India is joining South Korea, and a number of other countries, to pressure Google to “do something” about it’s “Google Earth” service.
The security organizations in these countries are alarmed at the ease with which Google Earth enables any user to quickly get a satellite photo of just about any area on the planet. This capability is nothing new, it’s been available from commercial photo satellite firms for over a decade. But what has changed with the Google offering, is that the company gathers together the largest collection of satellite photos ever, and makes them very easy to get at, by anyone with Internet access. This is what worries counter-terrorism officials.
First of all, Google isn’t alone. There are other search engines that offer a similar service. Xxxxx, xxx xxxx [removed upon kind request] It’s not that you don’t have libraries with books that have this footage too… It’s not that you have anything to hide, or is it? If any terrorist got briefed sufficiently enough, he would be getting military information from some corrupt high-placed officer, just like they get arms from those same sources. Blocking out a geographical tool like Google or any search engine is just like finding ‘a’ stick to beat ‘a’ random dog. This is ridiculous.
Anything that makes it easier for an Islamic terrorist to plan attacks, the more likely that attacks will be put together and carried out. In addition, South Korea fears that poverty stricken, but heavily armed, North Korea, could use Google Earth to more effectively plan military operations against them.
Perhaps you should also forbid road maps and kill anyone who retired from a job that involved working with ’sensitive’ information. Maybe eliminate all the workers that build the roads to your sensitive spots too. Added: Any country that asks for these maps to be changed is just ignorant and being stupid. But that’s just my two cents.
Source: Military Intelligence
April 16th, 2006
Posted by
Coolz0r |
Google Earth, Culture, Controversy, Google Maps, Keyhole, Services, Products, General |
14 comments
John Battelle has written up his new predictions for 2006. First, I’ll take a look at my analysis a year ago of his 2005 predictions and see how accurate I was, then tell you what I think of the new ones. John’s already done a look at his accuracy.
- For his fourth prediction, I still feel traditional media is failing at many of the things new media is doing so well. While there have been a lot of attempts by mainstream media to embrace new ideas and new technologies, most of them have been useless, like calling an opinion column a blog and thinking we won’t notice. They’re learning, but slowly, and I think most of them still don’t know what a “Long Tail” is.
- #5 - Yeah, Google didn’t do anything with Blogger, except a few tools to combat splogs. This is a problem, and its the reason why, a year in, MSN Spaces has far overtaken Blogger.
- #7 - Google has created a lot of services, but none that can earn non-advertising money, or at least in obvious ways. In fact, they made two services free that previously cost money (Keyhole, Urchin). I’m not sure if they care about diversifying at this point.
- #8 - I was wrong, he was right. MSN is growing their search engine carefully, not trying to claim its number one in relevancy yet. Hopefully, when it becomes Windows Live Search, it’ll get a lot more attention. Still, Microsoft needs to realize its marketing department is doing an awful job, and losing them hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars every year.
- #9 - I was way off. The AOL Browser was never really marketed, although it is getting a lot of use now with AIM Triton. Microsoft reformed the IE team, and is making waves with IE7, which looks to be good enough to slow Firefox, if not win. MSN 10 never materialized, although the Windows Live software looks promising.
- #10 - C’mon, the iPod Video should have been a no-brainer.
Now, onto John’s predictions for 2006. Click to read them in a new page while you hopefully read my thoughts.
- #1 - Well, Time Warner is freely releasing a massive archive of TV shows, but not saying anything about remixing. Maybe the Google alliance will further this.
- #2 - Google will fail at something, miserably: I wouldn’t be surprised. Google has so many balls up in the air, and its bound to drop one, badly. Book Search seems to be a safe bet, as does Google Talk. But don’t be surprised if a Google service you use often dies an awful, and dissapointing death.
- #3 - The privacy thing is going to bite Google in the ass, eventually. Microsoft was convinced it could survive the antitrust litigation, and they were wrong. Google will be no better.
- #4 - Google will enter video advertising first. Yahoo will follow, but not this year. Google will make a lot of money on TV ads in 2008.
- #5 - Oh, yeah. Windows Live Search should do it. Although it might take until six months after Vista launches to get the whole 5%.
- #6 - No way. There is no Real or Netscape in desktop search. Microsoft knows it, and they also have a non-standard team working on desktop search. This should not be a problem. It might suck, but not for this reason.
- #7 - And we’ll all buy that issue.
- #8 - iTunes is doomed, because it has no competition. Only a free market can negotiate with the RIAA.
- #9 - Their lobbyists will force unnecessary regulations that keep their awful industries alive and powerful.
- #10 - Google doesn’t want to buy startups “built to flip”. That alone will make this prediction come true.
- #11 - I don’t think so. Maybe 2007.
- #12 - The breakthrough deal will be around Windows Vista, which will consolidate RSS into a platform that works. Of course, Mac OS will copy it.
- #13 - I believe mobile is overhyped. Of course, I carry around a laptop all day, so I don’t have the needs most users do.
- #14 - Oh yeah.
- #15 - Oh no. Netflix is smarter than that
- #16 - John will ruin his own prediction by giving into his publisher, when he writes an extra chapter or two for the paperback.
- #17 - FM Publishing will succeed, but only if I get to be a part of the ad network (c’mon John, help me out here!).
All in all, John Battelle does predictions good. Which is why I don’t do my own prediction post, I just analyze his. And I like it…
December 21st, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Google Video, Blogs, Talk, Analytics, Google Book, Blogger, Keyhole, Search, Microsoft, Yahoo, Services, General |
no comments
As is well known, the CIA funded satelite mapping company Keyhole before Google bought it, through its venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. Well, the CIA received stock in Google from Google’s aquisition of Keyhole, and it looks like they’ve decided to cash out. The CIA sold 5,636 shares worth over $2.2 million. I’m not entirely sure if this is the entire stake (if it is, they didn’t get enough).
