A real potpourri of content here — some of it old, and listed here more for my own reference, but that is the inevitable consequence of a gorgeous summer week in Sweden and a full work agenda.

• 3G iPhone does GPS: No surprises there. Apple’s page on the GPS functionality, and Apple’s page on GPS + Google Maps. Interesting feature:
  

  If GPS is available, iPhone displays a blue GPS indicator. But if you’re inside — without a clear line of sight to a GPS satellite — iPhone finds you via Wi-Fi. If you’re not in range of a Wi-Fi hot spot, iPhone finds you using cellular towers.

  My Nokia N95 doesn’t do that. I wonder: Will Google come out with a version of the web API that also works on the iPhone’s browser?

• Kyoto sights: In the Disney news crush from last week, another layer got overlooked: In the Travel and Tourism folder of Google Earth you’ll now also find the Kyoto Tourism layer, by the Kyoto Tourism Council. Understated, but extensive.
• Earth browsing: Is there are a thaw in Earthbrowser developer Matt Giger’s frosty view of Google? First, he gets invited to present a talk at Google about his Earthbrowser, next he has kind words for the Google Earth API…;-)
• KML Validator: Galdos Systems Inc announces the free KML validator. Unlike existing KML validator Feed Validator, Galdos’s validator can handle KML 2.2, according to Galdos’s Ron Lake.
• Geoblogging Sudan: Michael Graham, of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has a new post up on World is Witness, their geoblog, this time from South Sudan.
• Google Earth web flight sim: Jim Stafford of Barnabu.co.uk comes out with a simple flight sim using the Google Earth web API. He’s also responsible for an interactive bouncing ball demo.
• Hello Earth: How to build a simple Hello Earth application with the Google Earth web API, courtesy of the new Google Geo Developers Blog.
• Flickr KML feed as a Google Earth web plugin: A simple page that loads a Flickr KML feed into an instance of Google Earth for a web browser. (See video demo.) You can easily copy the code and alter the feed URL (but get your own API key) to make your own version. This example is a nice way of learning the ropes.
• GE API Google Group: Not previously mentioned here, but there is an active Google Group that deals specifically with the Google Earth web API.
• Géoportail 3D goes Mac and Linux: The French state’s national GIS portal Géoportail gets 3D support for Mac (Safari only) and Linux (Firefox) via new plugins for the TerraExplorer technology by SkyLine Systems.
• Cities in 3D for Europe. A program to get cities to contribute their own GIS data to Google Earth has now gone multilingual, aimed at European local governments. Not just ortho photography and terrain DEMs are welcome, but 3D models as well.

  The more the merrier, of course, but the accompanying video showing the purported benefits of contributing 3D models seems to me like an mix of both wishful thinking (“Airport management and contractors, for example, would have a shared tool for more effectively providing maintenance services or coordinating deliveries” &mdash, with a static 3D model? How?) and unambitious goals (“Tourists can discover great places to stay, such as this hotel.”) I think rich contextual data is far more important to tourists than a pretty 3D model; fortunately Google is getting good at rich georeferenced data as well.

• Flash Earth no longer does Google: An Eagle-eyed reader notices that Flash Earth no longer sports the option of showing Google’s map tiles. Likely culprit is the unorthodox means by which Flash Earth uses the tiles, which no doubt contravened the TOS.
• Mobile Second Life client: A 165KB java app by Vollee does the trick. I get 2 frames per second on my Nokia N95, but there I am flying through Second House of Sweden on my mobile, chatting with the locals. As a technology demonstration, it’s impressive.

Greetings from Sweden, where everything is lagom.

By far the most mainstream news coverage of Google Earth this week was gained by Disney’s foray into modelling its amusement park properties in 3D as a default layer in Google Earth. Yawn. I think it is time we start being underwhelmed by such cases of “more of the same”, especially if we’re looking at information-poor corporate PR stunts. The models are highly detailed, yes, perhaps some of the best yet (save for the trees), but above all this launch to me serves to highlight the limits of the current technology — or rather, last year’s technology.

To wit, Google Earth’s Disney Land does not let you try the rides; Nor can you natively explore Disney’s properties with somebody else, virtually. Instead, you get a static, unpopulated representation of a theme park, devoid of any information you might actually want to use, such as where are the toilets, or what are the opening hours of this restaurant, or what is the current queueing time for this ride right now?

