Clearly I still have a lot to learn about what you can and cannot get away with in China. A few weeks ago, when Google replaced its automatic redirect of google.cn to google.com.hk with with a clickable image that functionally amounted to a manual redirect, I was convinced that this cosmetic change would not cut it as a ploy to get Chinese authorities to renew google.cn’s license to operate in China.

But in the intervening weeks, there were signs that a compromise might be reached: The existing license number appeared on google.cn, as required by Chinese law; and links appeared to three apolitical and China-facing locally hosted Google services — music, products, and translation. This way, Google (and those Chinese authorities favoring Google) could argue that google.cn was not an empty husk used to skirt Chinese law, but a functioning website providing real services, just not search anymore.

And this argument has just won the day. Face has been saved all round, the license renewal has been granted, and everybody gets a solution they can live with.

But missing conspicuously from this newly happy arrangement is any mention of the localized version of Google Maps, ditu.google.cn. It’s not linked to from google.cn, but it sure is on the same domain, and served from within China to Chinese users, on servers that need to be in compliance with Chinese law.

ditu.google.cn is, however, linked to from the mainland-China optimized google.com.hk search page that Chinese users land on when they manually redirect themselves from google.cn. (Click on the yellow button once there). If you switch to the Hong-Kong optimized version, you get a link to maps.google.com.hk instead.

The plight of ditu.google.cn has already been documented in detail here on Ogle Earth. Briefly, in May new stricter rules issued by China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping required the re-submission of all China-based internet maps for approval. The draft list of 23 approved applicants released at the end of June included no foreign companies, hence no Google, though competitor Baidu is on the list. ditu.google.cn’s future is up in the air.

There are differences between ditu.google.cn and maps.google.com.hk: The HK version lets you overlay user-generated content from Panoramio, Youtube, Wikipedia and webcams; The CN version does not, as required by Chinese law. The HK version shows the disputed border areas between China and India inside dotted lines; on the CN map it all belongs to China, as required by Chinese law. (Other changes are cosmetic — the HK version will prioritize local placenames outside China, and its buttons use traditional Chinese characters.)

Objectively, then, the HK version of Google Maps is better in every respect. The CN version of Google Maps is censored to comply with Chinese law.

But didn’t Google tell us back in January that it was “no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn”? And, surely, queries on Google Maps lead to results? By continuing to offer ditu.google.cn, Google has not yet fully implemented its decision to stop censoring in China.

Pace Jeff Jarvis, What Should Google Do?

Well, now that we know that Chinese authorities will tolerate a manual redirect to an uncensored search engine outside the great firewall, why not adopt this model for Google Maps? Kill ditu.google.cn and redirect users to a Simplified Chinese version of maps.google.com.hk (the map tiles remain the same). The HK version of Google Maps is already accessible to mainland Chinese users, just as Google.com and Google.com.hk have always been.

Or better yet, stop kowtowing to China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping and let them kill ditu.google.cn by keeping Google off their approved list. Then everybody gets their way — and Google will truly be able to say it no longer censors its China-facing services.

• ISIS Reports — Pakistan — New Satellite Image of Chashma Nuclear Site in Pakistan
  Institute for Science and International Security looks at recent 2010 imagery of new Pakistani nuclear reactors under construction.

• High Above the Earth, Satellites Track Melting Ice by Michael D. Lemonick: Yale Environment 360
  Interesting article explains how a slew of new satellites is keeping better tabs on polar ice.
• Loopt Now Lets You Download Your Location History
  Loopt now lets you download a KML file containing your 30-day location history. Which is great. Not so great is that Loopt is unavailable outside the US. For a location-based company, that's a bit unfortunate, no?
• http://zoominopuwdak.antwerpen.be/
  "Zoom in on your roof" is an interactive map provided by the city of Antwerp that lets you check the efficiency of your roof insulation. It's a wonderful neogeographical innovation, well executed, addictive and easy to use — even if you don't speak Flemish:-)
• Kurt's Weblog: Thoughts on GeoRSS Feeds
  At one point, Kurt writes: "It's too bad that in Google Earth, you can't put a GeoRSS in a Network Link." Yes it is.

Prolific neogeographer Barry Hunter at nearby.org.uk has a gripe with Google Earth’s visualization of ocean bathymetry, because it takes precedence over aerial and satellite imagery, which often would show features in shallow water. He’s even started a petition to make the 3D rendering of oceans in Google Earth optional.

A worthy cause, no doubt, but in the meantime there is a simple hack that gives back most of what Barry wants: Simply turn on the historical timeline in Google Earth, then drag the handle just a fraction into the past — bingo, the unseemly seam where imagery meets bathymetry is gone, with the most recent image tiles regaining the upper hand. Try it on Suwarrow Island from the previous post.

Sometimes the actions of a remarkable person on a remote island forever mark that place, turning it into an destination for future generations of adventurous fans. Some well-known examples are Paul Gauguin with Hiva Oa, Father Damien with Molokai, Ernest Shackleton with Elephant Island and Robert Louis Stevenson with Upolu.

