• The second book about Google Earth to get published is in Thai. (The first was in German.)
• James Fee points to a list of new features for ArcGIS 9.2, the upcoming upgrade to ESRI’s GIS platform that has GIS pros in the closed beta straining to stifle their evident enthusiasm. It lists support for KML, and it will do so by outsourcing the task to Safe Software’s FME 2006 engine. KML support is also listed for ArcGIS 3D Analyst, an ArcGIS Desktop extension. The latter should result in plenty of 3D cylinders popping up on Google Earth to depict all manner of data. Or one can hope:-)
• The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google may introduce an online storage service called GDrive, citing speaking notes from an analyst meeting. Says the WSJ, ‘Google is moving toward being able to “store 100% of user data,” the notes indicate, citing, “emails, Web history, pictures, bookmarks” as a few examples.’ And publicly accessible KML/KMZ files too, perhaps?

For Mac users, it doesn’t get much simpler than LoadMyTracks:

It also does Garmin Serial, Magellan, and Timex USB, downloading files as either GPX or KML. You’ll need OS X 10.4.

For some time, GoogleTouring has let you upload KML/KMZ files containing placemarks into Google Maps with their In-browser KML view web app.

Now there’s a new app on the block: Jacob Reimer over on Reimers.dk has written an ASP.NET control that makes it easier to use Google Maps in ASP.NET projects, and he shows off what it can do on this map.

What he’s made is a kind of placemark authoring tool that easily lets you import from KLM/KMZ files, but export to KML and KMZ as well. For example, take this KML file [KML] of placemarks for Swedish universities. Click on it and it will load up in Google Earth. But if you right-click on it and save it to your desktop, then you can upload it to a Google Map and edit it. Register (for free), and you can upload your KML files to a file manager, so that you can access them from anywhere later or view them on a Google Map (with a permalink you can send via email). This is great for making Google Earth placemarks accessible to those who can’t use the app for some reason.

(A weighty aside: Are we really meant to call Google’s mapping service “Google Local”? In my use of it, the maps are almost never local — neither in the sense of being of places nearby nor zoomed in all the way. At least I don’t have to call it Live Local, which is double untrue, that.)

• Lee Jackson’s Victorianlondon.org has a wondeful KMZ file up listing many of London’s historical spots, with links to mentions in contemporary texts. This should enliven both history class and English class.
• Google Earth Blog marks the spot of a major new crater found in the Sahara using Satellite imagery. The thing is, it’s so clearly a crater, I wonder if scientists haven’t come across it in the past but moved on, thinking it must already have been discovered.

  If not, we should all make ThinkLemon’s network link of known craters a fixture in Google Earth, in case we come across something improbably large and round, so we can claim it. (For example, the Africa crater database lists a smaller crater just a little to the west of it. How could anyone miss the bigger one??)

The sites that specialize in such things are betting that Microsoft’s upcoming Origami “ultra-mobile PC” (UMPC) device will sport a built-in GPS receiver. Add to this a full-fledged XP operating system and a sub-$1,000 price point, and we suddenly have some very interesting possibilities.

That’s because Tomtom’s and Garmin’s top-of-the-line GPS mapping devices for cars are currently priced at the same level, but are one-trick ponies. Origami, on the other hand, could conceivably run Google Earth, connect to both GPS and the internet, and thus duplicate Volkswagen’s announced project. There already exists software that turns Google Earth into a live position display device — it would take a small tweak to adapt this for an all-in-one GPS Windows ultra-mobile.

Of course, between the time that Origami is announced and comes to market, prices on dedicated GPS devices will have fallen further. And this post is entirely speculative. But if GPS goes mainstream in the way wifi did 5 years ago, then this market is still very much in its very earliest phases.

On August 10, 2005, Ogle Earth was tipped off that you can Google KML and KMZ files by filetype. There were 6,500 KMZ files then, Google estimated. And now, 7 month later?

59,400. Interesting to see which the top ones are:

1. Olympic venues, Google
2. Flying car, The Register
3. World’s top 500 hotels, Travel & Leisure
4. First post, Gombe Chimp blog, Jane Goodall Institute
5. Antarctica, PolarView
6. Herzog & De Meuron offices, Pointingit architecture blog
7. Schroeder the whale shark, Seeadlerpost.com
8. Yellowstone Park overlay, Spatialdatalogic
9. Ants, Antweb
10. Jesus face, arturogoga.co.nr

• Architects, on the whole, are a spatially aware bunch, so it’s not surprising that Domus, an Italian architectural magazine, will be enhancing each issue with placemarks relevant to its articles, starting with the current issue.

  Even cooler would be if each issue came with 3D models of the structures it covers, placed in context in Google Earth. I’d even consider subscribing… (Come to think of it, that’s an excellent idea for an online magazine, and it doesn’t appear to have been done before, from a cursory search.) (via Things Magazine)

• Mika Niemik wanted to monitor his X-Plane flight Simulator flights in Google Earth so he wrote a C application that takes the position data from X-Plane and turns it to a KML file. He then pointed a network link at it. “I don’t know if anyone’s done this already,” writes Mika. Not quite: Juergen Haible wrote something similar for Microsoft Flight simulator.
• A Comment in the previous post by Matt Fox led to his site containing a network link to detailed historical USGS maps going all the way back to the 1890s, mainly of California. Matt writes, “So far have over 500 maps online and adding more all the time. The topographic maps cover mainly Calfornia and Nevada right now, but I will be adding other states in the near future.”

  It’s a slick presentation of some great data, and it comes with excellent screenshots. Matt is responsible for the aeronautical sectional charts that FBOweb.com links to.