Digitally Distributed Environments posts another awesome model of a London landmark for Google Earth: The London Eye.

Another tranche of imagery has been made available of the Earthquake zone in Pakistan. Kathryn Cramer has the details.

As previously speculated, Google has begun adopting the Opera model for advertising (ironically a few weeks after Opera abandons it). Says Google, “Some users will see Google ads associated with search results and some Layers.” Meanwhile Google Earth Blog notices that the Google Earth Plus version has a option for turning ads off which is nonexistent from the free version.

In line with offering the option of ad-supported browsing or an enhanced fee-based version, the changelog also notes a “Google Earth Plus network performance increase.”

ESRI might want to reconsider its position — namely, David’s Maguire’s assertion that “Basically, the plan is that if we have to pay a lot of money for data/services then we will have to pass this on to users.” How about partnering with Yahoo’s or Microsoft’s search services instead, if ESRI is not planning to enter the search market itself? ESRI could thus fund their free version by letting Yahoo or MSN run their ads in ArcGIS Explorer-initiated searches.

[Update 21.11 UTC: This post has generated an interesting thread on Spatially Adjusted.]

Once again, Kathryn Cramer has the lowdown on the latest overlays available in Google Earth in aid of rescue workers in the quake zone in Pakistan.

Kathryn Cramer reports on still further improved overlays for Pakistan’s areas affected by the quake. These overlays, also made by the Global Connections Project, are dynamic, in that the level of zoom determines their detail, to preserve bandwidth.

But she also writes engagingly on some of the local “fondness” for hill writing, and adds illustrations. Another great read.

One of the world’s largest wooden sailing ships is also the newest. The Swedish ship G√∂theborg is a replica of a ship that sailed the trade routes from Europe to Asia over 250 years ago. A few weeks ago, after sea trials, it set sail from Gothenburg on a two-year voyage that will retrace the route of its predecessor. You can read more about the G√∂theborg here, or visit its website here.

Here is what the planned route looks like:

Now Andreas Petterson has created a script that does something quite clever: It scrapes the ships’s “blogbook” for coordinates on a daily basis, which it then uses to update a network link that contains the exact route of the G√∂theborg so far. Andreas also uses the coordinates to take a daily screenshot of the position as seen in Google Earth, which he then posts online. You can get the link and see the screenshot on this page.

Washington Post: Kurds Reclaiming Prized Territory In Northern Iraq

Inside the house where Sultan is living temporarily, schematic drawings of the new subdivisions are taped to a wall next to a Google Earth satellite image of the village, printed from a friend’s computer. On a desk are files on the 200 families who plan to move into the village and a party directive titled: “Instructions Related to Building Homes for the Resettlement of IDPs,” or internally displaced people.