• Notes on the talk: How to Make the Most of Maps at SXSW2006, with speakers that included Dan Catt (of geoblogger.com renown, now working at Yahoo!) and Google’s Glenn Murphy. Dan Catt has the slides for his presentation on his new Geobloggers blog (includes a free “Stupid Google Earth Hack”:-).
• Yet another addition in the sightseeing blog genre: Flyin’Globe

Geobloggers, one of the most useful and impressive social applications to come out of the initial frenzy of experimentation with mapping APIs that followed the release of Google Maps and then Earth, is no more. It all came down to time constraints, writes Dan Catt.

This leaves a big gap for those of us who quickly got used to having geotagged Flickr photos available in our field of view on Google Earth via Geobloggers’ dynamic network link. In the meantime, though, others have started to meet the demand that Dan showed was there. (Thanks Dan, BTW).

For example, you get the same functionality with the free and easy-to-use Panoramio (though it’s not for Flickr photos). Commercial photo sharing services Smugmug and Pixagogo are also both experimenting with KML feeds.

Flickr photos, in the meantime, can be searched with Flyr, a very capable search tool for geotagged Flickr photos. It returns a KML file pointing to photos that meet your search criteria. But it’s not an official Flickr service, it’s a clever hack.

Flickr doesn’t currently have a KML network link like what Geobloggers provided for Flickr photos and what Panoramio now does for its own pictures. Given that so many Flickr photos are geotagged, surely this cannot last? Or might an official solution be lacking because Flickr = Yahoo! and Google Earth ‚↠Yahoo!?

For some time now, you’ve been able to use GPS Visualizer’s online forms to create custom-made topo maps and other overlays for Google Earth. Now Adam Schneider’s upped the ante again, creating a network link that lets you configure those overlays from within Google Earth. It’s a truly nifty piece of work — encompassing a wealth of mapping sources (see list) — and deserves to be a permanent fixture on any self-respecting Places panel.

Here’s how it works. When you find a view you’d like to enhance with an overlay, you refresh GPS Visualizer’s network link. This sends your position to Adam’s server, which in turn goes and finds out which maps are available for your location, chooses the best resolution depending on your height, and returns a list of links. Each link is in fact a pre-configured query for GPS Visualizer’s API. Click one, and you are taken to a web page where your personal overlay is ready for the taking.

Besides this being a fantastic resource, I particulary enjoy the implementation. I enjoy being able to move around an area while I download different overlays of the same place. Decloupling the view from the refresh makes the process of gathering overlays a lot more responsive. Automatic view-based refresh can make a network link feel too much like an overeager butler:-)

Oh, and the maps are huge. It made my aging G4 Mac PowerBook weep (the G5 had no problems). Adam recommends using the form for older systems, where you can ask for smaller overlays.

From the Google Mars FAQ:

4. Can I see the Mars data using the Google Earth client?

Not yet, but we’re working on it. To whet your appetite, you can check out this 3-D fly-through movie of Valles Marineris made using this data.

The old pay version of Keyhole’s Earth had a Mars layer that was very popular, judging from legacy comments, and now it’s coming back. Flying over Mars is a boyhood dream of mine. Mars + network links, Mars + 3D structures, Mars + detailed imagery from Reconnaisance… I can’t wait.

• OMFG. Google Mars!
• The Daily Pioneer reports on plans by India’s government to make its own Google Earth-like application. There will be a version “strictly for the military,” and also a censored version for the public.
• ZNO blog has a model up of Casa Malaparte on Capri, “the most beautiful house in the world.” I recognized the house immediately as the centerpiece of Jean-Luc Godard’s new wave masterpiece Le Mépris, (Contempt). If you’ve seen the movie, the house is unforgettable. And yes, that’s Brigitte Bardot in the picture below. (A new mash-up genre? Notable architecture in movies in Google Earth?)

Intergraph CTO Peter Batty spoke at an event in New Zealand and gets a writeup in Stuff.co.nz. The message: Adapt to mass market rivals like Google Earth or die.

[Batty] said GIS products from established vendors now offer more than most users need. Many customers will opt for cheaper alternatives such as Google Earth and Microsoft’s MSN Virtual Earth.

I don’t see how anyone can do any kind of GIS with MSN Virtual Earth. That aside, he should instead have mentioned ESRI’s upcoming ArcGIS Explorer, but doesn’t, at least not in the article. Batty does promote the use of Google Earth, presumably as a viewer of Intergraph-produced data:

It’s also critical, he says, for Intergraph’s software to be able to slot in to free and low-cost mapping software such as Google Earth, using a “plug and play” approach.

