Well, I’ve found an apartment, solved internet connectivity issues with an unmetered 3G mobile internet account (Sweden is good that way), and now it’s time for the catch-up:

• Ed Parsons was at AGI2006 and he confirms news of the impending timeline for Google Earth (before ZDNet even, sorry).
• We’ve already seen how you can use EditGrid, the online spreadsheet, to produce XML and then KML. Now KaMeLwriter (get it?) lets you turn mind maps and spreadsheets into KML. It’s free, but alpha, and not exactly idiot-proof. Here is the post on Google Earth Community.
• Meanwhile, EditGrid adds charts, and of course gives them a permalink. How many hours before Valery Hronusov does something cool with charts in KML? Hmmm…. How about using the coordinates for a scatter chart and then turning that into a dynamic overlay with assorted added analytics?
• Bionic Teacher has a cool idea for using Google Earth in the classroom: Mapping out a scale model of the solar system over the local neighbourhood.
• Pages Jaunes, the private company that did a better version of GéoPortail than the official version, is now also first to market with the in-browser Adobe Shockwave-based 3D prototype for Paris and Rennes. One caveat for Intel Macs — getting the plugin to run is a hassle. Here’s how.
• Matt Giger, he of EarthBrowser, has another go at KML, and feels that it needs some kind of AJAX upgrade. What, straight to GeoWeb 2.0 in just a few years? KML is where HTML was in 1996 — these things take time. But lest Matt’s motives be questioned, he does write “I must say again that I think that Google Earth is the best earth explorer out there right now.”
• Apple iPhoto’s built-in georeferencing not being developed fast enough to your liking? Why not run Google Picasa with Codeweavers CrossOver Mac Beta? It uses Wine to run Windows apps on Intel Macs, and the beta is free (but temporary). Documenting Picasa asks an interesting question — might this be a way for Google to make the rest of Google Pack available on Mac OS X and Linux?
• DestinSharks.com has two great KML resources for boaters — US tide predictions, and the NOAA AWOIS database of wrecks and obstructions in the US.
• Geenstijl has been documenting further instances of censorship in the Netherlands’ new dataset — and they’re up to 191 comments and counting. A turn of phrase in the blog post suggests Google is doing the blurring, though it’s likely the author knows it is the Dutch state that insists on having the images censored before the aerial imaging company can release them.

  Unfortunately, a Poynter.org blogger rereporting the news reads that literally, assumes Google does indeed blur, and then writes precisely that. Yawn.

• Nemetschek’s VectorWorks for the Mac already can import SketchUp files. Now, the latest version also has “support for Google Earth KML files.” Not clear if that is for importing, exporting, or both.
• Digitally Distributed Environments‘ how-to for creating panoramas from views within Google Earth has been getting a lot of play, most recently on MetaFilter… and it is indeed a clever and original hack. But why make static panoramas when you can fly around in Google Earth, the real thing? Just one reason: the panoramas let you easily alter your viewing pitch.
• A few final press releases: 3D authoring tool maker QuadriSpace Supports Google SketchUp Files. RealViz’s VTour, ImageModeler to Create 3D Scenes for Google Earth.

Two more things of interest in this ZDNet article about AGI2006:

• Last weekend’s dataset update included 15-centimeter resolution for the first time in areas like the Netherlands and Japan, ZDNet reports.
• Microsoft Virtual Earth is getting updates — there’s people search, new bird’s eye views in the US, and drawing tools. The most illuminating information actually comes from this post on the developers’ blog. The big picture: Microsoft continues to develop mapping features in-house that Google can rely on a community of developers for. These divergent strategies continue to be clearly defined.

Oh, and I’ve just had it confirmed that there will be an updated version of Google Earth, though not necessarily in the next few hours — in other words, I won’t be staying up for it:-)

Adena over on All Points Blog points us to a ZDNet article that reports the Google Earth application is getting its timeline feature later today (Tuesday), as announced by Google Earth CTO Michael Jones at the AGI2006 conference in London. She chuckles at some of ZDNet’s shoddy reporting, but let me add a few more fact checks:

• It’s not Google Earth Pro that already has a timeline — it’s Google Earth Enterprise. I’m assuming this means both Pro and Free will be getting the timeline feature.
• The 30,000 developer figure isn’t for the Google Earth API, but for the Google Maps API.

