• Pachube: This has the makings of something brilliant. Make Blog points to Pachube, a geo-savvy aggregator and browser of sensor data to which you can add your own data streams or use others’ as input for your own projects. The sensor web’s domain even includes virtual worlds like Second Life. Do read the about page for much more info. With a compatible Arduino sensor device costing around US$35 these days, I may have to put up a decibel meter outside my apartment in Cairo:-)
• Web Google Earth for Dokuwiki: Dokuwiki is a wiki app for the web “aimed at small companies’ documentation needs” with a “simple but powerul syntax” that can be extended by plugins. One such plugin, by Chris Smith, lets you add Google Maps instances to your wiki. Martin Meggle-Freund of Munich has noticed that with the release of the Google Earth API extension to Google Maps, you can now change the type parameter to “Earth” to get browser based Google Earth instances. He makes good use of it on his kmlwiki.net site, where anyone can add, annotate and edit maps and 3D views. Edit a page and look at the markup code to see how easy it is.
• PDF to KML: Tech-savvy phylogenist Roderic Page over at iPhylo does the sort of thing that one day, in a far-off fully semantic future, we will look back at and chuckle: Extracting location data from a PDF and returning it as a KML file.
• Doppler does GeoNames: The first and last place I look when I really, really have to find an obscure placename’s location is not Google but GeoNames. Now trip planning aggregator Dopplr has begun using GeoNames data, which is available to all under a Creative Commons License, so now I can start visiting really out-of-the-way places:-) (And their integration with Yahoo!’s FireEagle makes a lot of sense. I only really want to update my trip plans once, and everybody else should just talk amongst themselves.)
• New (old) blog: Henri Willox, who often used to find and post great new neogeo content on his Blogue du LFG (Guadalajara, Mexico) before disappearing, has popped up again, this time in Conakry, Guinea, with a new blog: Le Technoblog du LAC. Update your newsreaders (if you understand French).
• Google Earth spam alert: Some of the Google Adsense ads on this blog and others are weird: They advertise Google Earth but aren’t from Google. I used to think the game was to attract surfers via cheap cost-per-click adwords, only to show them a website with ads for high cost-per-click adwords, and then pocket the difference. But Joe Wein comes across a new reason for these ads: some lead to sites that sell “subscriptions” for what is actually a free product to gullible and unaware surfers.
• Solar KML layer, anyone? Dean Ervik, manager of renewable energy projects at Australia’s EcoWorld, is looking for a KML layer that can show “global (or Australian) solar irradiation or radiation onto the Earth’s surface that may or may not be animated across a year (or uses an ephemeris).” If such a layer does not exist, he’d be up for paying a KML developer to make one. I think there are some interesting visualization opportunities here. Contact details on ecoworld.com.au.
• Tom Tom has Nav app for iPhone: MacNN has a spokesman for Tom Tom confirming that the company has a prototype GPS navigation program running for the iPhone, and that he does not think Apple’s iPhone SDK’s terms of use prohibit such an application… but he isn’t sure. You’d think they’d contact Apple and find out:-)
• JSKML: JSKML “is a simple translator to translate KML input into the JSKML format or an identical format in JSON notation if that is what you need.” Because sometimes, you need to access content in a KML file via javascript. By EarthBrowser’s Matt Giger.
• Kenya roads: Google’s Ed Parsons points us to news that the results of the Google-sponsored Kenya mapping project are now available on Google Maps. The road- and point-of-interest mapping project was completed by seven local university students, together with a team from India, presumably the one that is responsible for a similar project in India.

  Given that such technology has the potential to transform the well-being of locals not previously privy to free online and mobile maps, I hope Google open-sources the data, so that other valuable group mapping projects, such as Tracks4Africa and OpenStreetMap.org, don’t end up duplicating efforts, and so that the data gets the widest possible exposure. After all, Tracks4Africa is in Google Earth; why not return the favor? (Currently, the new Kenya road layer is not yet in Google Earth — when it is, we’ll be able to compare them.)

