clipped from: www.guardian.co.uk Since Google Earth launched in 2006 millions of people have used its virtual globe to "travel" around the planet without leaving home, climbing a digital version of Mount Everest and even flying into space thanks to the website.
Now the internet company plans to take on one of the last bastions of the unknown: the depths of the ocean.
To help users understand what they are looking at, Google has assembled a coalition of more than 80 organisations, including the National Geographic Society, BBC and the Marine Conservation Society, to provide images, video and analysis in regularly-updated "layers" of information added to Google's basic mapping technology.