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Google has updated its Google Earth application to provide crisis responders with up-to-date images of the devastation in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, the web search giant said on Thursday.

The new images were taken on Wednesday, Google said in a blog posting and could be helpful to aid organisations trying to assess the damage to the region.

Available as a new downloadable layer on Google Earth, the new images give a bird’s eye view of the destruction, showing sites like the National Palace and the Sylvia Cator Stadium strewn with debris.

Google said that it was working with its satellite partners to continually update the images of Haiti.

Boston-headquartered location-based gaming platform SCVNGR raised $4 million from Google Ventures just before Christmas. The company was joined by existing investor Highland Capital on this second round of funding.

Rich Miner (founder of Android and partner at Google Ventures) and Peter Bell (founder of Storage Networks and partner at Highland Capital) are now on SCVNGR board of directors.

This significant investment is likely to create a growing interest in location-based gaming from the mobile community, a good news for this emerging gaming genre.

GPS Business News recently interviewed with SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch.

NDrive GPS Navigation App, which has been available for iPhones is now available for Android Phones as well. This satellite navigation app will work on mobile phones that run on Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.1 versions. Thus, popular mobile phones including Motorola Droid, T-Mobile G1, HTC Hero, HTC Magic and Samsung Galaxy i7500 Phones could employ it.

NDrive Android GPS Navigation App guarantees excellent routing facilities including extended routes with multiple destinations, three modes of routing and turn-by-turn voice directions. 3D mapping, search by categories, Points-of-interest database and radars are the other integrated features in it. It supports both ABC and QWERTY keyboard input as well.

This has been launched as a bold competitor to Google Maps Navigation. Google Maps Navigation’s need of a high speed data service and its better compatibility for US States will work as an asset to NDrive GPS Navigation App. NDrive uses the maps installed on your phone and there is no need of costly 3G data service.