• Google Maps in Second Life: Second Life developers Daden Limited have played with Google Maps before… but now they’ve taken advantage of a relatively new feature in Second Life to create a intriguing collective map viewing tool. In Second Life you can now use a website as a texture for an item such as a screen; Daden have created a Google Maps page controlled via the API, and then linked controls in Second Life to the map via the API to change the map view. Everyone nearby sees the same map, to which you can add geoRSS feeds. One featured suggested use is a quiz game, where contestants have to be the first to identify the landmark in the zoomed-in satellite imagery. That could become addictive. (Via Not Possible IRL, which (mistakenly) ascribes the above to the Google Earth API.)

Microsoft has come out with Deep Zoom, a method that uses the Silverlight 2 plugin for navigating around large online images. Deep Zoom uses the same technique as that used in online maps and virtual globes — showing a hierarchy of ever-more detailed imagery tiles as you zoom in. Hard Rock Café has an early example of the technology in action.

And to prove the point about the similarity with maps, Deep Earth uses Microsoft’s own map tiles to create a Deep Zoom version of Virtual Earth. What’s the difference between the two? Virtual Earth doesn’t really zoom smoothly but does wrap around, Deep Zoom zooms but doesn’t wrap around (at least not in the examples given).

The London-based Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) has had a similar tool for a while, except that this is a Java application that uses the Google Maps API: The Google Maps Image Cutter. It’s main advantage over Deep Zoom is that this application lets you make your own instances of zoomable gigapixel images. (I haven’t yet seen a tool that lets you create and publish your own Silverlight-powered gigapixel imagery.) [Update: There is a tool for creating Deep Zoom images, see comments.] The main disadvantage is that it doesn’t zoom smoothly — instead, you have to step between discrete zoom levels. And once you’ve zoomed smoothly, there isn’t really any going back.

It makes a lot of sense to publish gigapixel images to the web with a technology that only downloads the bits you’re actually zooming in on. (Zoomify is another example.) But what about 360-degree panorama images? These wrap around, just like an imagery dataset for a virtual globe. Here too, CASA has come to the rescue, with PhotoOverlay Creator, which produces KML that lets you explore a 360-degree panorama in Google Earth. This java app also uses a pyramidal hierarchy of tiles.

There are several ways of publishing panorama images on the web using Flash, such as Flash Panorama Player and Lucid. But such tools have lacked support for the piecemeal loading of high-resolution panoramas. One solution has been to become a member of and upload your panoramas to a site like Gigapan which uses server-side processing to deliver up the imagery piecemeal. But for DIY types, there is now also a relatively new Flash-based panorama publisher on the market that does provide multi-resolution tiling: KRPano. Expect to see a lot more development in this space.

So now we have scalable online viewers for both Euclidian and elliptic large imagery datasets. But where is the viewer for hyperbolic imagery? :-)

Three innovative ways to navigate virtual globes:

• Cheap 3D LCD monitor: That was quicker than I thought: The Hyundai W220S, a sub-$1000 LCD screen that goes 3D of you wear polarized glassed. Engadget reports that it comes bundled with “Google Earth 3D”. I can actually afford one of these! (Though it doesn’t fit in my backpack.) I wonder if such screens will make better gamers of people — that will be the true test of their usefulness.
• Multitouch 3D Wall: Take the Java version of NASA World Wind, add a 2m x 2.5m multi-touch wall and anaglyph mode, and voila, a soon-to be open-source multitouch 3D virtual globe, courtesy of the Institute for Geoinformatics Münster.
  
  Is this the first case of 3D and multitouch simultaneously? (Via LBird)
• NeuScreen: Yet another experiment involving the Nokia N95 — in this case it is made to read two penlights to add multitouch interaction to the screen, including for 3D objects. (Impressive, but isn’t it easier to just buy an iPhone? It reminds me of the sword fighter that Indiana Jones shoots with a gun:-)
  

The Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog reports that national broadcasting behemoth China Central Television (CCTV) is using Virtual Earth to show off the locations of the Euro2008 stadiums in Switzerland and Austria, and is planning to use the same tool for the Olympics in China. The sites are in Chinese, aimed at a Chinese audience. Two things of note:

• For some strange reason, the controls are identical to those of Google Maps, although the maps are Microsoft’s.
• The implementation uses Microsoft’s non-censored, non-Chinese map database, and it has a button to show the full set of glorious high resolution satellite imagery, including of China. (Microsoft’s Chinese Virtual Earth doesn’t do satellite imagery at all, and neither does Chinese Google Maps). Once you’re zoomed in on an Austrian stadium, there is nothing keeping you from heading on over to China and zooming in on your house or keeping tabs on the People’s Army.

