Google Earth Gets Live Update After Oakland Explosion

The Mountain View-based company was quite fast and managed to update Google Earth and Google Maps quickly to provide the users alternative routes for San Francisco and Oakland. As you might know, a considerable part of an Oakland road was damaged after it collapsed under a huge fire caused by an explosion. Because most of the online maps services including Google Earth are now offering several routes for a certain destination, it was extremely important for the companies to produce a quick update to avoid the damaged area. Although the search giant struggled to improve the information fast enough to avoid problems, the StarTribune sustained the product was updated Monday night.

"I'd say overall we were very successful _ we fixed the routing but didn't break anything in the process. This has been an interesting challenge _ an example of how we put into practice our attempts to provide real-time traffic information," Yahoo Maps director Jeremy Kreitler said Wednesday according to the same source. The giant portal updated its maps service after approximately 39 hours, providing alternative routes for the Oakland - San Francisco road.

This is another important evidence that Google's applications are extremely important for most of the users as they are able to change or rescue somebody's life. Take for example today's story that might redirect several users to the affected area and cause them a lot of problems. However, the company's employees were quite efficient and updated the information offered by the service in a short time, providing alternative routes for the destinations.

If you want to download Google Earth, you can take it from Softpedia using this link. If you don't want to install anything, you can try using Google Maps, an online version of the same downloadable application.