Ryan Arp’s Google Earth Enterprise Blog does exactly what the title suggests: Blog Google Earth Enterprise, the version I know nothing about:-) It’s a great niche to fill. Here is Ryan’s inaugural post and mission statement. James Fee has already added the blog to Planet GeoSpatial.

What I like to know about Google Earth Enterprise: How is it different from Google Earth Pro? Specifically, how does the time browser work? (And are there other cool features like that?) How is GEE different from ESRI’s ArcGIS offerings or other competing products? (Better? Worse? At what price?) What file formats do you end up using? What hacks or third party solutions do you end up using? What’s the tech support like? How do the different bundles and components compare? Oh, and lots of eye candy please.

• SimCity aficionados are turning to Google Earth to ensure the accuracy of their creations… Sometimes you can practically taste the convergence.
• Toponymic tussle: Asia Media reports South Korea’s National Geographic Information Institute “will hand over an English-language map of Korea to Google this month with a request that the U.S. Internet company stop using Japanese terms on the map of Korea.” Other organizations will get the map as well.
• VirtualGlobes.org is a “directory to centralize the access to the various KML projects users came up with. Feel free to add a link to your KML project, KML tool, or anything at all KML or Google Earth related to the listing.”
• The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) tries out Atlas Gloves, and posts a video . It works!
• I kinda dropped the ball on Microsoft’s Photosynth, a photo georeferencing tool with a twist whose technology preview video demo is wholly impressive. Digitally Distributed Environments has a nice writeup, as does Search Engine Watch.

  I wonder if their choice of venue — St. Marks Square, an urban space — has to do with the limits of the technology. Trees and lanscapes must be more difficult, but so would photos taken of the same place over time, as new buildings are added. I suspect all of these challenges could be circumvented with some user-generated tweaking, though.

  Photosynth certainly looks like a prime candidate for inclusion in Microsoft’s upcoming 3D virtual globe — Microsoft principal researcher Rick Szeliski is quoted in the video saying “Once we can take all the world’s photos and organize them in 3D…” That definitely carries an echo Google’s mission statement.

• Google Earth for Dummies, coming in December (Via Google Earth Blog).

From drought to flood: Five weeks after the release of Geofeeder, another Flickr network link has been launched: Flickr KML Feed 1.0 by MetalToad‘s Jason Stege.

How are they different? Flickr KML Feed is extremely fast, shows more photos (up to 250 at once), and highlights the most interesting ones (as determined by Flickr users.) Geofeeder shows fewer photos, though the icon is a thumbnail of the photo. But why choose? Using both network links simultaneously works great.

The Earth is Square posts notes from a recent NASA World Wind development meeting. Kudos for being so open. Here’s a CliffsNotes version:

• The Java versions of NASA World Wind (for the Mac and Linux) appear to be delayed somewhat, with perhaps something beta-like on offer in late October, vs. September originally.

(Bummer. Why? I’m on an Intel Mac. I can and do use BootCamp to run NWW natively in XP, but that requires a restart, and keeps me from my regular desktop. Parallels Desktop lets me use Windows without rebooting, but it doesn’t yet support DirectX, which NWW requires. The upshot: I’m still not using NWW regularly.)

• Future NWW development seems to be moving to the .NET 2.0 platform, in addition to requiring DirectX. There are some concerns raised that this would narrow the installable user base, but the conclusion seems to be that it’s best to go with the newest software technologies as a way of building the best possible geobrowser.

This is a definitely a different tack from the one taken by Google Earth, where the priority for version 4.0 seems to have been to widen the user base as much as possible, with feature-equivalent versions for Windows, Mac and Linux and a focus on speed optimizations. Nor does the Windows version of GE depend on .NET, while DirectX is optional, allowing the application to be used by (many more) older computers. All this is in keeping with the notion of Google Earth as a geobrowser — just as with web browsers, the user’s choice of operating system doesn’t matter; the content is entirely platform-neutral.

I can see two reasons for this divergence in tactics. 1) When your resources are comparatively limited (as is the case for NWW), you want to get the biggest bang for your development buck, and 2) if you’re volunteering for an open source project, you want to have fun, and making NWW run on old computers isn’t perhaps all that much fun. I’d do exactly the same:-)

What isn’t clear to me, though, is how (or if) the cross-platform Java version of NWW will be feature-equivalent with the PC version. Specifically, most add-ons are Windows executable files. How will these be made usable on Macs and Linux? Will plugins work? Will Mac and Linux users be able to author add-ons?

• Finally, the exclusivity deal between Google and DigitalGlobe is discussed. The sourcing on this is getting iffy, but:
  

  [adamhill] yeah and google said that what [DigitalGlobe] said was wrong as well

  [Bull_[UK]] lol

  [adamhill] they only prohibit *commerical* use

  Which would mean that the DigitalGlobe salesman quoted in the Geowanking mailing list was misinformed.

Avi Bar-Ze’ev has his take on the relative merits of Google Earth and Nasa World Wind. And the potential threat facing both of them.

As for me, I’m off to the Proms now, so no more blogging for me today (I suspect).

Some recent content for Google Earth that I’ve enjoyed:

• Last Chance to See: Endangered species highlighted by Douglas Adams back in the 1980s — highlighted again via KML.
• A placemark collection of 80 moated castles in Germany. Useful, considering Germany is entirely in high resolution.
• This one’s just lovely (maybe because I know many of the locations): belgeoblog has come out with a big placemark collection with scans of georeferenced antique postcards of Belgium. The ones from the coast are especially interesting.

Some interesting links & news:

• Digitally Distributed Environments interviews the maker of the Canary Wharf models available in 3D Warehouse.
• NASA World Wind’s KML support is improving.
• AECnews.com reports on FreeDimension, which looks like a very original 3D design application, to be released August 7. It will support Google SketchUp, says AECnews.com.
• Adena Schutzberg at All Points Blog appears to have a DigitalGlobe representative confirming the exclusive deal between Google Earth and DigitalGlobe for web publishing of DigitalGlobe data.

Pamela at Secret Tenerife does a much more thorough job of translating the local media’s stories about the the recent aging of Google Earth’s local satellite imagery. Tidbits:

It appears that someone from Google came to the archipelago in August 2005 and one of their commercial directors reached an agreement, “free of economic exchanges”, with Grafcan for Grafcan to provide the images. Apparently, Grafcan are the first European company to obtain such an agreement.

Bernardo Pizarro, managing director of Grafcan, says that they have received a lot of complaints from users who want to see up-to-date images.

There is much more there worth reading. The most worrying aspect of her post, however, is that she points out Grafcan’s imagery is censored. Here is what the military base at Gando looks like:

This is always the danger if you accept locally generated imagery subject to national security laws. I’m betting DigitalGlobe’s imagery wasn’t censored. So maybe, if what James Fee reports is true, we can soon have it back?:-)