Hmm, New York City sushi, or long-form blogging? Tough choice. Not:-)

• Are you in NYC on June 26? According to the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), that’s when and where Google will be launching a new Google Earth initiative for nonprofits. Details are lacking except for the planned speakers: Jane Goodall, Kathy Bushkin Calvin (United Nations Foundation), Edward Wilson (Earthwatch), Elliot Schrage (Google) and John Hanke (Google).
• Remember Ogle Earth’s Center of Gravity calculator? Now there’s a new site up that does all that and more, Geomidpoint.com. Collect cities or specific coordinates, and then get an accurate center of gravity calculation, shown on a Google Map. There’s no KML output (yet?) but you can assign weightings to places, which makes this site worth a playful visit.
• What’s better than Google Earth on a 30-inch Apple screen? Google Earth splayed across 18 such screens, as seen at the 2007 Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference.
• One of the mooted uses of mapping for humanitarian purposes has always been distributed feedback and editing of information by experts and people in the field. CartONG now has something very much in that vein running for the UNHCR, keeping track of displaced people in Uganda. (Via Humanitarian.info)
• Josh Bancroft provides photographic evidence of a UMPC demoed at Research@Intel day running Google Earth, controlled by an accelerometer and magnetic compass. Tilt the UMPC, tilt the globe, etc…
• The OQO also runs Google Earth (Flickr image posted by GISuser.com)
• Avi Bar-Ze’ev reviews MIT Technology Review‘s recent Second Earth article. Having worked on early versions of both Google Earth and Second Life, his insights are worth reading. Note his mention of MySpace.
• For those that use the Military grid reference system and would like to do so off-line, Nearby.co.uk’s Barry Hunter provides resources and step-by-step instructions.
• The official Maps API Blog points to several new KML resources: The how-to on getting KML and GeoRSS included in geospatial Google search has been revamped, and there is a new tutorial on using PHP and MySQL to create KML.
• Google’s collaboration with the Amazon Conservation Team and Amazonian tribes to preserve the rainforest has seen a cresendo of media coverage over the past week. Here is Google Lat Long Blog‘s entry about the visit to Mountain View of Chief Almir, leader of the Surui Indian tribe.
• Mentioned better late than never: The newsfeed of the National Snow and Ice Data Center became GeoRSS savvy a few weeks ago, as was announced at ISDE5 by Lisa Ballagh.
• ESRI and Microsoft technologies get a little cozier, reports Virtual Earth for Government:
  

  Jack Dangermond announced a REST Application Program Interface (API) that will be released with ArcGIS Server 9.3 and will allow interoperability between ArcGIS and web services, notably Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. With the release of 9.3, ESRI will provide an ArcGIS JavaScript library that extends the Microsoft Virtual Earth Software Development Kit. You can use the extended SDK to mashup content from any ArcGIS 9.3 Server via the REST API for ArcGIS Server with Virtual Earth maps and imagery.

• Speaking of Microsoft Virtual Earth — a June 19 press release announces much higher-quality DEM data (elevation model) for Great Britain, courtesy of Intermap Technologies:
  

  In addition, Intermap is now aggressively mapping Europe under its NEXTMap Europe program. Data for the entire country of Germany is currently being placed in the Intermap library, and data collection for the remainder of Western Europe is scheduled for completion by the end of 2007. The continental U.S. is being mapped concurrently with the European initiative and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2008.

  Good on you. Good for us.

• Correction from a previous links post: EarthNC has had NOAA ship weather as KML available for a while.
• Free Geography Tools switches CMS and URL. (Old URL)
• The SketchUp Team gets a blog, the Official Google SketchUp Blog. Here‘s a story on how the Google 3D Warehouse plugin for Photoshop CS3 Extended came about, and here‘s a story on how to get color “underlays” for SketchUp buildings when placing them onto Google Earth.