Just for my reference: Firefox GeoURL extension. If I were to tweak it so that it opens Google Earth instead of another tab when it detects geoURL metadata, then I’d be set.
(Via blue-chair.)
View KML in Google Maps
Here is something I haven’t seen before: Sightseeing site Googletouring now lets you upload existing KML or KMZ files into a Google Map, in case you have no Google Earth application handy (or use a Mac, say).
I tried it with a piece of KML I prepared earlier, a structured KML file containing the locations of all Swedish university campuses, and found that it displayed well. It doesn’t do network links, (that’d be asking too much) and there are some minor cosmetic glitches still being worked on, but it’s already a handy tool to have around.
Memo to Bill Gates
<speculation kind=”rank” insider-knowledge=”0″ motive=”thought-experiment”>
So you’re Microsoft. You’ve been painted into the corner competitively by Google when it comes to mapping. It’s apparent to everyone that the product you thought would get you out of that corner, Virtual Earth, only competes with Google Maps, and is not in the same league as Google Earth. Google Earth is the next-generation browser, it has blindsided you, and you have nothing in the pipeline that delivers the same oomph or the extensibility of Google Earth. You need to recover from this situation quickly.
Pop quiz. Do you:
A) Poach the Google employees that made Google Earth?
B) Redouble your efforts in-house and develop a world-beating scalable mapping technology from scratch without infringing anyone’s patents?
C) Buy ESRI?
Answer below the fold…
Geepster, proof of concept
Podbat reports on the work he’s been doing on Geepster. It’s not ready yet, but he’s got some examples you can look at.
What is it? Podbat eventually wants to let Geepster users import trails they’ve made with GPS-capable PocketPCs into Google Maps, and then annotate them with points of interest (which can link to photos, mp3s or video, etc.) He calls the result “geofeeds”.
While other social mapping sites already let you place, annotate and share points of interest, the core innovation with Geepster is that Podbat has devised a way of translating the raw GPS trail info on the PocketPC into XML that he can use with the Google Maps API.
And since so far anything on Google Maps has proven convertible into a Google Earth layer, I see no reason why Geepster should not also eventually be capable of letting you subscribe to a lovely KML network link containing a user’s latest geofeeds of walks or guided tours. And you wouldn’t even need the Plus version of Google Earth.
Calling Google Earth
Matt Croydon is is taking KML in some very interesting directions.
Matt’s been developing Python code for his Nokia Series 60 phone so that it can save information as KML files. By itself, that’s no big deal, but what he plans to do with it is: First, he wants to collect GPS data via a Bluetooth GPS device (or potentially from a GPS enabled phone itself), then he’ll convert it to KML; and then he’ll email it anywhere he wants as an attachment using SMTP, so that email recipients can see where you are on Google Earth.
Phone companies should love this potential new use of bandwidth, but there are some immediately useful applications. People who are lost could just send an email asking for directions. People sending photos could geotag them on the fly. You could send yourself waymarks from a hike, or reminders of the location of an interesting new bar. If other phones are also location-aware, sharing KML files between them could make it easier for their owners to meet (or evade), as the phone could calculate direction and distance.
And if instead of SMTP, a more permanent socket were opened, so that the KML file can be sent periodically to a server via FTP, say, you’d have a homebrewed GPS tracker spitting out KML ready for live viewing in Google Earth.
And you know what that means, right? It means that we can finally play Tron for real: 2 people with GPS-tracking phones, 2 handlers in front of a Google Earth, and Manhattan below 14th as the playing field.
Aprîs WaPo, le deluge?
First, there was the BBC as KML.
Then, David Burden made his code more generic, so that virtually any RSS news feed with a half-way decent dateline can populate a KMZ file.
Now, Lon has used David’s code to post a KMZ file containing all of the Washington Post’s feeds.
Who’s next? Perhaps an aggregator like Google could create a composite feed that uses David’s trick to show the 50 most important stories visible within the bounding box of the field of view, refreshed when the view stops moving.
This would go a long way towards giving local news a global reach, and hence relevance. Proximity to news would become far more important, boosting smaller local providers.
Real-time GPS tracking
I haven’t tried this, but Queenslander John Scott (AKA Ivanavitch on Google Earth Community) has built a Windows server application that reads live GPS data and outputs its as KML in real time, ready for Google Earth.
As long as you’re within internet range, then, you can plot your precise position in Google Earth. And that’s precisely what I was asking for when I sat on my wi-fi enabled SAS flight to New York a few weeks ago, wishing I could use Google Earth instead of the far less impressive on-board mapping system to follow along with the plane. All we need now is a photo of this in action by someone.
Hmm. Now that I think about it, I don’t suppose GPS units work inside a giant Faraday cage. Has anyone ever gotten a position inside a plane with a GPS unit, perhaps from a window seat? Or are planes going far too fast in any case? Maybe the solution then would be to have Scott’s server running on the plane’s computer, serving KML to the plane’s LAN from the cockpit’s GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, that’s beginning to sound far-fetched again.
(The software is “very beta”, and you need a GPS unit, obvs. Initial thread on the software is here. )