The first recorded use of Google Earth for satire:

(It’s a (not quite) anatomically correct rendition of Cheney shooting Whittington, at the purported site of the accident.)

From this Google Earth Community post. (Via Google Earth Blog)

The New York Institute of Technology‘s Library is adding Google Earth as an officially supported piece of software on its public computers. I wonder if that’s the start of a trend or merely the first case of self-reporting I’ve seen.

Meanwhile, Ogle Earth is GIS website of the week at Stanford University’s libraries. I only mention this (of course:-) because Ogle Earth sits atop a long list of extremely interesting resources.

What a day over on ZNO blog. They’ve just posted some of the most impressive architectural models yet for Google Earth, including the current world’s tallest building, future tallest buildings, the Millau viaduct in France, and some lovingly detailed models of Christchurch NZ landmarks. No point in writing about about it — just go take a look and stay longer than you intended.

Me, I’ll be away from the internet for a few days. If you need me, you can find me here (KMZ).

An article in Asia Times Online covers Google’s entry into the Indian marketplace, both as a moneymaking enterprise and as an employer. It quotes Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google’s vice president for Asia-Pacific and Latin America operations, thus:

“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.”

Is that a misquote, or is she signalling a further shift in the extent to which Google will hobble content in return for access to markets? What other possible interpretation is there?

Google Earth Community sysop PenguinOpus writes:

Feb 13th Updated data layers: Google Earth Community layers updated (as of Jan24th), North American Car Ferries, improved Community Showcase layers.

Zoom in close enough, and indeed, there are now ferries aplenty:

Driving directions don’t yet include ferry routes, however; Google Earth still sends you from Fire Island to Rhode Island via New York City. Volkswagen drivers beware:-)

A few days ago, Alex posted an example of giant writing to Google Sightseeing and calculated it to be 141,732 point type. Google will tell you there are 2,835 points to a meter, and Google Earth makes measuring giant writing easy (using the built-in Measure tool), so the obvious challenge presents itself: Where is the world’s largest writing? And how big is it?

Recent candidates in the news have proved disappointing. The Register’s profanity from a few days ago is a mere 15 meters tall, or 42,525 point type.

Another promising candidate was posted to Google Earth Community recently: A bored weatherman in Northern Canada is alleged to have spent two years crafting a profanity with a bulldozer. A blurred area in Google Earth was mooted to be the spot, but data from Windows Live Local showed this up to be wishful thinking.

The largest text I could find was posted soon after Google Earth’s launch, over on Google Earth Hacks:

The writing measures an astonishing 4km across and is 940m high, good for 2,664,900 point type. It’s to be found in Texas, clearly. Is this the world record?

Ogle Earth’s newsfeeds dredged up a gorgeous widget this morning, both for OS X and for Yahoo’s widget engine: Xavier M. Jubier’s solar eclipse circumstances calculator, with data for solar eclipses from 1970 to 2039.

The reason it’s mentioned here is that the widget links each each eclipse to a fully annotated Google Earth network link. You don’t need the widgets to access the Google Earth files, though. You can head on over to a page on Xavier’s site where each eclipse is directly accessible as a KMZ file. He’s also got a very good cloud cover network link at the bottom of that page.

Both widgets are downloadable from here.