Google Maps Ways to Help Haiti

Even though Google's been a bit distracted these days, what with its current China problem, that doesn't mean the company that promises to do no evil hasn't been paying attention to what's happened in Haiti. In fact, they responded quickly by not only donating $1 million to ground support there, but also by working with a satellite imagery company to update both Google Earth and Google Maps to provide the most current information.

The company Google's working with, GeoEye, has been providing updated imagery — and Google's Lat Long Blog showed before-and-after shots of the Presidential Palace and a portion of Port-au-Prince that vividly demonstrates the devastation as viewers tracked damages after the quake. The blog also includes an embedded KML Viewer that will be updated as more information becomes available.

In addition, according to this Computerworld article, Google has been attempting to put together a better map of Haiti with its crowd-sourced Map Maker application since last fall's hurricanes Gustav and Ike hit the country, and the company has made this data available to the United Nations to help with relief efforts.

As has been said before, information is power, so the more information that companies like Google are able to make available about what's occurred in Haiti, the more power the rest of the world will have in understanding how best to help the country recover from the earthquake.

And along with its own generous donation, Google's provided a Web site giving people different options for how they can support disaster relief in Haiti as well.

Photo courtesy of simminch, via Flickr