• Active GPX Route Player: From the makers of 3D Route Builder (blogged here) comes Active GPX Route Player (free beta), a “media player” for GPS tracks billed thus:
  

  Simple to use yet endlessly customizable, any number of routes can be played back at the same time. Adjust time, speed scale, viewing behavior, track and icon appearance and watch progress against an altitude profile. Every turn, acceleration and stop is faithfully recreated.

  Developer Nick Kopp writes:

  You can load in up to 50 GPS data tracks and play them all back at the same time, synched or true time. You can get location against altitude profiles and of course in Google Earth… With more people now making GPS recordings and permanent recorders like TrackStick around we thought it about time to make a player that’s as easy to use as an MP3 player application.

• GeoSMS demo at TED: I’ve been reading every word of Ethan Zuckerman’s heroic blogging effort at TED 2008. Can’t wait for the videos. But one cool neogeo demonstration happened off the stage, showing how an SMS messaging service can be used to report and aggregate live location-based information of the kind that can be crucial in an epidemic. Daniel Cazzulino explains all on his blog. It’s part of InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster), which you may remember recently got one of the first grants from Google.org.
• Attention heatmaps: Barry Hunter scours the usage statistics of his many Google Maps and Earth-based tools on nearby.org.uk and turns them into wonderful attention heatmaps. Where in Great Britain are people searching? And Where in the world are people looking? part 1 and part 2.
• Mac geotip: Import a photo into Aperture 2 for Mac that has coordinate data in its EXIF metadata, and you’ll find a link to the location in Google Maps in the Metadata menu.

  

  That’s it though, which is pretty meager for an otherwise powerful application. (It’s exactly the same feature that’s available in the Preview application for OS X.) Let’s hope developers create some nifty geotagging solution using the application’s new plugin system — I’d definitely buy that. Currently, the way I georeference photos is by either doing so before I import them into Aperture (straight onto the connected camera’s memory card using Geotagger (free) or GPS Photo Linker (free)), or else do it on upon export to Flickr with the cool geotagging feature in FlickrExport ($). But do also check out HoudahGeo ($) for some extra features, PhotoInfo (free), LoadMyTracks (free) and HoudahGPS (free).

• NOAA Gulf of Mexico Marine Debris: Virgil Zetterlind at EarthNC writes:
  

  I’ve just posted a new Google Earth layer for EarthNC Online based on the NOAA Gulf of Mexico Marine Debris program. The recency of the data (2006 and newer) and modern collection methods make this particularly interesting. The inclusion of size (length, width, height) measurements, besides the obligatory depth information makes it especially relevant to divers/fishermen looking to find ‘undiscovered’ fish habitats.

  There’s a free sample of the map to try out.

• GEMMO: Mickey’s Google Earth-based multi-user game is now in public beta. Head on over to Google Earth Hacks for more.
• Primer on maps in India: More for my own future reference, this article makes a deft mockery of how the Indian government currently processes imported magazines containing maps of which it does not approve. A great quick read. No wonder online maps like Google Earth bother India’s bureaucrats so.

You’ve seen the video presentation of Microsoft WorldWide Telescope at TED. Some thoughts:

Google Earth and Google Sky, great as they are, do have room for improvement, so it is good to see Microsoft exploiting some of these shortcomings to provide what looks set to be a truly competitive product. What are these shortcomings? I can think of a few:

• Limited touring function: It is impossible to build a presentation using Google Earth/Sky where you narrate a voice tour of of the Earth or sky, lingering at some places while zipping past others, zooming in and out, turning layers on and off at particular points in your talk… Instead Google Earth only lets you to show each placemark for a set time, or else follow a path at a specific speed, or else let the user click from placemark to placemark manually. WorldWide Telescope seems (from the TED talk) to have a very nifty presentation/storytelling tool — one that I hope gets put to use on Earthly virtual globes as well.
• Google Earth Hack: Google Sky is a really cool hack, but it is still a hack piggybacking on the Google Earth engine. Put a placemark on New York City in Google Earth, and you’ll see it floating between Gemini and Auriga in Google Sky. And Google Sky suffers from a polar projection that is primed for mapping globes: The polar regions in Google Sky can’t show data due to this quirk.

  

  (This is also a problem for Google Earth, except that on Earth there are not that many Google users living at the poles to complain.) These kinds of problems can be avoided by a dedicated application like WWT, which can additionally provide cool features like telescope control.

