World’s Tallest Lighthouses
For centuries lighthouses have served as navigation aids, helping protect marine traffic from running aground on dangerous coastlines, rocks and reefs. As we’re ever-so-slightly fond of superlatives here at Google Sightseeing, we’ll take a tour of the tallest lighthouses around the world1.
Top ten tallest lighthouses
The world’s tallest lighthouse is the 133m Jeddah Light in Saudi Arabia, which doubles as the control tower for this busy commercial port. The white tower and dome can be seen from about 40km away, and it’s a vital marker on this coastline which is dotted with dangerous coral reefs.
The second-tallest lighthouse is technically a monument rather than a true navigational aid, and is unfortunately (for us) located on an island in Lake Erie which is only covered by low-resolution satellite imagery. The 107m tall granite tower has the somewhat unwieldy title of “Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial”, and it commemorates a US naval victory over Britain in the War of 1812.
Just one metre shorter is the Yokohama Tower which also stretches the true definition of a lighthouse. While it is illuminated, the tower mainly serves as a tourist attraction with an observation deck and restaurant offering views of the city.
From here on we’re looking at more traditional lighthouses, built solely to serve as beacons for shipping. The fourth tallest lighthouse is found on the island of Île Vierge off the north-west coast of France. Built in the late 1800s, this lighthouse (like many around the world) has today been automated, though in this case a lighthouse keeper still lives on site. Despite the hazy image, Street View from the nearest point on the mainland gives us a good idea of how immense it is.
The Lanterna is one of the most famous landmarks in the Italian port of Genoa, and a lighthouse has stood on this spot since the 12th century.
The existing 77m tall structure dates to the 16th century, though it has been repaired many times following damage from lightning strikes and military action. While it’s visible from many parts of the city, it really needs to be seen from up close to be truly appreciated. There’s also a good museum at its base, though you’ll need to find your way past the busy ramps used by trucks going to and from the port.
Back to France for the sixth tallest lighthouse – the Phare de Gatteville. At 75m, the granite tower was the tallest in the world when it was constructed in the 1830s.
The recent launch of Street View imagery in Russia gives us a good look at the seventh tallest lighthouse – the Lesnoy Mole Rear Range Light in the commercial port of St Petersburg. The distinctive red and white stripes of this 73m tall structure also identify it as a range light – a marker to help sea traffic approach a narrow channel.
The eighth and ninth tallest are just a few kilometres apart on Hainan island in China. The Mulantou and Baishamen lighthouses are both 72m tall and mark the narrow strait between the island and the mainland.
Finally, the tenth tallest lighthouse in the world is the Storozhenskiy Light on Russia’s Lake Ladoga, but sadly it isn’t visible on satellite view yet.
Tall lighthouses around the world
The tallest lighthouse in the southern hemisphere is the Recalada a Bahía Blanca Light in Argentina – a 67m tall iron tower allegedly built by the same company that built the Eiffel Tower.
The recently launched Street View imagery in Poland allows us to see the world’s tallest brick lighthouse – the 65m tall Świnoujście Lighthouse.
The tallest lighthouse in the US is the Cape Hatteras Light in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Originally built in the 1860s, the structure was moved inland several hundred metres in 1999 to protect it from shore erosion. This video shows how it was moved.
The UK’s tallest lighthouse sits on a remote rock called Skerryvore off the west coast of Scotland, and isn’t visible on Google Maps, so instead let’s travel to Africa, where the tallest lighthouse is the Nosy Alañaña Light on the tiny Île aux Prunes off Madagascar.
-
Note that many don’t consider the first three to be real lighthouses, so in many cases the ‘tallest’ listing starts with the fourth on this list. ↩
Locations: Argentina, China, France, Italy, Japan, Madagascar, North Carolina, Ohio, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia / Categories: Monuments, Shadows, Street Views, Structures, Towers, Watercraft
You're reading an entry from Google Sightseeing, which is copyright © 2012 Alex Turnbull & James Turnbull and must not be reproduced without permission.
Foundation Financial Group Reaches
Foundation Financial Group continues to achieve significant milestones in its goal to become the nation’s largest financial services company. The company recently eclipsed the $4 billion mark in loans funded and continues to experience strong growth across all of its business sectors.
“Foundation Financial Group employees are highly qualified and motivated individuals and are responsible for this milestone and our ongoing success,” said CEO Mark W. Boyer. “Their dedication and persistence continue to build Foundation Financial Group’s market share across the United States.”