The new Google Earth API will go a long way to providing a 3D programmable environment, much like Second Life does, so that you could try a ride or explore with a friend far away.

Such 3D programmable environments are much more amenable to making a 3D virtual representation of a theme park actually useful. With the Google Earth API, you could build, by way of example, a service that, given which rides you want to see and how much time you have, solves the travelling salesman problem for you and then shows you the shortest route, taking into account current waiting times for rides. Now that would be innovative.

Jay Rasulo, Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts writes on the Official Google Blog:

Last May, Eric Schmidt and I met to talk about The Walt Disney Company’s focus on technology. We started to explore innovative ways we could work together to bring one of the world’s most magical destinations to Google Earth’s millions of users…

And ends with:

… we invite you to explore the Walt Disney World Resort in Google Earth. It’s the next best thing to being there.

Making a 3D model of your properties or a town in Google Earth sure is fun, but let’s be clear: It’s no longer innovative, and it is certainly not “the next best thing to being there”.

(PS. I probably would be kinder to this layer if people weren’t screaming from the rooftops about it.)

• The happiest place on Earth: The happiest place on Earth is this island, according to the BBC.
• North Korea Intel: North Korea Economy Watch‘s meticulously researched KML layer pinpointing every conceivable feature in North Korea, including the gulags, nuclear sites, military sites and elite areas, has just been updated. What’s causing a bit of a tizzy is the discovery of an island that looks remarkably like Korea:

  

  Well, it’s not an exact miniature, but it looks completely natural, and I can appreciate that if you’ve been staring at maps of Korea all day while making this layer, these kinds of similarities will pop out at you:-) Find it in the “Other Stuff” folder of the KML file. (Via DPRK Studies, via ROK Drop)

• iPhone to get GPS? GigaOm has sources giving the GPS chipset contract for the next iPhone to Broadcom, which corroborates other circumstantial evidence of a GPS-enabled iPhone: Built-in photo geotagging, and VC funding for Pelago’s Whrrl, a location-based context service for the iPhone.
• Test ad for Google Sky: This Google ad was recently spotted on Ogle Earth:-)
  
• F-Secure: Finnish internet security firm F-Secure monitors the origins of worms, spam and malware using Google Earth.
• Where 2.0 Disaster tech video: O’Reilly Radar has the video of the Disaster Tech talk at Where 2.0 by Jesse Robbins and Mikel Maron, and links through to pretty much all projects and organizations currently involved in pushing this envelope.
• Hasselblad’s Phocus: Hasselblad, makers of the drool-inducing GPS-capable 39 megapixel H3DII DSLR camera, has now gotten its own dedicated RAW image processing software. Phocus (Mac only at the moment, Windows version promised) looks superficially similar to Apple’s Aperture, and can produce KML for a photo with coordinate metadata to show it on Google Earth. (At these prices, shouldn’t it do more, such as create smart collections based on proximity searches?)

Below, some more early adopters of the Google Earth view in the Browser. No cases yet of interesting uses of the API, but any week now…

• Metropix: Metropix, the automated floor-plan-to-3D service, now also shows the results of its service via the Google Earth plugin embedded. For example.
• GIS Planning: GIS Planning Inc has added the embedded Google Earth view to a number of Google Maps sites it has developed, such as Nevada Site Search.
• Tagzania: The developers behind geobookmarking site Tagzania, currently hard at work on behind-the-scenes changes, nevertheless took the time to add the 3D embedded Google Earth view for maps of individual locations: Here’s a 2D example, and here is the 3D equivalent.

Healthy Planet, the geocharity where you can adopt a national park globally (much like you can adopt a highway in the US) has now gone into a live beta, writes Mark Mulligan of King’s College London:

The Healthy Planet guardian scheme is now online and ready for donors to adopt plots as we work on the next phase of development (projects, voting, feedback, one hectare plots, mapping and communities). A publicity drive will be carried out over the coming months building up towards a major launch at Christmas

The KML for choosing a plot in Google Earth is quite a piece of work, circumventing the lack of an API via the judicious use of network links with radio buttons and view-based refreshes, albeit at the cost of lengthy instructions. It strikes me that the Google Earth browser plugin’s API, due to be fully cross-platform by August, is just the ticket for giving this kind of project the user interface it deserves for broader adoption by non-neogeogeeks.