Great, except that an exhaustive search of Intergraph’s site does not bring up one mention of Google Earth, KML or KMZ. Which means Intergraph is a laggard, not a leader, in embracing said new mass market rivals, certainly when compared to ESRI, SketchUp, Maya, Ambercore…

ESRI offering free GIS analysis tools in ArcGIS Explorer is a clever move, akin to how IBM open-sources its more basic and previous-generation technologies to prevent rivals from making money on low-end solutions. Perhaps this explains why, as the article explains, “Mr Batty sees Intergraph’s own future in developing applications for niche verticals such as defence, government and emergency services.”

The latest state of play seems to be the following, cobbled together from various local sources:

Last week, Question Hour in India’s parliament included a question on space imaging, and it prompted an oral supplementary question (procedural definition at #56) that seems to have been reported nearly verbatim here:

New Delhi, Mar 09: The government today said it has taken up with Google Earth the issue of the country’s high security areas and installations being mapped by the agency’s satellites and their pictures put on its internet site.

“Defence ministry and the Ministry of Science and Technology are in touch with the agency over the issue,” Minister of State in the PMO Prithviraj Chauhan told the Rajya Sabha while replying to supplementaries.

When asked whether the government was doing something to ban organisations that were taking high resolution pictures of the country’s secured areas, he said the question should be addressed to the defence ministry.

(“Google Earth Agency.” Has a nice ring to it. Getting closer to the CIC all the time, what with those satellites and all:-)

The government’s response to the supplementary questions was interpreted variously, depending on whom you read, but the gist of it seems to be that the government has promised to, on the one hand, draw up a list of sensitive sites it would like censored, while at the same time investigate technical solutions that could impose censorship unilaterally on the data displayed by Google Earth and Maps inside India, should Google not play along sufficiently.

The options, then, for India:

1. Get Google to blur sites on the Indian government’s list, globally.
   This would be the simplest solution technically, and also the most noxious censorshipwise. Possible coercive tactics: Prosecuting or banning Google’s Indian operations for breaking Indian law, which prohibits local GIS companies from publishing maps or imagery of India’s “sensitive” sites.
2. Get Google to blur sites at India’s request for Indian IP addresses.
   “The Chinese solution.” This should be something that Google can implement, and it might blunt resulting criticism in the west in that it wouldn’t degrade the viewing by those outside India. It might also place Google within the letter of Indian law, though absurdly so, as India’s putative enemies would now have full access to high resolution imagery whereas Indian citizens would not.
3. Blur Google’s images without Google’s consent or cooperation inside India.
   If you are China and have ironclad control on what enters and leaves your country via the internet, then you will likely have an easy time intercepting specific tiles for Google Maps (as they have unique URLs). As for Google Earth, the content stream to the client looks far more complicated to disentangle, and here is where the challenge would lie.

   But India doesn’t have filters on all its nodes to the rest of the internet, as far as I know, so this selective filtering would be impossible. A far cruder solution might be instructing all Indian servers to not honor any request for data coming from Google’s map and image servers, effectively shutting those services down for those in India.

4. Blur Google’s images without Google’s consent or cooperation, globally.
   Impossible, obviously.

(Of course, if option 1 is implemented, it will be clear to everyone precisely which sites are considered the most vulnerable by India’s intelligence establishment, and in no time at all the publicly available high resolution images of these areas will be collected and turned into overlays ready for download from places like Google Earth Community and Google Earth Hacks. These will be usable by all, inside and outside of India.)

What are Google’s options?

In the US; Google has consistently sided with the individual (its main customer) when it comes to disputes with the government. In China, however, it has decided that censored search is better than broken search, especially if it means access to a huge market. Might Google reach the same conclusion regarding mapping if India figures out a way to pull the plug on Google Earth inside India, and threatens to do so?

Google PR’s response has been:

Google takes governmental concerns about Google Earth and Google Maps very seriously. Google welcomes dialogue with governments, and we will be happy to talk to Indian authorities about any concerns they may have. (Debbie Frost, spokewoman for Google)

…which is PRese for saying nothing at all. Last month, however, this apparently of-the-cuff remark was attributed to Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google’s vice president for Asia-Pacific and Latin America operations:

“The market in India is changing rapidly,” she told the media. “More people are coming online as the infrastructure for growth expands quickly. We are making certain changes in Google Earth so that the safety and other concerns of various governments could be addressed.”

The two sentences in that quote are so disjointed that they suggest a misquote, and Google hasn’t substantiated its content further. Still, the quote remains, and perhaps she merely spoke too soon.

Google now has a presence in India, both as an employer and as a seller. Should it give in to the Indian government’s censorship demands, then the floodgates will open, and any country with a luddite government where Google wants to do business will now demand the blurring of arbitrary locations as the price of admission.