Then there is the case of Tom Neale, who is less famous, though no less remarkable. In 1952, at the age of 50, he decided to cast off from society and survive by himself on an uninhabited and remote atoll in the South Pacific. He then wrote a book about his adventures — An Island to Oneself, published in 1966 — which ever since has enjoyed cult status among adventurers and lovers of the South Pacific. He ended up living on his island for a total of 16 years in three stints, up until shortly before his death in 1977.

The “island” Neale had to himself is Suwarrow atoll, atop a lone and remote seamount in the northern Cook Islands, out of the way of shipping routes. I was unaware of both Neale and Suwarrow until yesterday, when I learned that two friends are planning to drop anchor there on their sail across the Pacific. I wondered what attracted them to Suwarrow, so I googled the place. Tom Neale’s adventures immediately stood out, and brought the place to life.

Soon, I discovered that long extracts of Neale’s book are available online (part 1, part 2, part 3). Be careful, because it makes for addictive reading: I thought I’d skim it in 15 minutes, but several hours later I was still at it, rapt, and managed to finish the book today.

Neale goes into meticulous detail about what surviving on a deserted island requires, along with the mishaps that befell him, the lucky escapes, and tales of the infrequent (and often dumbfounded) visitors. But the book’s appeal transcends its narrow focus, because his life plays out a fantasy many of us have had from the safety of our cubicle offices — what would it be like to be Robinson Crusoe, for real?

No wonder my friends are headed that way, to take in, just for a day or two, Neale’s world. Rhian and Andy are sailing across the Pacific from Chile (and blogging the trip, including their harrowing account of destruction and rescue when the Chile quake tsunami hit the Juan Fernandez islands). Rhian is an Antarctic research scientist while Andy is an ex-military adventurer-climber, so their attraction to Neale’s tale of extreme self-sufficiency makes perfect sense.

Neale’s book describes his atoll very precisely — the lengths and shapes of the various islets, the location of the pier he tries to repair, his cabin, the beaches he combs for flotsam, the trees he uses for food or tools… All of it ripe for enhancement with Google Earth.

Sure enough, Google Earth delivers very high resolution imagery from several different dates: February 5 and January 13, 2009, as well as from April 5, 2005 and November 17, 2004. Each set has different strengths — for example, the 2004 imagery has the most glorious turquoise views of the reefs. On all images you can see the pier, his cabin, the beaches, even the specific trees he mentions, and you can certainly count the crowns of the palm trees.

(To scrub between these different images, zoom in on Suwarrow, turn on the historical imagery slider and drag the marker to the different dates.)

Here is a KMZ file for Google Earth pinpointing the location of Suwarrow, and adding many of the places Neale mentions. Place names were added after cross-checking with this high resolution map of Suwarrow.

Strangely, around the atoll there is a large (15km) discrepancy between Google’s place name database and the satellite imagery. (The high resolution map linked to above corresponds to the satellite imagery). Geonames.org also shows a (smaller) discrepancy, so there is definitely a need to reconcile these diverging datasets.

These days, all of Suwarrow Atoll is a national park and one of the Pacific’s most important bird breeding areas. A caretaker lives on the island during the off-cyclone season, with perhaps 50 yachts per year visiting. (You can see several boats at anchor in the 2005 imagery.) A room in Neale’s cabin has been preserved just as he left it.

It’s people and places like Neale on Suwarrow that make the world such an interesting place. It’s just up to us to get out and go find them.

• UK's The Sun sees Jesus in a field in Google Earth – again
  The Sun reports on a case of pareidolia in Google Earth, with a Jesus "sighting" in a Hungarian field. Only problem is, it reported the same "news" back in April. I can't wait for the internet to kill off this kind of old media.

Google’s problems in mainland China appear to be coming to a head these past 48 hours, with both google.cn and the China-localized Google Maps in danger of being shut down soon.

Most discussed among the pundits has been Google’s application for the renewal of the Internet Content Provider (ICP) license for Google.cn — read Google’s own announcement, and this take on the chances of it succeeding. The game may be up within hours.

Less publicized has been the uncertainty surrounding the fate of ditu.google.cn, The localized Google Maps implementation that abides by Chinese law when it comes to borders and names. For US users, the ditu.google.cn server is in Mountain View, but for Chinese users, the server is in China, as prescribed by Chinese law.

But Chinese law has more in store: Soon, only approved companies will be allowed to serve internet maps in China, and on June 28 a draft list of 23 companies up for approval was circulated (translated) — with Google missing from the list. 19 of the 23 are large state cartographic and geospatial institutions (“Land Surveying and Mapping Institute of Shandong”, “Yellow River Hydrological Bureau of Surveying and Mapping”), but four provide internet map services, of which one is Google competitor Baidu. All are Chinese.

A Reuters article quotes government sources saying that this list is not final, so Google may yet be added if it sufficiently toes some kind of line. The above list will be circulated for a week, so that interested parties can comment on it. It is not clear when these approvals will be meted out, but in the original explication of the law, December 2010 is mentioned as the date when unregistered maps will be cracked down upon and a blacklist circulated.

If in the next few days Google loses the license to operate google.cn inside China, all of this will be moot. In that case, an uncensored maps.google.com will still be available to mainland China users, and a Chinese-language uncensored version at maps.google.com.hk. Chinese authorities will then have to decide whether to start blocking access to Google Maps using their “great” firewall. If Google Maps goes, it is only reasonable to assume Google Earth will go too. The next few days will tell.