• Mediocre UI: Let’s face it, Google Earth’s UI, with its directory-style Layers and Places panes and 90s-style placemark popups with basic HTML, may be familiar but is not exactly modern. Collect even a modest amount of KML and you need to scroll through acres of it in the Places pane — that’s not scalable, and hence not very usable. All this is fine when you don’t have anything else to compare it to, but do if you have a minute check out how Apple’s newly released Aperture 2 photo management software deals with potential information overload: Contents of folders/projects/collections are displayed in a separate hide-able window pane, where it can never overwhelm the main Projects pane. And the tools… mmm deliciously minimalist especially in full-screen mode. Imagine my surprise, then to see a very similar esthetic in Microsoft’s WWT when the metadata loop tool is shown in the TED presentation. I never thought I’d be congratulating Microsoft for their UI, but that looks promising!

Now that that’s out of the way… There is nevertheless something ironic about Microsoft coming out with a standalone Windows-only application for the sky while it has a (partly OS-neutral) browser-based application for Earth. Since it makes no sense to look at the sky obliquely (whereas it does make sense to want to look at the horizon in Google Earth), the sky is really better suited for a 2D solution, and that is something web-based apps excel at. When you switch from Google Earth to Google Sky, for example, you lose the tilting functionality you get with the Earth because there is no use for it when looking at the sky. In this specific sense, Google Earth’s engine is overkill for a sky viewer, and it is also why a website like sky-map.org continues to be competitive.

Microsoft WWT and Google Sky, however, do offer smooth zooming in and out, avoiding the discrete zoom levels you see with current web-based mapping tile solutions. This smooth zooming is one thing that WWT does not innovate at compared to Google Sky, though most of the gasps at TED and in this frustrating Microsoft teaser video seem to have been elicited from such zooms by people who have never seen Google Sky.

Sorry, to get to my point: I’d prefer to have seen Microsoft add smooth zooming to a 2D web app and turn it into a true universal skybrowser rather than once again serve Windows users only via a standalone app — and we know it’s possible; look at the zooming in the web-based Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D. Failing that, I wonder if WWT will support KML as a way of sharing content, so that non-Windows users can at least view such content in Google Sky. (Of course, even better would have been standalone versions of WWT for Mac and Linux, and the opportunities that entails for building super-smooth UI elements and tools.) Google made Mac and Linux versions of Google Earth/Sky not (just) because it is nice — the move guaranteed the adoption of KML as a universal standard and massive mind share among trendsetting geeks.

In the end, I think the biggest uptake will come for the application that makes it the easiest for users to add, annotate and share content. In the past, this has been Google’s undisputed turf, but Microsoft WWT’s presentation/storytelling feature may well turn the tables. We’ll find out when WorldWide Telescope is released, “this spring” — which meanwhile gives Google ample time to shore up Google Sky.

Seero‘s David Rothschild writes

Thanks for giving the site a look. We would be glad to extend 50 invites to Ogle Earth readers. On the sign-up form, just have your users enter ‘Ogle Earth’ under the ‘What is the meaning of life’ field. When we review the sign-ups we will be sure to let the first 50 with that in the field through to the site.

Remember, Seero lets you use the webcam on your laptop to broadcast live to the web. Add a GPS unit, and you can show your location live on the web as you broadcast. You can also upload and publish pre-made videos, and you can also manually georeference videos. So have a play. Perviously David wrote that

Our goal is to shake the foundations of how you see video with a platform that promotes exploration and geographical awareness. All of our content is scripted into KML and integrates with Google Earth to allow for users to navigate live and on-demand broadcasters.

I haven’t yet found the KML link for my account, but that can’t be long in coming if KML is in the foundations of their content management system.