Let’s hope ZDNet is actually correct in its reporting of the timeline feature.

Since I’m not much use at the moment, I thought I’d let Jeremy write this post:

This is Jeremy Cothran again, the sensor web developer you posted earlier (Thanks!) in the following articles:

Try this sensor web for size
Got sensor web? Put it in Google Earth

I’ve been thinking more about georss and trying to develop some additional other ad hoc community xml rss tags around this to support a basic ObsRSS (observations rss) type xml format for latest platform observations that ideally might help developers like myself in spending less time on the data input end of things. The community I’m involved in is focused on some heavyweight SOAP web services query solutions and while these will be necessary at some point probably more for archival requests, a simpler rss publication model would help towards driving us a long way using much less time and resources where latest data sharing is of most interest.

I’ve posted a straw man document and thoughts. [See also this Google Earth Community post]

Be curious to know what you think. Thanks again for the blog – I read it and gearthblog.com every other day to keep up with all the exciting new developments. Good luck with the apartment hunt :)

Cheers

Jeremy

Every other day? Unfortunately I’m in no position to think right now, but since Jeremy is already doing the posting, perhaps Ogle Earth visitors can do the commenting while I catch up on some reading?

Almost exactly three months after the last (mammoth) dataset update, Google Earth has once again gotten new data. This time, it’s the first world’s turn again — there appears to be a lot of new high resolution imagery for the US and Europe. I’m on an island, so my timing is terrible, but at least Frank hasn’t dropped the ball. He’s got the list.

For Dutch speakers, Belgeoblog estimates the Belgian data to have been from around May 2004. Francophone blog eMich does some impressive correlation of dates with specific data for Belgium.

Meanwhile Bergen, Norway, whose city council donated high resolution imagery to Google Earth, is now in glorious high resolution. It sure is a pretty place:-)

• Real Time Rome is MIT SENSEable City Lab‘s contribution to the 2006 Venice Biennale, and is due to launch in a few days. It looks very very cool, and Google is listed as a partner, though it’s not clear yet how or if Google Earth will be used as the client. Information Week has an article about the project. (And I wish I had more time for this and less for apartment hunting.)
• Linux users: Geotag your photos with Google Earth and libferris, “virtual filesystem with index and search capabilities that allows you to geotag files.” Here’s how, on Linux.com.
• Okay, a little bird told me that CBS news wasn’t necessarily first to publish its news as KML. Australia’s ABC News has also had its stories georeferenced on Earth and Maps, albeit experimentally and without publicizing it. While we’re on the topic, however, remember that third-party efforts had the BBC news georeferenced over a year ago…
• World Wind Classroom is a website dedicated to, well, using NASA World Wind in the classroom. (Via The Earth is Square)
• Brian Timoney has an interesting story from the GIS trenches, which he’s posted as a comment on All Points Blog. It begins:
  

  While it certainly would be in my best interest for GE to be ‘the next cool thing’ in IT, my sense is that it’s not going to happen anytime soon given the current licensing for its use in professional environments.

CBS news is making a concerted effort to be accessible via a number of ways and devices, now including as KML. While georeferencing news isn’t a new idea, it’s the first proper implementation by mainstream media I’ve seen. (I’m assuming the georeferencing is done properly, rather than via hit-or-miss after-the-fact geocoding, and so far it looks like it is.)

But why-oh-why stop in the home stretch — the purveyed KML file is not a network link (instead we are asked to “just add the link below” to Google Earth) and if you do click on the file, the server isn’t configured properly, so you get KML code displayed in the browser, rather than a file that the browser knows to download. This mantra about network links has been repeated far too often here and elsewhere for pro sites to still strike out like that. That’s enough sports analogies though.