Monthly Archives: January 2006

Opinion

Today China, tomorrow Google Earth?

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Regarding Google’s much lamented decision to self-censor its Chinese language search service inside China: I don’t disapprove in principle, but I do believe it is a terrible decision on practical grounds, because it sets a bad precedent that could affect Google Earth’s user experience down the line.

Here are two reasons why I don’t have a moral problem with Google censoring results on behalf of the Chinese government:

1) The plain-vanilla English-language Google search service continues to be available to all in China, uncensored by Google but with “subversive” outbound links blocked by China. So choose your poison.

Continue reading Today China, tomorrow Google Earth? →

Content

Bite-sized news

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On the forums at AVSIM, a flight simulator afficionado site, somebody has posted a side-by-side comparison of the same view of Seattle in Google Earth and in Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The FSX view looks much better — but much of it is fake.

Ed Parsons muses about the larger implications of the “Australian flying car” meme that propagated throught the internet over the past week.

Grasshoppermind notes the existence of digital cameras with built-in GPS, but wants to know — where are the video cameras with built-in GPS?

Austin Cot√© observes that “sometimes Google Earth is like an M. C. Escher painting”, and he posts a picture to prove it.

The BBC cites Google Earth as an example of a service that might end up diminishing our privacy while enhancing our quality of life.

Astronomers name a recently discovered earth-like exo-planet “OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb”, after this blog. (Thanks Declan!)

Content

Antarctica’s turn

Google Earth Blog points the way to a site with interesting data on the Antarctic region, packaged as a network link. You can use it to find the current position of larger icebergs, the extent of the sea ice, the location of bases, and more.

Both this site and the one for the Arctic blogged previously are linked to Polar View, a project sponsored by ESA. All this is pretty much a dress rehearsal for what’s coming: Next year is International Polar Year, and we can expect many more such outreach programs.

(One obvious item on the wishlist: Upgrading the image detail in Google Earth of the polar regions. There is plenty of raw source material, but last time I tried turning these into overlays I ran into positioning conflicts, as we are getting rather close to the poles, which are a sort of singularity in the reference system Google Earth uses.)

Uncategorized

Ogle this: 3D screen grabs

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This is precious, if geeky: Developers at Eyebeam have come up with a way of capturing 3D objects from mainstream 3D Windows applications (like Half Life and World of Warcraft) and then reusing these data objects, either in Google Earth, 3D printers, or in 3D manipulation applications like Maya. The software package that does this is called OGLE (OpenGL Extractor) and the website highlighting the technology likens the process to making a 3D screen grab.

secondlife-mid.jpgVisit the site and you’ll find a Second Life avatar transposed onto Google Earth’s Manhattan San Francisco(?), where it is playing Godzilla.

It can only be a matter of weeks (?) before somebody ports King Kong’s likeness to Google Earth’s Empire State Building as a KML file. Right?

(Oh, and somebody was wondering if there is a way of capturing objects from Google Earth’s own 3D buildings layer. The answer to that turns out to be Yes.)

(Via Make via Virtually Yours)

Opinion

G007gle Earth

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Within the space of an hour, not one but two blogworthy devices hit Ogle Earth’s radar screen: Small surreptitious GPS tracking devices whose output you can easily view in Google Earth.

worldtracker.jpgFirst up is the WorldTracker SMS. It can send news of its whereabouts as an SMS to your mobile phone, or if you make use of the company’s website tracking service (for a yearly fee), you can watch it live in Google Earth, just as you always imagined the FBI did it. Pretty hefty price, though, at $600 + subscriptions. (Via Gear Live.)

makethumb.jpgA cheaper option is the TrackStick, basically a 1GB USB memory stick with built-in GPS tracking. You can find out where it’s been just by plugging it into your computer, apparently, and you can then access the GPS data, including in Google Earth’s KML format. $300 and no additional fees, but no live tracking either. And you better hope the kids you’re trying to track don’t find it.

(Note: I haven’t used either of these, and can’t vouch for them. I am merely noting the sudden prevalence of Google Earth-friendly spying gadgets.)

Opinion

Old people love Google Earth

Hitwise Intelligence, the blog of British web marketing firm Hitwise, notices that “google earth” is rising in popularity as a search term, and goes on to provide all manner of metrics by which this is the case. Hitwise even digs up some interesting demographics:

Google Earth attracts 70% more visits from the 55+ age category than average for the internet.

Yes, old people apparently love Google Earth. (In addition to you young people, I’d hasten to add:-). And Google Earth users tend to be quite wealthy as well. Or so says Hitwise in their blog post.

One thing Hitwise doesn’t look for, however, is some good news-driven reasons for the timing of the popularity spike that they chart: An early version of Google Earth for Mac was leaked early in December, just when the term’s popularity started growing, and just two weeks ago the software came out of beta and the Mac version was officially released. All these events garnered significant coverage in web-based media, which no doubt translated into downloads.

Content

Another imagery upgrade for the UK

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The Official Google Blog announces another upgrade to the quality of the imagery available in Google Earth. Vast swathes of the UK are now at 6-inch resolution, and people are clearly visible in most cities.

Additionally, Google Local’s data is brought up to date with Google Earth’s imagery, and there are also two new zoom levels for Local.

But only for Local. The API’s imagery has not been updated, at press time. Take, for example, the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. Visit the bridge with Tagzania, and you see the old imagery. Click on the Google Local link just below that map, and you’ll see the new imagery. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and you will see a KML button for the equivalent view in Google Earth.

We’re used to it in Google Earth, but remember that when it comes to the online mapping space, Google Local is still, after almost a year, the only offering with detailed global content. Any developer using something other than the Google Local API for a collaborative mashup automatically limits herself to a US user base. (But Google is good that way — witness the extreme language customization available in Google Search, a feature used by legions of non-native English speakers.)

[Update 2006-01-25 00.11 UTC: Word is that Google Earth did not in fact get an image upgrade, The blog post announcement is merely worded ambiguously.]