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In 2003, two inmates, Timothy Morgan and Timothy Vail, made paper-mache models of themselves using their own hair, left them snuggled in their beds, and escaped through a hole they'd made with a sledgehammer through the ceiling of their cell. The Elmira Correctional Facility in Elmira, New York, is a maximum-security prison with a wild history. The Elmira Correctional Facility, New York Until 2013, the palace, as seen on Google Earth, looked like something out of an old Atari game. The office building of the country's kind was once painstakingly blurred pixel-by-pixel with a much more delicate hand than usually used on the country's satellite imagery. Most of the censored areas in the Netherlands used the large, pixelated mask still seen in Noordwijk aan Zee to obscure sensitive sites, but Noordeinde Palace in The Hague got a more personal touch.
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(There are some spots, like a blob in Noordwijk aan Zee, where new satellite imagery has yet to become available since the law change.) According to CNN, Dutch law changed in 2013 to lift this censorship, and the Netherlands have become considerably clearer since. On Google Earth, the country was dotted with pixelated splotches covering military bases, government buildings and more.
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This is sometimes done in emergency situations - such as when an area has been hit by a natural disaster and new images would be of valuable assistance to the recovery and relief efforts.The Dutch are rather famous in satellite-imagery-loving circles for their enthusiastic pixelation. However, Google and its image providers do have the ability to rapidly integrate new images into the program. The images are acquired by satellites, processed by commercial image providers or government agencies, and then updated to the Google Earth image database in batches. Large cities generally have more recent and higher resolution images than sparsely inhabited areas.Ī misconception exists among some people that the images displayed in the Google Earth program are live-updated directly from satellites. Most of the images in Google Earth were acquired within the past three years, and Google is continuously updating the image set for different parts of the Earth. Hope you enjoy! Recent Images, Updated Regularly We are simply enthusiastic users of the Google Earth product. We frequently use Google Earth for research, learning, and fun! We receive no compensation from Google for recommending their service. The button above takes you to the Google website where you can download Google Earth software for free.
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