a tiny brain. They strode on lanky legs but primitive feet. They had gangling arms as long as an orangutan's, but relatively modern hands. So far, there is no evidence they used tools.

"They make a very good candidate ancestor," Dr. Berger said.

By the available evidence, though, the group to which the modern human family belongs—the genus Homo—was already widespread in Africa and parts of East Asia before these creatures lived. The scientists acknowledged that the specimens they unearthed had lived too recently to be the ancestors of the more advanced groups with whom they coexisted, but speculated that there may be older examples of the species awaiting discovery.

Straddling scientific classifications, the find has sharply divided researchers who study the human pedigree. They acclaimed the find's importance, but questioned its significance.

"Evolution is wonderfully messy," said paleoanthropologist Richard Potts, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins program, and such technical disputes are the norm. "Evolution in the end need not follow our rules about how to classify species," he said.

Anthropologist Donald Johanson at Arizona State, who discovered the 3.2-million-year-old "Lucy" skeleton from a more primitive species called australopithecus afarensis that has come to symbolize human evolution, considered the new species a parallel offshoot of the human line and not a direct human ancestor. "I would not be surprised if the Malapa material represents a newly recognized species of Homo," Dr. Johanson said.

Paleoanthropologist Tim White at UC Berkeley, whose team found "Ardi," the oldest known fossil skeleton of a human ancestor, was skeptical of any direct human connection, partly because the newly identified species coexisted with other more advanced hominid groups in Africa.

"It doesn't reveal the means by which our genus arose. It does not reveal the earliest members of our genus," Dr. White said. "I would encourage them to keep digging."

Some of the creature's most human traits may be misleading clues, said anthropologist Bernard Wood at George Washington University. "This sort of face may have evolved more than once," he said. "I think these fossils are evidence that the tree of human evolutionary history had lots of twigs, all but one of which became extinct."

All in all, there aren't yet enough fossils of the species to draw conclusions, Dr. Wood said. "It is like grabbing two people off the New York subway and trying to reconstruct all of North American humanity.
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-IC003_0408se_G_20100408101627.jpg
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/04/08/world/africa/08fossil-1/08fossil-1-articleLarge.jpg

^^ wrong thread zatuga.....but how many times are they going to find all this weird looking skulls.

It's actually the right thread.. It's about a kid discovering a "hominid cave" using Google Earth.

Clearly Dennis didn't read the article, lol.

He only had to read the first sentence :)

Clearly Dennis didn't read the article, lol.

lol u got damn right

He only had to read the first sentence :)

i was looking at the pictures lol shows u how interested i am.

It looks like Google has taken very high resolution aerial photos for several city centres.

Does anyone know if google is only planning high-res aerials for the the CBDs, or do they intend to eventually expand these high-res aerials to cover the whole city? My house is still crappy pixels when I try to zoom in :bash:

Our house is far higher res than it used to be :cheers:

Centurion is greener :) It looks especially beautiful along the river and lake and John Voster looks like a boulevard :D

When is streetview coming out?? Thought it was supposed to be before the WC. Does anyone know?

Oh nevermind:

"With the 2010 South Africa FIFA World Cup starting on June 11th, it has been announced that Google Earth Street View will soon include South Africa, and will be released in time for the tournament later this month."

Very probably a few days before the WC officially starts.

It's going to be released before the end of this month, so it's a few days away :)

Damn, I wonder if it caught me out when I wasnt looking... so wanted to get in a Johny Bravo pose.

I don't know whether you all know about it or not, but google has launched today South Africa Street View!!!!:banana: What a gift to the World Cup!
Our Street View cars have driven about 40,000 miles across South Africa and our imagery currently covers some 27 towns and cities, including: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein, East London, Newcastle, Krugersdorp, Witbank, Carletonville, Alberton, Somerset West, Rustenberg, Potchefstroom, Nelspruit, Ladysmith, Worcester, Sasolburg, Grahamstown, Stellenbosch, Queenstown, Ermelo, Brakpan, Welkom, Uitenhage. We have also covered numerous special interest sites around the country, ranging from Soccer City Stadium to Addo Elephant Park to Chapman's Peak drive.
https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/streetviewza/

^^Yip I havent been doing any work this morning because of this :lol:

Obviously I didnt pose very nicely, They didnt post the pics. But my house still looks awesome with streetview.
For some or other reason I cant see the stadium streetview shots (the ones from the tricycle), can you guys?

Edit: all fixed now!

*you can see the dude that took the YouTube video in the streetview shots*.......at least he used a good camera! :-)

They didn't seem to do Cape Town Stadium :( Probably because they were still finishing it off when they were taking the shots.

This isnt google, but its still just as awesome. It's the inside of the stadiums in 360. Don't know if its been posted before..

http://worldcupstadiums.in3sixty.com/

Nelspruit looks good in 3D, the mayor should have swept the street though when google was coming to town, ouch my bandwidth, my bandwidth oh google noooooo!

^ What bandwidth? :smug:

ΛΛ hey kid, the Oasis is missing some charm, the naija boys are ruining the show up there.

I already used a lame troll tactic against our friend Rdokoye.


Damn, I long for the days when these little children knew their place in Africa and bowed down to the largest economy and best infrastructure without getting all rebellious.. :ohno:

^^ They don't know who has Google's Streetview now :smug:

Hey Guys,
Check out this site I been putting together. It highlights some of the more funny and weird Streetview scenes in South Africa

http://www.streetviewsa.co.za

^^its quite awesome that site. keeping up to date with it on you tweets

I was waiting for a site of its accord to pop up :D I didn't have to wait long it seems!

Hey guys did you see streetview recently? the Yellow has a Vuvuzela when bragged around the streets.