It’s been a busy week in Stockholm, but here is the first installment in the catch-up effort:

• VideoTrace: If you thought GeoImmersive video was cool, you’ll love VideoTrace: Draw on video footage to create 3D models of objects! (Watch the video.) By the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies at the University of Adelaide, presented at Siggraph 2007. (Thanks, Anton)
• Covert Warfare: Remember those arcade games where you would glide over enemy territory in 2.5D and try to bomb everything to oblivion while it all shoots back at you? Now you can do the same but with Google Earth imagery as the base in Covert Warfare, a game by the Spanish indie studio Clandestine Works for Windows XP and Vista. ($20, free trial.) You can even make your own levels by marking up Google Earth content. Not sure what the copyright implications are, but I’m sure we will find out:-)…

• iTag: iTag, an IPTC/XMP photo tagging tool for Windows previously noted for its Google Earth-savvy tools, has just gotten another geosavvy update: You can now do address-based searches on your previously georeferenced photos “and iTag will find geocoded photos that are nearby”.
• Caligari + Virtual Earth: Interesting: Microsoft is acquiring Caligari, developers of the 3D modeling software trueSpace, used for virtual online 3D meetings among other things. If you read Caligari CEO Roman Ormandy’s forum post, Virtual Earth is on course to turn itself into a metaverse replete with avatars. I’m just hoping this does not once again retard development for a Mac OS X of Virtual Earth 3D.
• Garmin’s Nüvifone: (how I hate intentional spelling mistakes): Everything the iPhone should have been. Only problem: It’s due Q3 2008, which is around the time that the iPhone will also be everything the iPhone should have been.
• London Google Earth Course: Noel Jenkins and Dave Holmes are doing a course in London about Google Earth on February 28, aimed at teachers. More info here.
• Muawai writes:
  

  I want to download google earth 4.2, but my country Sudan is not in the available list.What could I do?

  Yes, it’s stupid but true — Here’s why. The easiest solution: Tor. Bittorrent versions of Google Earth also will let you circumvent this limitation, or settle for Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

• Earth Point: Bill Clark’s Earth Point: Simple Excel to KML conversion.