This thread on Google Earth Community leads to an interesting question: Does or does not Google Earth’s licensing agreement permit corporate employees to use a non-commercial version? Google’s Lrae seems to think that it does, whereas many businesses seem to have been convinced that it does not.

It all comes down to how you interpret this paragraph in the licence agreement:

This Software is for non-commercial use only and your rights in the Software are strictly limited to home, personal or recreational use only by you and not for the benefit of third parties.

I’ve always read the licencing agreement as follows: Employees can use Google Earth at work, but only for personal, recreational use… which probably implies to admins and bosses that if you’re using Google Earth at work, you must be wasting company time.

But perhaps Google’s Lrae has in mind a more mixed-use scenario for Google Earth in businesses — one that is more in line with how we use our web browsers at work every day: For consuming all manner of information, some of which is used in business decisions.

If that is the case, perhaps Google could clarify more formally, especially as NASA World Wind presents itself as an open-source alternative without such restrictions on business use.

Google Earth competitor ESRI ArcGIS Explorer is coming in June, ESRI CEO Jack Dangermond has just promised. Thus reports Directions Magazine‘s Adena Schutzberg from the 2006 ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit held in Boston over the past few days:

Dangermond did make it a point to highlight one product in particular: ArcGIS Explorer. It will be released in June, he said, and looks “exactly like” Google Earth. Dangermond quickly rescinded that bold statement and said it had the same form factor as Google Earth. “Unlike Google Earth, it can task models and analysis.” Dangermond also spoke briefly about ArcLogistics Route, Business Analyst (desktop and server), BusinessMap and data products. ArcWeb Services (some 100 layers mostly for U.S.) cost $25 million to develop. He was clearly interested in showing off ESRI’s commitment to the Web model for GIS.

• Over on AECnews.com, Randall Newton alerts us to a press release by Nemetschek North America reminding everyone that many of their VectorWorks 3D authoring applications ($1,400+, Mac & PC) can already read the SketchUp (SKP) file format natively via a plugin, thus making 3D Warehouse a resource for VectorWorks users as well. “We expect similar announcements in the coming days from other vendors,” comments Randall.

  Google buys small a company, and the company’s file format becomes the de facto standard. How history repeats itself:-)

• Or does it? The Earth is Square reported a few days ago that NASA World Wind 1.5 will get its own distinct geospatial XML, WWML — a combination of GML and World Wind-specific features. TEiS also points to the WWML spec sheet and a WWML wiki page.
• If anyone is in Denver on May 9, you can catch Brad Schell, ex-founder of @Last (or is that founder of ex-@Last) speaking at a Rockies Venture Club event. (He made SketchUp.)

I see that Digital Geography has already beaten me to it for a thorough review, so I’ll add the eye candy:

This was taken from a friend’s Nokia N70. The help section makes clear that Wayfinder Earth is free but that there are plenty of extra services you can buy for it: GPS positioning (if you have a USB GPS device) and also bitmapped maps instead of the vector-based ones. Wayfinder says that screen vector-based maps are more bandwidth intensive than bitmaps. This is not a problem on a Swedish 3G network, but might be elsewhere.

And the 3D globe you see isn’t really a true 3D earth in all its glory. Zoom in closer and you get 2D TeleAtlas maps. Still, it’s a very nice effect, and it impresses people when you show it to them, even the techies:-)

Finally, I was really impressed with the search. The database found obscure East vilage (NYC) bookstores and returned details including phone numbers in no time. Same for Sweden, and I’m guessing a whole host of other countries. The maps themselves are chockablock with points of interest.

Wayfinder Earth beta is out. It uses maps by TeleAtlas, which also powers MapQuest and Tomtom. Currently only Nokia models are supported. Sony Ericsson support is promised in two weeks, Microsoft Smartphones in a month, with Blackberry and Java phone support to follow. (No eyecandy, unfortunately. Anybody have a newish Nokia phone to try this out on and report back?)

The recipe for this post contains three ingredients:

• In Switzerland, anyone who wants to put up a new building first has to erect poles at the edges of the proposed construction, indicating the correct size and height, so that neighbors can check for undue obstruction of their view or whether development codes are being broken. It’s a kind of SketchUp Unplugged; on a typical day in a Swiss town you’ll see scores of these future buildings, leaving it to us to color in the transparent walls with our imagination.
• This KMZ file published by the local Stockholm government shows the exact locations of the 20,000 new homes it is building to alleviate a chronic housing shortage here. (Via the ever eagle-eyed Erik Stattin.)
• James Fee asks, who cares about SketchUp? He argues that for GIS pros, the lack of analytical tools in Google Earth means that SketchUp objects placed in Google can’t be anything more than eyecandy.

All this got me thinking. Google Earth is a geobrowser, the first of a new breed of display tools for geographic content, akin to how web browsers display web content. And just as web browsers have come to incorporate client-side programming (Javascript, mainly), we can assume that Google Earth will do the same — SketchUp already comes with Ruby scripting built in, so it’s not outrageous to presuppose that one day soon, objects in Google Earth can be made to interact autonomously, or react to GIS layers. (I would love to get this Space Odyssey space station to rotate.)

Practically, this could lead to the following kind of useful tool: First, imagine a special “3D Warehouse”, just like Google’s but maintained by a local planning authority, containing all the proposed construction in the region. The network link published by this database to Google Earth shows at a minimum the height and extent of every proposed building, accurately georeferenced, or even highly detailed CAD objects for some projects.

Then, imagine being able to mark off regions Google Earth as watch areas. If anything new pops up in the vicinity, you get an alert. You could mark out the line of sight of the view of the sea from your house, for example.

What happens next? If new construction is proposed near you, the network link will have it, and Google Earth will automatically alert you. You can then check it out virtually — and if it worries you, click through to find out more from local records.

This doesn’t necessarily have to happen in Google Earth. There is no reason why future versions of my newsreader couldn’t have proximity alerts for GeoRSS-enabled feeds, just as it now has alerts for specific words. But it would sure be a lot more intuitive in Google Earth.

Two great tutorial resources for SketchUp — not to be missed:

• Over 30 SketchUp 5 screencast tutorials, for beginners to intermediate users.
• SketchUcation, “By SketchUp enthusiasts, for SketchUp enthusiasts”, Presents tutorial screencasts in blog-like form. These cover advanced topics as well.

(Via this SketchUp Pro forum post)