On April 24th PBS Newshour aired a segment on high-tech mapping techniques that have been developed to help fight malaria: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#142095 . There is also a link to a transcript of the video. From that transcript:

"Sturrock’s maps rely on data, much of it photos, that have been, and still are, collected by NASA satellites circling the globe. But that information, 40 years’ worth, has languished in government vaults in South Dakota.

Now Google Earth Engine has acquired it, for free, and is working with the university and many others to put it to work. For several years, Google has been storing data, trillions of measurements, on thousands of computers that it owns. But, until recently, and, in fact, even now, using that data, making sense of it has been very difficult.

Sturrock, with the power of thousands of Google’s computers at his fingertips, is combining the satellite pictures with on-the-ground information, using algorithms. ..."

                                        Joel Kovarsky