• Seero: Seero lets you publish live georeferenced video from your GPS-enabled laptop to the web. Currently in a closed beta. The holy grail, as I see it: Being able to publish live georeferenced video to the web from a GPS-enabled mobile phone, sort of what you can do now with Qik or Sweden-based Bambuser, but with live location tracking added. Looks like development in this space is reaching warp speed.
• NASA’s 3D Moon: New Scientist reports on the a new 3D map of the Moon’s south pole, made from highly accurate Earth-based radar observations with a view to setting up a permanent base there. It comes with plenty of YouTube eye candy. Any chance we civilians can cavort there soon, albeit virtually? (Via Gizmodo)
• Top level domains as KML: Matthew Zook at the University of Kentucky’s Department of Geography brings us TLDs, visualized and linked as KML:

  

• WordPress to KML update: Andrew Turner’s GeoPress plugin for WordPress, which lets you give posts coordinates and then view them as KML, gets an update to version 2.4.1, adding KML 2.2 compatibility.
• Live orbiting frog satellites as KML: Tracking satellites from scraped data was an early use of KML, but such applications have not usually been long-lived as they require server-side resources. Now Orbiting Frog, which last week brought us a cool Google Sky layer, has a very nice implementation running: The 100 brightest objects, live, the International Space Station with upcoming flight path and horizon, and a network link you can play around with yourself that lets you get detailed info for any satellite.
• Google Outreach Spreadsheet Mapper: Google Outreach’s Spreadsheet Mapper let’s you separate style from content in a way that makes managing a large collection of KML placemarks into a true pleasure. I worked with a beta for a human rights project that is underway, and can testify that it gives you a whole new level of control over the way placemarks look. (I’m late in reporting this, but it is well worth an investigation.)
• International Journal Of Digital Earth: The inaugural issue is out now and it is free, available as HTML and PDF. What’s it about? “The International Journal of Digital Earth, as the official publication of the International Society for Digital Earth, aims to provide a predominant academic forum for people to exchange ideas, to carry out research and to discuss development problems. The Journal focuses not only on the theory and technology related to research on digital earth, but also on the many applications of relevance to society.” (Via The Earth is Square)
• KML tutorial on YouTube: Quick and Dirty KML with Mano and Pamela, Googlers: Creating simple KML in Google Earth, placemarks in Google Maps, and finally, on using Google Outreach’s Spreadsheet Mapper.
• South China Sea Project: Cool new science KML, highlighted on Google Lat-Long Blog. Plenty more where that came from on the Google Earth Outreach Showcase.
• Microsoft Virtual Earth update: New bird’s eye imagery on February 27, with extra love shown to Portugal, Italy, and Austria.
• Noah’s Ark is in Yemen: Really:
  

  When western scholars discovered a program named “Google Earth”, they looked continuously for Noah’s Ark on every mountain and hill across the sphere.

  It turns out that all you have to do is convert the numbers of the Koranic verses that mention the ark into geographic coordinates, and bingo, the location is plainly in Yemen.

• –ì–µ–æ–±–ª–æ–≥: Valery Hronusov has started geoblogging… in Russian. But don’t let language be a barrier: He’s gone and georeferenced some of the most amazing photographs ever made. The genius Prokudin-Gorskii, “Photographer to the Czar”, contrived to take color photographs of the Russian empire in the decade before the Russian revolution. How? By taking three black and white photos through three different-colored filters, and then projecting all three negatives simultaneously at lectures. I remember being stunned when the US Library of Congress put remastered versions of them online in 2003 — color from a time when everything was supposed to be in sepia! Now you can see a subset of them around Perm, georeferenced by Valery. Valery, more modern-day comparisons like the one in your post, please? I like it!
• Center of Gravity calc… that you can use: Ah, well, it looks like the last word in center of gravity calculators has just been written. What a slick implementation. (Yes, you can upload KML files).
• Tablet PC with built-in GPS: The Axiotron Modbook is a modded Apple Macbook, turning it into a tablet Mac with GPS added for good measure. This should be perfect for running Google Earth in the field. (No, you can’t use it with one or more fingers though.) (Thanks Robert)

What’s in a name? When it comes to the Persian Gulf, aka the Arabian Gulf to Arabs or just the Gulf, you’ll upset someone no matter what combination of names you use. Iran bans goods that have “Arabian Gulf” stamped on them, and the UAE bans textbooks that label it as “Persian Gulf”. (Source: Wikipedia)

“The Gulf” won’t do either, the Economist has found out when Iran banned the publication for calling it just that, nor does “Arabian Gulf” in parentheses behind “Persian Gulf” cut it, as National Geographic found out.

Sure, historically the Gulf has been known as the Persian Gulf, and that’s what I call it too, mainly because it is good for everyone to agree on calling it something. But the entire Southern half of the Persian Gulf lies in Arab waters (there are no international waters there), so if the Arabs want to call it the Arabian Gulf, I don’t have a problem with that. Arabian, Persian — it’s not like anyone is trying to call it Qatari Gulf, Sunni Gulf or Iranian Gulf, now is it?

