VentureBeat

Google recently hitched a ride up to space with the GeoEye-1, the new imagery satellite built by GeoEye. Today, the company sent us a picture (above) that the new satellite snapped of the Google’s Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

While you may look at the Google Maps view of the Googleplex and think this image isn’t much better, I’m told that this is because what you see on Google Maps is a combination of aerial imagery and satellite imagery. The above is all satellite — as in hundred of miles up in the air — as in, in space.

From that perspective, this looks really good. The picture is a 50-cm image, which is the maximum resolution Google is allowed to use, because a certain large entity called the U.S. government is also using the GeoEye-1 for national security purproses.

Here’s the latest action:

Genealogy site MyHeritage raises $15 million — The Israel-based company has grown from 17 million to 25 million registered users over the past year. Investors include Index Ventures and Accel.

High-imaging satellite GeoEye-1 launches — It claims to take the highest-resolution images of any commercially-available satellite — enough to “show home plate on a baseball diamond.” Google has an exclusive contract to this satellite’s images. [Image of GeoEye launch site, using GeoEye.]

The psychology of news feeds — As Facebook prepares to fully roll out its new profile, the protest groups are growing larger. Incidentally, The New York Times has a deep dive into the history and psychology of news feeds on Facebook and on other web sites.

Europeans get earlier access to Spore but are having trouble logging in — The long-heralded video game is coming out in the U.S. this Tuesday. For more, see our interview this weekend with legendary creator Will Wright.

Bell Labs to stop doing “basic research” — “After six Nobel Prizes, the invention of the transistor (pictured), laser and countless contributions to computer science and technology,” Alcatel-Lucent is refocusing the renowned laboratory, Wired reports. The lab will switch to nanotechnology, networking and wireless communication, and other research more easily brought to market.

Sun Microsystems plans to launch new storage gear this fall — The product will be called FISHworks.

RedHat buys virtualization startup Qumranet for $107M– This move pits RedHat against the likes of Microsoft, VMware and Citrix Systems. Qumranet was backed by Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners with $20M across two rounds, so it is a decent win for them, considering the first round of that, $8M, came just three years ago.

Live Universe buys DVD-sharing service turned ad network Peerflix — Terms aren’t being disclosed.

LolApps, creator of white-label Facebook applications, gets $4.5M — The company is in stealth, but it’s reportedly profitable from advertising on its white-label gift-maker and survey apps. Polaris Venture Partners invested.

Server company MySQL founder Michael Widenius may resign — The story started as a rumor then MySQL owner Sun Microsystems said it was indeed a possibility.

And in case you didn’t know, Facebook Groups are publicly searchable — That’s if they’re publicly viewable in the first place.

One the most important parts of online mapping tools is the satellite imagery that is used. Right now, the images used by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in rival products are all roughly the same. But Google just bought an exclusive ticket to hitch a ride with a new satellite going up that could make its offering a lot better.

Google has signed a deal with satellite imagery company GeoEye for exclusive use of the images produced by the company’s new GeoEye-1 satellite, according to Reuters. The satellite will reside 423 miles above the Earth and will be able to produce imagery that is so sharp, Google will have to tone it down to put it on the web.

The GeoEye-1 will be able to get details with a resolution of 41 centimeters, but current licenses with the U.S. government will limit usage to 50 cm or worse. Most commercial imagery satellites have a resolution of 60 cm, a Google spokesperson tells CNET.

Google is unlikely to use images that sharp anyway as 41 cm is the resolution for black and white images only, color images have a maximum resolution of 1.65 meters.

Google currently uses satellite imagery from GeoEye rival DigitalGlobe. Others, including Microsoft, use it as well. The new GeoEye imagery will be used in both the Google Maps and Google Earth products.

Thanks to the exclusive deal, Google also gets to place a logo on the rocket which will carry the GeoEye-1 into orbit. You can watch the countdown to launch on the site. It will blast off in almost exactly six days and it will be streamed live.

Below is a sample image of what 1 meter versus 50 cm resolution imagery would look like. If there was a game going on, you could almost watch a play at the plate in 50 cm resolution.

[images via GeoEye]

We’re one week away from the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. Most of us stateside likely won’t be making the long trip, but there are a few interesting ways to keep up to date on the action around the web.

First and foremost, NBC will be streaming over 2,000 hours of live content and 3,000 hours of on-demand video to the Internet via its site NBCOlympics.com, reports CNET. This will not only be a big test for Microsoft’s Flash competitor Silverlight, which will power the site’s web video player, but also for the viability of large-scale live web video itself.

Earlier this year, CBS earned rave reviews for its streaming of the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament on the web. It was so popular that some employers even had to block access to the site. However, on the opposite end, MLB.tv revamped its site for live baseball game coverage this year and has been marred with problems.

Also looking to capitalize on the excitement is Google. Today, Google’s Maps team updated its data to include new imagery footage above Beijing that is less than two weeks old, according to the Google Lat Long Blog. The new images look great. (See below)

View Larger Map

This Google Maps and Google Earth (the imagery is updated for both) China coverage update is somewhat surprising for two reasons:

First, as Google itself notes, “it’s very hard to get good satellite photos of Beijing due to clouds and other atmospheric conditions.” By that it means pollution, which is a major problem in the city. So much so that the use of cars has been restricted to try and curb emissions leading up to the games. Google credits its partners GeoEye and DigitalGlobe with cutting through the fog (or smog).

Second, it’s no secret that China is notoriously restrictive when it comes to the web and access to its people. High resolution satellite imagery of the country would seem like something China would definitely be against, but perhaps it made some compromises for the Olympic coverage. Apparently the areas with the new coverage are Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang and Quindao.

There has also been a FriendFeed room set up to cover the Olympics live and on-location. Blogger Chad Catacchio (also the marketing director at ZoomProspector), is over in China for the games and will be piping in live updates, news and pictures among other things into his Beijing Olympics FriendFeed room.

Covering events using FriendFeed has worked well for us in the past, it should be interesting to see how the Olympics unfold on the other side of the world.