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Why Google hired Vint Cerf

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Vint Cerf, who co-developed TCP/IP, was hired to be Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist. But what does that mean? If you hear CNET tell it, it’s because Cerf believes the location-based navigation of information is the next big thing. Or so CNET gathers from an interview they had with him back in July.

Techweb also talked to Cerf recently and they came away with the same impression:

Among Cerf’s interests today is mobile communications, both textual and through images. As a result, he’s particularly interested in Google Earth, a desktop application that provides satellite images and overlaid roadmaps for many locations in the world.

“I’m now persuaded that geographically indexed databases are going to be extremely valuable over time for people who are in mobile operations,” Cerf said.

Google should get Cerf to blog.

Process

SketchUp and Google snuggle up

3D authoring tool SketchUp is getting its very own user conference in Boulder, Colorado, Oct 5-7. Why do we care?

The session entitled Earth 101 is one of the most anticipated workshops of the conference. Experts from Google will show how SketchUp can be used with Google Earth to create buildings, bridges and other structures and then position those structures anywhere on the globe to view them in context.

Process

KML vs. GML

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RLake, who appears to be one of the developers of the original GML markup language and who blogs at Geo-Web, has written an interesting series comparing KML with GML.

In Part I – Feeding the web with Geographic Information, he wonders why KML is considered revolutionary if GML went down that same road five years ago. He concludes that it is the whole Google Earth package that is revolutionary. I’d add that a markup language for geographic data is obvious, even if it is with hindsight, and that there are only so many ways to mark up geographic data (and one best way, probably).

In Part II – GML and KML, he provides (tongue-half-in-cheek) instructions for making your own Google Earth. It all comes down to how well you style your marked-up data, and Google Earth does this better than most.

Finally, in GML and KML Syntax he compares the two markup languages in terms of their purpose and abilities. There is plenty of interesting stuff on that blog.

Reviews

Google helps discover Roman villa

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Luca Mori, an Italian systems analyst who blogs, used Google Earth Maps to rummage around his village of Sorbolo, near Parma (near Bologna). He thought he saw “anomalies.” For the duration of August he measured them, explored them, asked around, and eventually called up professional archeologists.

As they do in Italy, the archeologists had a look, only to find a previously undiscovered Roman villa! Luca has now made it to Italian television news, he writes.

All this is in Italian, but he has numerous posts over the past month detailing his search, including one with a map detailing the “anomalies”.

Bravo.

(Via Intempestiva, who first saw it on TV.)

[Update 15.44 UTC: Being in a bit of a rush earlier, I forgot to add the big picture: This is what you get when you twin deep local knowledge with democratized geographic tools. Anybody else flying over that region would have assumed there was a known local explanation for the anomaly, but it took Luca to know there wasn’t.]

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Thailand’s turn

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This is getting tedious. According to Norwegian TV, Thailand’s military has discovered Google Earth, and they don’t like what they see.

To paraphrase (not that I speak Norwegian or anything), the Thai military sees the images as a threat to national security, and is considering asking Google to censor important state buildings, but also those of tourist attractions.

The article incorrectly notes that in the US, the White House and military bases are censored. The White House and Area 51 were censored, but no longer are.

[Update 7:13 UCT: Ah here is the story in English. I’m pretty sure that net-net all this complaining is a positive for Google Earth’s popularity. Note that hackles are almost always raised by non-intelligence types — nuclear agency heads, local councilmen, politicians, military types… These are people unused to the capabilities of satellite surveillance technology. In Australia, the US and the Netherlands, intelligence officials invariably have to quell these hotheads.]

Notes on the political, social and scientific impact of networked digital maps and geospatial imagery, with a special focus on Google Earth.