Google’s solution for Google Earth — to label it both as Persian and Arabian, with a usage note — is sensible. If you search for Arabian Gulf in Google Earth, say because you are an Qatari schoolboy and don’t know any better, you’ll find it, together with that usage note. That’s a feature, not a bug. Those who feel strongly about the matter have also made good use of Google Earth Community to “add more speech” to the speech they don’t agree with:

That works for me too — Google Earth as a neutral canvas onto which anyone can publish their toponymic opinions, whether they be popular or controversial, clever or dumb. Just like the web.

Nevertheless, Google’s editorial policy earned it the displeasure of the National Iranian American Council two weeks ago, which wrote to Google CEO Eric Schmidt to tell him that showing both names is just not good enough. Now comes another volley by irate Iranian toponymicists, in the form of a petition that begins:

We, the undersigned, through this letter, protest your irresponsible, unscientific actions, and demand an immediate and unconditional deletion of “Arabian Gulf” from Google Earth.

Arbitrarily designating the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf is an irresponsible violation of all historical and International standards and would undermine the integrity of Google Earth.

The petition, now signed by 12,792 people and counting, fails to mention that Google gives preference to “Persian Gulf”, though nuance is not usually a strong point of petitions. It then spends several paragraphs unhelpfully explaining that the term ‘Persia’ “has always been used to describe the nation of Iran, its people, and its ancient empires since 600 BC.” That, if anything, backs the Arab argument for naming the Gulf “Arabian” lest the Iranians get any ideas about further territorial claims on it; it is a place where the settling of maritime boundaries has been a long and difficult process, and where the sovereignty of some islands is still very much in dispute.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this dispute is not about “accuracy” or “science”, it is about not giving an inch when there’s oil involved, and it is a game being played by all sides. The problem is that it’s impossible not to play — no position is considered neutral by all the parties. Even acknowledging that dissent exists on the name (without making a judgment on the issue) is seen as bias by some, and that is just silly. (Via Global Voices)

PS: My suggestion for a solution: Stop calling it the Gulf and start calling it the Puddle — the thing’s so shallow anyway. Then whoever wants to name it after themselves is welcome to it.

• Twipster: Here comes another entry in the “GPS mobile phone camera => georeferenced images published to the web” service space: Twipster, still in private beta, is described as “a geocentric mobile publishing platform. It can be used for many different purposes. You can use Twipster to do things like photowalk, tell a story, journal a vacation, geocaching, or just share memories.”

  What sets it apart? It’s photo-site agnostic. Sure, you upload to Twipster’s site, but then you can further publish your photos to the likes of Flickr and Picasa. (Of course, competitor Shozu, not to be outdone, has just added that capability too.)

  What’s not clear yet: When it comes to geotagging via Shozu, it currently works just with Flickr, using Flickr tags. Nokia’s Location Tagger, meanwhile, puts coordinates directly into the photo’s EXIF data, so that any site that can handle EXIF can georeference the photos. It’s not clear yet how sophisticated Twipster’s photogeoreferencing skills will be. In the meantime, the screenshots promise some nice graphics. (Via GenBeta)

• Static Google Maps API: Got a device that won’t do javascript? Want to cut down on overhead? Enter static Google Maps tiles referenced as URLs inside simple <img> tags.

  You need a (free) API key, and there is a usage limit is 1,000 unique image requests per 24 hours. (Having your site request the same image more than once counts as just one unique image, however.) Note: You can get GIFs for two types of maps (standard and mobile), but not of satellite imagery or terrain.

  The parameters are dead simple, and you can play with the Static Maps Wizard to get your image precisely. For example, I’m posting from here:

  

  (Via Mapperz, who furthermore makes a list of the pros and cons of this static API.)

• KML2KML: Fresh from the creative imagination of Valery Hronusov, KML2KML, a stand-alone Google Earth application for the reorganization of KML datasets and creating view based regions in all KML or KMZ files ($50).
• Titan’s islands… mapped! Somebody is having way too much fun: Mr Minton of EVS Islands has taken some extraordinary imagery from Cassini’s Titan flyby, showing islands in a sea methane, and turned it into a map! The first of many such maps in the continuing annals of space exploration, no doubt…