A guy named ‘SidneyWinstonSmythe’ from London, UK decided to put Big Ben 
into GE. The model itself is very simple and not very realistic, but what is neat is that the clock actually works live in Google Earth! The second hand even moves. This is an application of the network link to dynamically update a drawing in GE based on time. Sid is using a PHP script to provide the dynamic data.
There are many more serious applications of the network link to provide dynamic data waiting to be found out. GE has only been out for a few months, and already we are seeing serious applications like what the City of Portland GIS group has been doing. In the coming months, and especially as Google Earth goes out of beta, we will see a flood of serious applications with powerful useful features reaching a global audience.
You can read the thread in the GE Forums where Sid posted this application. Although, he doesn’t explain very much about how he developed the application.
Network Links
Much Improved Method for Viewing Katrina Damage Imagery
Google has greatly improved the interface to access the NOAA imagery of Katrina damage. They have used a method they experimented with a few days ago for Digital Globe photos to show dynamic tiles of images based on your current view. This means it will only pull in a big high resolution image as you zoom in and only the portion you can see. So, it cuts down on the amount of bandwidth and download time while giving you a more smooth way to view the imagery.
You can download the new link here , or go to read Google’s post about it here. When you are using this new network link, make sure you pause after you change a view for a few seconds. It waits for you to pause before it loads the new images according to your new view to cut down on bandwidth.
Up To Date Katrina Damage Imagery
The Google Earth team has worked hard this weekend and has updated their earlier release of imagery. The first part includes even more NOAA imagery of the damaged areas. Click here to download the new network link enabled overview of the entire collection. This network link will automatically update to the latest imagery. You will see dots where the images are located and can individually load each image. As before, these are large images and you may not want to turn too many on at the same time due to computer memory.
Google has also developed a very cool dynamic overlay of imagery from Digital Globe of the New Orleans area. This is a network link which is based on your current view which will load tiles of images. Download this link here .
City of Portland GIS Adds 3D Buildings
The City of Portland has added a slick new addition to their GIS information which I wrote about earlier. This new capability shows building property outlines as transparent 3D polygons as well as the parcel/property outline. Make sure you use the tilt capability to see this best. You can move your view around to other parts of the city and it will automatically load another area of the city. It can’t load too large of an area at once as it will be too much information. Download the file here to see it in action.
This is really slick stuff, and other cities should be paying attention to the City of Portland, which is leading the way in showing how GIS information can be put into the hands of the world (literally). My hat is off to the GIS team at the City of Portland! Here is the City of Portland’s post which includes details about how they are doing this.
Real Estate Done Google Earth Style
Earlier this month an excellent application of Google Earth for real estate was released at coloradofuture.com (use their interface to search for houses, then select the Google Earth listings). These guys have taken their house listings and put them into Google Earth so you can look around their region of Colorado and find houses within your price range, look at the property within GE, or look for detailed information on the listing at their web site.
Google Earth is obviously a powerful potential tool for learning more about an area surrounding some real estate you are interested in. You can check for nearby things like grocery stores, malls, railroad tracks, and ATMs. You can look for hazards such as trash dumps, flood plains, and unwanted commercial buildings or traffic. And, as more cities include access to their GIS data (like the City of Portland), you will have even more powerful data to access within GE.
Significantly, the Google Earth team claims they have already had numerous people contact them that they had purchased buildings based on the input they gathered from Google Earth.
This real estate application was announced in this post at the GE Community BBS. Already, another real estate listing was mentioned in the thread as available in Florida.