In other words, the Chinese state’s own broadcasting organization thinks that the state-mandated censorship of maps is useless and in need of circumventing. This example also illustrates the ease with which such circumventing can be achieved, and the long-term futility of restricting access to mapping tools from behind the Chinese firewall.

Electronista goes rummaging through the license agreement of iPhone’s SDK and comes up with this clause restricting allowed uses of the included location-based APIs:

Applications [that use location-based APIs] may not be designed or marketed for real time route guidance; automatic or autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft, or other mechanical devices; dispatch or fleet management; or emergency or life-saving purposes.

The blog then goes on to speculate that this may be a way for Apple to prevent rivals from building navigation software for the iPhone.

That clause sounded very familiar, however. In fact, it is nearly equivalent to a clause in the Google Earth license agreement and the Google Maps API terms of service:

You may not use the Service with any products, systems, or applications installed or otherwise connected to or in communication with vehicles for or in connection with: (a) real time route guidance (including without limitation, turn-by-turn route guidance and other routing that is enabled through the use of a sensor); (b) any systems or functions for automatic or autonomous control of vehicle behavior; or (c) dispatch, fleet management or similar applications.

Their similarity prompted me to suspect that perhaps there is a regulatory cause for such clauses, rather than an attempt to stifle competition (which frankly, makes no sense, not for Google and certainly not for Apple, which is invested in making the platform a success. It would as nonsensical as prohibiting video editing applications on Mac OS X to protect Final Cut Pro.)

After some asking around, however, it’s been suggested that there are two other reasons why a clause restricting the use of mapping tools might find itself in a license agreement:

• Liability protection: There is no need for government regulations preventing unsafe use of a tool when lawyers are all too happy to punish corporate “enablers” of such uses via lawsuits. Hence a ban on uses that may put you or others in harm’s way.
• Licensing issues: iPhone’s built-in map tools use Google Maps tiles built with data from third party providers. It’s a standing assumption in the GIS world that such data is cheaper to license by Google et al. if it does not end up repurposed to compete with professional tools.

Of those two mooted reasons, I prefer the first, because the iPhone is a platform, not a dataset. Location-based iPhone networking application Loopt, demoed at the launch of the new iPhone, uses Microsoft Virtual Earth data, and surely that map is not governed by the Google Maps terms of use.

In sum, Apple doesn’t want to get sued for people with iPhones doing dumb, dangerous or daring things, such as flying one’s ultralight using an iPhone autopilot. (I’d really like to see somebody try that, though:-)

A real potpourri of content here — some of it old, and listed here more for my own reference, but that is the inevitable consequence of a gorgeous summer week in Sweden and a full work agenda.

• 3G iPhone does GPS: No surprises there. Apple’s page on the GPS functionality, and Apple’s page on GPS + Google Maps. Interesting feature:
  

  If GPS is available, iPhone displays a blue GPS indicator. But if you’re inside — without a clear line of sight to a GPS satellite — iPhone finds you via Wi-Fi. If you’re not in range of a Wi-Fi hot spot, iPhone finds you using cellular towers.

  My Nokia N95 doesn’t do that. I wonder: Will Google come out with a version of the web API that also works on the iPhone’s browser?