With the number of loans funded by Foundation Financial Group, the company continues to help Americans afford their homes and improve their financial situations. Foundation Financial Group is known for its fast turnaround times and exceptional customer service.
Foundation Financial Group experienced record-breaking months in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. The company’s mortgage division ended November 2011 at 11 percent higher than November 2010, which was the record for Foundation Financial Group’s mortgage division. The mortgage division finished January 2012 at three percent higher than November 2011, which was also a previous record month for the company’s mortgages. The month of March 2012 was another record-breaking month for its mortgage business. Overall, the company finished the first quarter of 2012 at 10.4 percent higher than its previous best quarter. The company’s insurance division and tax divisions also experienced a record-breaking month in March.
Foundation Financial Group gives back to the communities it serves in a big way. Since 2010, through financial contributions, in kind donations and volunteerism, the company’s social investment is over $610,000 in support of philanthropic initiatives with a focus on education, workforce development, environment sustainability as well as health and wellness. In 2011, Foundation Financial Group employees contributed more than 1,000 hours of community service to good causes across the country.
The company also provided $15,000 to two individuals in its Funding Your Finances giveaway. Currently, Foundation Financial Group is giving away two different vacation packages from Southwest Airlines Vacations, along with $5,000 spending cash for each trip, as part of its 2012 Start Living giveaway.
About Foundation Financial GroupFoundation Financial Group, one of the nation’s fastest-growing financial services companies, specializes in mortgage lending, property and casualty insurance, life insurance, retirement services, personal taxes and corporate tax services. Foundation Financial Group operates seven regional centers as well as a branch network of retail storefronts across the Midwest. Foundation Financial Group offers mortgage refinancing and first-time buyer lending through traditional financing, as well as Federal Housing Administration and other government-backed home loan programs. Foundation Financial Group enjoys an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, the highest accreditation the BBB gives, and an industry-leading Federal Housing Administration compare ratio. For more information, call 866-334-1001.
###
For additional information, interview and image requests, contact The AXIA Public Relations Firm at 866-999-2942, ext. 700.
Google Apps brings Brazos Bookstore into the 21st Century
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Enterprise Blog.)
Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger is Jeremy Ellis, General Manager of Brazos Bookstore, a neighborhood institution based in Houston, Texas.
Brazos Bookstore has been part of the Houston literary community since 1974. In addition to selling a diverse collection of books, we pride ourselves in connecting our community with authors from our area and around the globe. When the store’s ownership changed in 2006 and the possibility of shutting down became known, the community of Brazos fans petitioned to keep our doors open. Thanks to them, we’ve been able to continue our long-standing tradition where we host author events, readings and exhibitions from writers such as Walter Cronkite, Julia Child, Kofi Annan, and P. J. O’Rourke, to name a few.
When I joined the staff in September 2011, Brazos was still operating in many ways as it did in the 70s and 80s. Employees would schedule the author series on a single paper calendar, and only one of our computers had email set up. All of our software was outdated, and the programs that were available ended up causing more roadblocks than value.
We needed a system that could better manage our day-to-day operations. Since I was already familiar with Google from personal use, moving the bookstore to Google Apps for Business was a natural transition. Today, all seven of our employees are able to access their email and calendars from any computer in the store, at home, and on their smartphones. This accessibility not only eases communication between the staff, but also keeps everyone up to speed on events, shipments and other activities at the shop.
Scheduling author visits on Google Calendar is easy, instant, and live, and it’s saved us from double-booking authors. I’m now able to easily collaborate with our buyer when we’re planning in-store events, which has streamlined the process for ordering books and helps me track book sales from author readings.
Google Apps has given us the organizational tools we need to continue serving Houston’s literary and arts culture. Our vision over the past forty years hasn’t changed, and now we have the technology to support our store for the future.
Posted by Jeremy Ellis, General Manager, Brazos Bookstore
Instant Checkmate Debuts Official Blog
Online background data service, Instant Checkmate, recently announced the creation of its official company blog aimed at further informing its subscribers of all its latest news and services.
A background check provider, Instant Checkmate, recently debuted its official company blog designed to promote the company's diverse services and latest news and suggestions.
“Our new Instant Checkmate blog will be a great place to get in touch with us if you’re near a computer,” said Kristen Bright, Spokeswoman for Instant Checkmate. “The Instant Checkmate blog is designed to keep everybody up-to-date on the latest company happenings.”
