The Associated Press has published a story (picked up by all the news media) after interviewing Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, director of the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). This organization oversees and funds sources of satellite photos used by both defense organizations as well as imagery for public consumption. DigitalGlobe, the primary source of satellite photos for Google Earth, has already benefited from government funds. With the help of about $1 billion from Murrett’s agency, DigitalGlobe, and its competitor GeoEye, plan to launch new satellites with higher resolutions later this year. Government regulations will require resulting satellite photos shared publicly from these satellites to be at a resolution no better than .5 meters per pixel.
Interestingly, Murrett says: “I could certainly foresee circumstances in which we would not want imagery to be openly disseminated of a sensitive site of any type, whether it is here or overseas.” He goes on to say they may exert “control over” imagery in some unspecified manner to sensitive locations. This could mean not allowing imagery for certain locations to be shared, or somehow altering imagery for those locations.
Some industry experts believe it may be difficult for one agency to limit the dissemination of such imagery. There are image providers now from several international satellite companies as well as aerial photographers. And the demand for high resolution photos for applications like Google Earth is increasing. “…this cat may be out of the bag for good. It’s just not clear that the legal or other tools needed to restrict disclosure are available.” So says Steve Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists.
via SlashGeo via SlashDot.
digitalglobe
New Google Earth Layers for April: Darfur, Trimble, and more
[UPDATE April 11 – 2130 ET – Updated list based on the announcement]
Google has quietly (I’m waiting for an announcement) just released some new layers for Google Earth. They also have re-arranged the order of some of the layers so they make more sense.
Here’s some highlights of what I’ve found so far:
- The “Global Awareness” layer is now separated from the “Featured Content” layer.
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Crisis in Darfur – This new layer is turned on by default now when you open Google Earth. You will find it under the Global Awareness layer folder, the first layer is now “UHSMM – Crisis in Darfur“. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has substantially updated content which was described here a couple of months ago about the human rights abuses occurring in Darfur. The USHMM declared a genocide emergency in Darfur in 2004, and already 2.5 million people have been displaced, and 300,000 people killed in the region. This layer does an amazing job at illustrating the crisis in the area showing satellite photos of destroyed villages, locations of refugee camps, photos of human rights abuses, and provides links to more information on the web. A press announcement is being made tomorrow on this new layer according to CNET.
- Layers Moved – Two layers were moved out of Featured Content into the Global Awareness layer: UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, and the Jane Goodall Gombe Chimpanzee Blog.
- Trimble Outdoors Trips – This new Featured Content layer comes from Trimble – makers of GPS technology. It’s focus is to provide information on outdoor hikes, GPS tracks, photos, videos, and other related information. From what I see so far, the content is all in the US. But, they have a special web site designed to allow people to upload their information on trips, so I’m sure other locations can be handled as well. There are a lot of similarities in the content to the Tracks4Africa layer which is also in the Featured Layers.
- Swiss Ski Resorts, Lifts, and Mountain Railways
- 100% Pure New Zealand – New Zealand is the first country to get its own tourism layer under the Travel and Tourism layer.
- Detailed Roads for India, Singapore
- Points of Interest for India, Singapore, and Brazil
- Updates to the following:
- UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment
- European Space Agency
- Turn Here: City Video Guides
- Best of 3D Warehouse
- Google Earth Community
- Geoweb: Best of GEC
- Dining (US)
- DigitalGlobe Coverage
Major Layer Update for Google Earth – March 10th
Google has just today released a big update to the Layers inside Google Earth. Many people don’t realize there is even more information buried in the layers than the images of the Earth itself. Now, Google has added even more. Here are the highlights of this update (from this post by Google):
- New “Global Awareness” folder under “Featured Content” containing:
- World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Conservation Projects – Placemarks of conservation locations around the world
- Appalachian Mountaintop Removal – Part of this one was written about here before. Now substantially upgraded and includes overlays showing the mountains before the awful mountain top removal mining efforts.
- New Zealand Roads – Like Australia last month, now New Zealand has detailed roads and highways.
- New National Geographic content (under the “Featured Content“. Now articles from National Geographic for Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, and the Poles.
- Updated layers:
- Geographic Web: WikiPedia, Best of GEC
- Featured Content: more Yelp Reviews, Tracks4Africa
- Populated Places, Islands and Borders – more island names and better borders for islands
- Google Earth Community layers
- Under “Google Earth Community->Community Showcase->World Wide Panorama” – this excellent layer has been expanded to show many more panoramas. Each placemark contains a small snapshot which is a link to a Quicktime VR panorama – beautiful pictures!
- Volcanoes Layer
- DigitalGlobe Layers
New Imagery for Google Earth / Maps – February 28
[UPDATE 2010: some edits were made to the list and are highlighted in blue.]
[See the YouTube Swiss Alps Flying Tour.]
The update of imagery mentioned over the last few days for Google Maps is now available in Google Earth. Swiss Alps terrain is in high resolution (10 meter)! This is awesome to behold! .
Here’s the scoop from Google on what is new:
- Entire country of Switzerland at 50cm and many Swiss cities at 25cm (thank you, Endoxon)
- Entire country of Switzerland terrain at 10m resolution, Swiss Alps are now high-res!
- Entire country of Denmark at 50cm
- Australia day flyover (Google maps special)
- Cities of France: Lyon; Le Mans; Lourdes; Reims; Nancy; Limoges; Lille; Arles
- Potsdam and Magdeburg, Germany
- Barcelona, Belem, Cape Town, Galapagos (Isabella Island), Manaus, Mt Saint Helens, Recife, Rio, Venice
- Whistler British Columbia
- Full state coverage for Wyoming & Utah
- Cities and counties in the US: Kirkland, WA; 6 counties in Arksansas; Dallas county, IA; Rutherford County, NC; Lancaster County, NE; Johnson County, NC; Lee County, NC;
- significant amounts of new DigitalGlobe data
Check out OgleEarth’s review of the new Swiss Alps data.
By the way, I wanted to point out that a GEB reader named Jonas was the first to point out the new Denmark imagery to me on Feb. 26th. Thanks Jonas!
More Details on New Layers/Updates
Rather than trying to deduce all the updates to the layers this time, I asked the GE team what were the layers updated this weekend. Here are the details:
- 64×64 Icons – overhaul of icons to move from 32×32 to 64×64, also new styles for the layer icons
- As reported yesterday, new Australia detailed roads, and they also say New Zealand
(but, I’m not seeing this yet)[UPDATE Feb. 20 at 1630: The New Zealand roads feature officially did not make this update. Official Google word: “Coming soon…”. My guess is this means a month or so when the next layer update occurs. ] - Tokyo Broadcasting System: UNESCO World Heritage Sites (in Japanese, only launched in Japanese client)
- Brazil Parks, including Football (Soccer)
- Tracks4Africa – added new sub-layers “Special Places” and group under new ” Outdoor Activities” folder
- Also updated:
- Best of 3DWarehouse – more buildings added
- Best of Google Earth Community: approximately 300 new features
- Panoramio: now nearly 400,000 photos
- Google Earth Community
- Turn Here: City Video Guides
- DigitalGlobe coverage