There is some excellent stuff in this post:

• Via Ogle Earth’s comments, woowoowoo‘s most excellent, must-have javascript bookmark that will send you from Google Maps to the equivalent view in Google Earth, using Barry’s Hunter’s hack. (Don’t forget to click on “Link to this page” first.)
• Richard Treves of Kokae Screencasts writes in to let us know that he’s completed his series of 10 QuickTime video tutorials for Google Earth (released under a Creative Commons licence). The most recent onces aren’t just for beginners anymore. Richard ventures into topics such as how to make clear and informative Google Earth maps. It’s a great free tutorial/primer.
• MSNBC visits University of Southern California’s GeoDec live 3D visualization and decision-making project. Think of it as a Google Earth with live security camera video painted onto it. Here is the homepage of GeoDec, which turns out to be sponsored by Google as well as Microsoft. (The MSNBC video demo requires proprietary Microsoft software — I though this was 2006? Watch this instead — wait for the wow moment in the middle of the video. More demos here.)
• eWeek writes about “ground ads”.
• Google Earth Community makes some of its feeds easier to add to Google Reader and Google Home Page.
• The Google Sightseeing site redesign looks great, BTW. And it now comes with matching widget for Mac OS X.
• “Hi Stefan, Great blog!! I’m not sure what your position is on advertising in Google Earth but we built this branded model of the Pearl Tower in Shanghai as part of our promotion of Mission: Impossible III. Hope you like it! Sam @ Hyperhappen“

Gadget blog I4U News posts screenshots and links to a video of what looks like a virtual globe application on a mobile phone. Video accessibility was spotty so I uploaded it to YouTube:

I4U speculates the images may be of Wayfinder Earth, a new service (“earth in motion”) that is set to launch 12:00 noon CET on May 2, the day after May Day in Europe. A quick WHOIS check confirms the service is by Wayfinder, a Swedish company that specializes in GPS and maps for mobile phones.

Note on the video: It shows a very smooth zoom in from afar into London, then back out and into Tokyo. The video isn’t clear enough to be sure, but it appears that there are two “levels” of mapping: One that shows a globe, and then — when you zoom in closer — a 2D map. There is no demo of a tilt view, nor can you tell if there is height information present.

Impressive, whether or not it’s made in Sweden:-)

Gorgeous:

maps.google.de

maps.google.es

maps.google.fr

maps.google.it

in addition of course to the previously released

maps.google.co.uk

Something which European Maps have which Google Earth lacks is directions for one-way streets.

After some testing, here is what appears to be the state of address search: You can get exact directions between any address in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK, from any of the new national Maps sites. For European countries with road data without a national Maps site, you can get directions to towns.

For example, here are the directions from a specific address in Bologna Italy to Antwerp, in Belgium, using the French Maps site.

The Dutch are discovering that the latest Maps and Earth dataset update for the Netherlands includes censored areas, such as of the Ministry of Defence and the headquarters of the Dutch airforce (KML). (Google Earth Blog‘s Frank Taylor noted soon after the updates on Google Earth Community that this Dutch air base was blurred.)

What’s interesting is that the imagery carries no attribution (zoom close enough, be sure to turn off place names), yet the resolution of the uncensored parts is among the highest available in Google Earth. This leads me to suspect that the data is of governmental origin — hence maybe cheap or free, but not unretouched. I wonder if Google has a policy on accepting such datasets (and if so, if it might want to articulate it) — the trade-off means it’s not a completely free lunch, and it opens the door to charges of hypocrisy by the more paranoid government ministers in India. The dataset of Bergen, Norway, which the city recently donated to Google, will likely also have censored areas if/when it is included in a future update.

At least on the Dutch maps the censored areas are clearly marked as such, instead of camouflaged (as is the case on official Swedish and Norwegian maps). This preserves trust in the maps and avoids users being lied to.

[Update 1:03 UTC: Forgot to add a proposed policy for Google: Accept datasets from governmental sources that include blurred/speckled areas if these areas still have a higher resolution than the old imagery being replaced. That might even be the case in the Netherlands.]

[Upfate 23:25 UTC: Story updated]

I’ve just spent far too much time playing with a great piece of new free intuitive software. I know it’s intuitive because all the instructions are in Japanese, and I still got it to work. I’m talking about SOLA’s 3DtoKML (beta) (good luck with the English translation), a converter program for both Windows and Mac that takes any old W3D (Shockwave), 3DS and DXF (AutoDesk) and OBJ (Wavefront) file and turns it into KML fit for Google Earth.

The software comes with a sample file of an urban Japanese setting converted to KML; as far as I am concerned, urban Japanese settings are not complete without some Godzilla action, so I found myself a W3D model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and added it using the software.

It works like a charm, though I don’t know what the situation is with colors and transparency — maybe some knowledgeable Japanese speaker will enlighten us. BTW SOLA, great trees.

This reminds me about something I wrote a few months ago, when Maya 2 Google Earth came out:

Eyebeam’s Theo Watson writes that he’s hoping for volunteers to supply a Godzilla to rampage through Japan. I’m still holding out for a King Kong on the Empire State Building, meanwhile.

Well, I’ve upheld my end of the bargain. Where is my King Kong?

PS: SOLA has also authored some cool Shockwave models you can view on this English-language page.

Remember how in The Perfect Storm Sebastian Junger writes evocatively about the sea buoys out in the Atlantic ocean and how they come to record amazing wave heights? Now you can monitor these very same buoys in near real-time in Google Earth, and much more besides.

The network link that makes this possible is the work of Jeremy Cothran at the University of South Carolina’s Advanced Solutions Group. He’s posted details on Google Earth Community. The file is a direct download here.

What I find especially nice is how if you click on a buoy’s current wave height data you are taken to a web page that shows you a historical data series. This works for any data point, in fact.

And the network link actually covers both ocean- and land-based measurement platforms across the western hemisphere. This is truly the sensor web in action, and how.

The road layer in Google Maps has been turned on in Europe: What’s covered: The European Union, minus Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovenia, Malta, plus Istanbul and Moscow [and, um, Switzerland].

Directions between towns in these areas work, including for small ones; (just beware those pesky ferry rides). Address search doesn’t, nor does directions between specific addresses.

Comparing to Yahoo!’s and Microsoft’s European map offerings, Google Maps takes a solid lead on all fronts, in terms of satellite detail, road detail, and directions.

Individual countries’ mapping services can still beat Maps when combining road maps with address search and satellite images (in Sweden, for example, take a look at the very well executed hitta.se map service), and for Europe-wide address search and directions, ViaMichelin remains the champ. But among services with an API, I’d now choose Maps again for my mashup projects in Europe.

[Update 10:47 UTC> Christian Spanring has a good point about the timing of this release.]

[Update 15:18 UTC: The collective intelligence of the web points to address search and road coverage being a little uneven still. Some cities have full coverage and address search, others are spottier.]