Instant Checkmate provides criminal background checks in a fast and affordable manner. Instant Checkmate delivers the background check report results directly to the subscriber’s personal computer.
In addition to launching the company blog, Instant Checkmate has recently debuted its newest service, reverse phone lookup. The new service is being marketed as an even quicker and easier way for subscribers to further discover background information on individuals.
“Instant Checkmate is really excited to offer this new service,” Bright said. “Our newest method of discovering criminal histories on individuals will be just as effective, and twice as fast.”
About Instant Checkmate
Serving as an online background check service since 2009, Instant Checkmate is available to individuals on a subscription basis. Instant Checkmate supplies results from billions of local criminal records, federal state records, public records, private databases and sex offender registries. Instant Checkmate is a proud supporter of the nonprofit organization that address teen dating violence, Break the Cycle.
##
For additional information, interview and image requests contact Kristen Bright, PR Manager, Instant Checkmate, 1-866-490-5980.
Mobile Mondays: On Mobile, it’s as much about the user as it is the content
For this Mobile Mondays post we’ve invited Netbiscuits to offer you best practices and tips for creating a good mobile experience for your users. Netbiscuits is a leading cloud platform for the development and delivery of next generation web apps across all mobile devices and connected platforms.
Cultivating a user-focused mobile experience isn’t just about shrinking your existing website to fit a mobile screen. In a single day, a connected consumer interacts with your brand and consumes your content across smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and game consoles. To meet consumer demand for instant, optimized access, marketers must design engaging “connected experiences” that respond differently for each device as they each present unique size, capability, and content consumption challenges.
In solving these challenges, marketers need to focus on a responsive design that takes the multiplatform world into account and allows for a device-optimized “Content Centric” user experience. The layout should morph depending on the size and shape of the device’s screen ensuring the experience adapts as new devices are introduced in the marketplace.
Touch enabled devices have evolved the digital user experience by providing users with a “Parallel Response Experience” to their request as opposed to a “Sequential Response Experience” found in a traditional “Point and Click” mobile user experience. Designing a “Parallel” mobile experience with many touch enabled features ensures a more natural flow of information which dramatically increases site effectiveness. For example, instead of re-using a traditional website interface, many mobile commerce clients use a drag and drop interface for placing items in a shopping cart which has greatly increased sales on touch enabled devices.
Along with the design layout, responsive design must adapt a content centric approach to the user experience. Your users must be served content based on the topics for which they have shown interest as well as based on time of day, weather, or geographic location. A system remembering the items in your shopping cart has been an essential element of a cohesive e-commerce experience for some time. But this concept can be expanded upon by associating a broader range of content to the individual that results in the serving of an article that interested the customer earlier in the day or weather information for an upcoming trip. To foster a good user experience, this needs to be done in a streamlined, accurate manner that limits clutter.
One of the more challenging attributes of going mobile is the varying screen sizes of tablets and smartphones. When it comes to tablets, we advise clients to take a layered approach to designing and delivering a “one-page” experience. By embedding or layering a video or photo gallery on top of a page, consumer engagements and actions happen without forcing the user to leave the page.
Being responsive to the user’s device and serving appropriate content is done by using analytics. The insights gleaned from mobile, including device models, screen resolution, device capability, service provider, and preferred user language cannot be matched by traditional marketing activities. Compared against geographic location, savvy marketers use this data to define product offerings and regionalize discounts.
Once you understand these strategic points, you should also keep in mind these simple best practices:
- Mobile is not a channel. Mobile is an integrated solution where CMS, CRM and commerce updates should occur at the same time and in the same systems as updates to your traditional website.
- Research! Engage your team, friends and family to get insights on how they use their mobile devices. Conduct a competitive analysis to learn how your competitors illustrate and deliver their product and services.
- Design your site to solve the main problems or situations customers might find themselves in. Consider what features, tasks or existing site elements translate best on mobile and implement them.
- And finally, don’t simply duplicate your traditional website. Consumers want and expect a different experience on mobile.
Posted by Craig Besnoy, Managing Director, The Americas, Netbiscuits
Visit Netbiscuits.com to learn more about the Netbiscuits platform.
Arizona Coach Sean Miller Hires a New Assistant
University of New Orleans’ men’s basketball team’s head coach, Joe Pasternack, has decided to leave his team, which has been dropping from Division I to Division II status, in order to become assistant coach at The University of Arizona.
