The Nation, “Bangkok’s independent newspaper”, reports that Thailand will offer satellite imagery of Thailand starting in February, both via CDs and via the web. The project is called Digital Thailand, the paper reports.

As for the rest of the article… Can you spot the bloopers? I can see at least three different ones.

He said the Web-based version, which is for organizations use, will have more details as it will allow users to zoom in to about one metre above the object. The CD-ROM-version, which will be distributed free to the people, will allow users to zoom in to about 15 metres above objects.

Phaisal said Digital Thailand would be similar to Google Earth service but it will be free of charge.

The service has been developed using Nasa’s Whirlwind engine, he said.

While the initiative sounds commendable, there are a few things I don’t understand: Is everybody getting a CD-ROM in the mail? wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper and more up-to-date to just deliver this via the web, even if it’s via a Maps-like application? And why are “the people” stuck with 15-meter resolution imagery? Is it really just a cost issue? A cursory check of Google Earth’s offerings in Thailand suggests that in many places it has better than 1-meter resolution. At least Google Earth will be around to keep the Digital Thailand project honest should authorities decide to censor.

Final thought: Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper and more democratic just to donate the 1-meter resolution imagery to Google (and NASA World Wind and WW2D) so that everyone can view it?

Not sure if it’s old, but it certainly is new to me. Adam Schneider’s GPS Visualizer is a web app that converts GPS data files to KML but it comes with oodles of parameters that you can set. Definitely worth checking out in case it solves your needs. (Via GPS Blog.)

For AutoCAD users, Beau Turner has posted instructions on how to turn your work into KML files, using the ExtractKML (beta) application developed by Avatech. If you visit the Avatech website, you’ll see that the application uses Google Earth in quite a nifty way: you import placemarks to indicate a place and direction, which are then used to generate the requisite KML.

Earth Contest, a game that uses Google Earth as its playing field, appears to be relaunching, replete with PRWeb press release:

For users who are interested in more advanced game play (or simply become addicted to Earth Contest) the BIG GAME, scheduled to launch at midnight January 2006, is a completely virtual world with thousands more locations to discover.

“Big prizes” are promised.

Both Kevin Drum and Walt Mossberg are still clueless as to which applications compete with which.