• MIT Technology Review‘s Second Earth is a long and exhaustive article about the Second Life/Google Earth/3D web/metaverse/augmented reality/virtual world/mirror world/mashup place that futurologists promise is impending and inevitable. It’s a good read, especially for the shortcuts to Second Life places if you’re a newbie there (and want to see what all the fuss is about) and serves as a great introduction to all the new terminology that has bloomed over the past few years. There’s no major new idea that hasn’t already been covered on this blog or elsewhere, but the article is certainly a shorter read than the entirety of Ogle Earth’s archives. (The only oversight, in my mind: No mention of MySpace. That’s the app to kill, and whoever invents a 3D MySpace wins over the masses, I think. In other words, the 3D web will look a lot uglier than we can imagine:-)
• GUIWeather is an extremely well-specced and gorgeous Google-Earth centric weather website. Writes GUIWeather’s Steve Gallien:
  

  Please note especially these products which , as far as we know, are unique:

  • buoy & ship observations
  • Level II radar — the only kml product I’m aware of using true Nexrad Level II
  • worldwide lightning strikes
  • U.S. watches and warnings (the only example of filled polys using the new VTEC codes that I’ve seen anywhere)

  Google Earth Blog has further details.

• Out of India, The Financial Express has a pro-Google op-ed piece defending Street View.
• Another case of Google Earth’s place names causing a ruckus among the more nationalist-minded, this time in Korea.
• Belgeoblog flags a horridly tendentious and lazy article in Belgian paper De Standaard (in Dutch, behind a paywall), which headline translates to “Google Earth helps terrorists”. Among other things, the article proceeds to quote a professor at Belgium’s largest university saying that Google has acquiesced to demands to mask Belgium’s nuclear power plants. A quick look by the journalist would have shown this to be false. Nor is there any exposition as to how imagery is collected and published — it is not Google that censors the imagery that it acquires, but the originating sources, which are sometimes bound by governmental controls (as is the case in the Netherlands).
• And last but not least, Google Maps for Sweden launched officially. If I weren’t in Oregon far away from regular internet access, I’d be doing a comparative review right now between Google Maps, Hitta.se and Eniro.se, both formidable competitors.

And now back to my Oregon vacation, miles away from internet access…:-)