“Joining one of the elite basketball programs in the country and working for one of the top coaches in college basketball - Sean Miller - was not an opportunity that I could pass up,” Pasternack said.
Sean Miller, Arizona’s head coach, is just as thrilled to be receiving Pasternack as his assistant as Pasternack is himself. “We are excited to have Joe and his family join our program. He has a wealth of experience in many areas that will serve us well moving forward.”
Looking Ahead at Next Generation Measurement
Street View: Your Summer Vacation Preview
Summertime means summer travel. Whether you're planning the next family trip or group outing, Google Maps can help. Street View’s immersive views lets you preview your adventure by transporting you to famous landmarks and tourist destinations around the world. Over the years, our Partner Program has allowed us to showcase a growing number of notable amusement parks, zoos and other points of interest, with our 360-degree panoramic imagery.
For example, if you’re on the West Coast of the US and want to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo, search for “San Diego Zoo” , drag Pegmen to a spot inside the zoo, and take a tour. You can also virtually explore the zoos in Honolulu, Denver, Detroit and more.
If you’re looking for some amusement without the animals, take a peek at some of the largest amusement parks across the country. Visit Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, and catch a glimpse of how movie magic is made. You can also preview with imagery from Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Universal Studios Hollywood, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Great America, Busch Gardens, and Wet ‘n’ Wild Hawaii.
If you’re into high-octane trips to the racetrack, you can take a virtual look at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca or Infineon Raceway. Or if peace and quiet is more your speed, you can take a leisurely stroll through Balboa Park, the Chicago Botanic Garden, or Diamond Head park and trail.
Wherever you choose to adventure, feel free to explore these popular U.S. locations from the comfort of your desktop or mobile device. Let Street View imagery help you decide where to go on your next summer getaway. To see more popular locations, check out our Street View Gallery.
Posted by Chris Fiock, Program Manager for Street View
Increased Percentage Growth Recorded for Instant Checkmate
Background data provider, Instant Checkmate, records month-over-month subscriber growth. Instant Checkmate provides anonymous and affordable background checks, delivered directly to its users’ personal computers.
Instant Checkmate recorded an increased month-over-month subscriber growth rate for a consecutive 24-month period.
The recorded growth rate, announced in a recent shareholder meeting, pushed Instant Checkmate further up in the rankings of consumer background check providers. The growth rate exceeded the company’s expected target growth rate in 2009 by seven percent.
Improvements in systems, marketing and customer service are also expected to make an impact on the company's earnings. In the next fiscal year, Instant Checkmate expects exponential growth.
Consumer demand for straightforward, cost-effective background checks have partially facilitated the company’s increased rate of growth. The company is optimistic about future growth, mainly because of increases in subscriber retention and increased customer acquisition.
“Many are using Instant Checkmate because they realize how difficult it is to discern honesty on the Internet,” said Kristen Bright, spokeswoman for Instant Checkmate.
Instant Checkmate customers receive their requested background check results in a timely manner directly to their own computer screen.
“We provide quick and easy access to honest, accurate background reports,” Bright said, “The information that makes up our background reports stem from millions of various Web sites.”
About Instant Checkmate
Instant Checkmate, an online background check service since 2009, is available to individuals on a subscription basis. Instant Checkmate supplies results from billions of local criminal records, federal state records, public records, private databases and sex offender registries. For more information about Instant Checkmate, please visit the Instant Checkmate Web site. To contact Instant Checkmate or connect with Instant Checkmate visit them on Facebook.
##
For additional information, interview and image requests contact Kristen Bright, PR Manager, Instant Checkmate, 1-866-490-5980.
Joe Pasternack Persevered at New Orleans
Joe Pasternack, who was hired in 2007 as the new men's basketball coach at the University of New Orleans, has now accepted an assistant coaching position at Arizona. Alongside with Arizona’s team’s coach, Sean Miller, this new job is a great opportunity for Pasternack and should improve his career.
His coaching career at the University of New Orleans started out rough since the university decided to move the basketball program there from Division I to Division III, which meant that Pasternack was unable to offer players scholarships, which lead many of the team’s players to leave The Privateers, UNO’s team, for different teams.
Despite the unfortunate changes to his team, Joe Pasternack never lost hope, and always did the best that he could in order to help his team grow and be accomplished. New Orleans athletic director Amy Champion mentioned that Pasternack had served New Orleans well.
"I want to thank UNO and my players for the opportunity over the last four years," Pasternack said. "It is very difficult to leave the city of New Orleans.”