• Kyoto sights: In the Disney news crush from last week, another layer got overlooked: In the Travel and Tourism folder of Google Earth you’ll now also find the Kyoto Tourism layer, by the Kyoto Tourism Council. Understated, but extensive.
• Earth browsing: Is there are a thaw in Earthbrowser developer Matt Giger’s frosty view of Google? First, he gets invited to present a talk at Google about his Earthbrowser, next he has kind words for the Google Earth API…;-)
• KML Validator: Galdos Systems Inc announces the free KML validator. Unlike existing KML validator Feed Validator, Galdos’s validator can handle KML 2.2, according to Galdos’s Ron Lake.
• Geoblogging Sudan: Michael Graham, of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has a new post up on World is Witness, their geoblog, this time from South Sudan.
• Google Earth web flight sim: Jim Stafford of Barnabu.co.uk comes out with a simple flight sim using the Google Earth web API. He’s also responsible for an interactive bouncing ball demo.
• Hello Earth: How to build a simple Hello Earth application with the Google Earth web API, courtesy of the new Google Geo Developers Blog.
• Flickr KML feed as a Google Earth web plugin: A simple page that loads a Flickr KML feed into an instance of Google Earth for a web browser. (See video demo.) You can easily copy the code and alter the feed URL (but get your own API key) to make your own version. This example is a nice way of learning the ropes.
• GE API Google Group: Not previously mentioned here, but there is an active Google Group that deals specifically with the Google Earth web API.
• Géoportail 3D goes Mac and Linux: The French state’s national GIS portal Géoportail gets 3D support for Mac (Safari only) and Linux (Firefox) via new plugins for the TerraExplorer technology by SkyLine Systems.
• Cities in 3D for Europe. A program to get cities to contribute their own GIS data to Google Earth has now gone multilingual, aimed at European local governments. Not just ortho photography and terrain DEMs are welcome, but 3D models as well.

  The more the merrier, of course, but the accompanying video showing the purported benefits of contributing 3D models seems to me like an mix of both wishful thinking (“Airport management and contractors, for example, would have a shared tool for more effectively providing maintenance services or coordinating deliveries” &mdash, with a static 3D model? How?) and unambitious goals (“Tourists can discover great places to stay, such as this hotel.”) I think rich contextual data is far more important to tourists than a pretty 3D model; fortunately Google is getting good at rich georeferenced data as well.

• Flash Earth no longer does Google: An Eagle-eyed reader notices that Flash Earth no longer sports the option of showing Google’s map tiles. Likely culprit is the unorthodox means by which Flash Earth uses the tiles, which no doubt contravened the TOS.
• Mobile Second Life client: A 165KB java app by Vollee does the trick. I get 2 frames per second on my Nokia N95, but there I am flying through Second House of Sweden on my mobile, chatting with the locals. As a technology demonstration, it’s impressive.

Greetings from Sweden, where everything is lagom.

By far the most mainstream news coverage of Google Earth this week was gained by Disney’s foray into modelling its amusement park properties in 3D as a default layer in Google Earth. Yawn. I think it is time we start being underwhelmed by such cases of “more of the same”, especially if we’re looking at information-poor corporate PR stunts. The models are highly detailed, yes, perhaps some of the best yet (save for the trees), but above all this launch to me serves to highlight the limits of the current technology — or rather, last year’s technology.

To wit, Google Earth’s Disney Land does not let you try the rides; Nor can you natively explore Disney’s properties with somebody else, virtually. Instead, you get a static, unpopulated representation of a theme park, devoid of any information you might actually want to use, such as where are the toilets, or what are the opening hours of this restaurant, or what is the current queueing time for this ride right now?

The new Google Earth API will go a long way to providing a 3D programmable environment, much like Second Life does, so that you could try a ride or explore with a friend far away.

Such 3D programmable environments are much more amenable to making a 3D virtual representation of a theme park actually useful. With the Google Earth API, you could build, by way of example, a service that, given which rides you want to see and how much time you have, solves the travelling salesman problem for you and then shows you the shortest route, taking into account current waiting times for rides. Now that would be innovative.

Jay Rasulo, Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts writes on the Official Google Blog:

Last May, Eric Schmidt and I met to talk about The Walt Disney Company’s focus on technology. We started to explore innovative ways we could work together to bring one of the world’s most magical destinations to Google Earth’s millions of users…

And ends with:

… we invite you to explore the Walt Disney World Resort in Google Earth. It’s the next best thing to being there.

Making a 3D model of your properties or a town in Google Earth sure is fun, but let’s be clear: It’s no longer innovative, and it is certainly not “the next best thing to being there”.

(PS. I probably would be kinder to this layer if people weren’t screaming from the rooftops about it.)