(via Findory)
November 15th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Stock Market, Keyhole, Services, General |
one comment
DigitalGlobe, which provides satellite imagery for Google Earth, has announced it will launch two new imagery satellites in 2006 and 2008, respectively.
(via Weblogs)
October 10th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Google Earth, Google Maps, Keyhole, Products, General |
one comment
Google has added an cool new feature to Google Earth: Information on Africa courtesy of National Geographic, complete with links to feature articles and 500 high resolution photographs of people, animals and geologic formations.
From the Google Blog:
Across Africa, you will see the familiar yellow National Geographic logo. Zoom in to see the title of each feature article or photograph. Click the icon and a pop-up balloon shows a photo and description along with links to the content. Follow those links to read the entire story right where it happened. Not only will you learn about Jane Goodall’s Fifi, you’ll see her home. Joining the stories and images are layers for National Geographic Sights & Sounds multimedia resources, a live WildCam in Botswana, and a collection of Mike Fay’s Megaflyover images.
The Megaflyover images are stunning. Mike spent more than a year taking 92,000 high resolution photographs of the continent. That project is described in Tracing the Human Footprint, an article in the September 2005 National Geographic. He selected 500 of his favorite scenes of people, animals, geological formations, and signs of human presence and annotated them in Google Earth. Look for the red airplane icons as you fly over Africa. Each of these marks a spot where a high resolution image awaits your own personal voyage.
Clicking on the planes or the National Geographic logos brings up a balloon with pictures and/or more information. Each balloon links to an article on National Geographic’s website in a browser at the bottom of the window. It all looks like this (click to view full-size):
The only thing that could make this better would be flyover images made part of the Google Earth database that you could actually fly over in the interface. Still, this just adds some great information to an already excellent program.
September 18th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Google Earth, Keyhole, Products, Services, General |
6 comments
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The Google Blog points to the many Google Earth overlays available out there. Yo uplug these into your Google Earth program (available here) and can compare the before and after images.
This page lists already 14 available Google Earth KMZ files, all featuring NOAA flyover photos stitched together (many by users), one of which has 78 images of New Orleans. Browsing through the Google Earth Community will find you more and more files being added all the time.
UPDATE: Google Maps now has Katrina images as well. Just browse to any affected area of New Orleans and a “Katrina” button will appear. I’ve already done the work for you if you click here, centered on the Superdome. These are satellite images, not flyovers, so they are probably a little more useful, and were taken Wednesday.
(via the Google Blog)
September 2nd, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Google Earth, Keyhole, Products, Services, General |
one comment
Cristian Streng coded together an application that is NOT officially supported by Google or affiliated with Google in any way.
Mobile GMaps is a free piece of software that displays Google Maps and Keyhole satellite imagery on Java J2ME-enabled mobile phones or other devices.
Protected by a CC-License, “It’s the next best thing to actually cultivating an inner sense of direction.” says [Engadget]. Nicely put.
Check out [MGMAPS]
[Coolz0r] via [Textually] & [Findory]
July 5th, 2005
Posted by
Coolz0r |
Keyhole, General |
no comments
I heard a rumor that Google is about to officially release Google Earth, its standalone Windows application that combines satellite imagery with Google Local and Google Maps. Best of all, my source says it is going to be completely free. However, this is purely a rumor, and while the source is reputable, the source is not entirely sure. I will officially stake nothing on this rumor, but smugly reserve the right to claim credit if it proves true. Then again, we’ll know very soon enough.
UPDATE: Confirmed! Thank you, sir. I couldn’t have beaten that article by more than ten minutes, but I’ll take it.
UPDATE 2: So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, the details. Google Earth will be made available at earth.google.com shortly as a free download. In fact, its surprising it isn’t there already. The subscription fee is gone, but a $20 fee will get you Google Earth Plus with more features and even more money will buy even bigger versions of the program.
The program lets you do smooth sailing flybyes of the entire Earth. You can easily fly to any spot on the globe, by entering any associated data, like street addresses, place names or lat/long coordinates. There are overlays that put additional information on the map, like roads, international boundaries, terrain, 3D buildings, crime statistics, schools, stadiums, any number of interesting stuff.
You can do Local searches in the program, with icons on the map and a display on the side showing your results. You can leave notes, called “placemarks” all over the map, so you can remember where all sorts of places are. Searches and placemarks can be saved as bookmarks in “My Places”. Everything can be output in an XML format called KML, that will allow the vast popularity of Google Maps to continue in Earth. You can also email a JPEG of the map, or send a KMZ file if you know the recipient has Earth installed.
Google Earth Plus gives higher resolution images, GPS support, and more sophisticated annotation (like drawing on the map). Online help is available right here.
Screenshot mania!:
Here are Google Earth’s 3D buildings:
Major highways:
Place descriptions:
and search results:
Flying through directions:
Editing placemarks:
You can set the altitude of placemarks, that remains consistent throughout all views:
Local search:
The top-down view:
vs. the tilted view:
UPDATE 3: The download is available now. System requirements:
Minimum configuration:
- Operating system: Windows 2000, Windows XP
- CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® PIII 500 MHz
- System memory (RAM): 128MB
- 200MB hard-disk space
- 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 16MB VRAM
- 1024×768, 32-bit true color screen
- Network speed: 128 kbps (”Broadband/Cable Internet”)
Recommended configuration:
- Operating system: Windows XP
- CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® P4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
- System memory (RAM): 512MB
- 2GB hard-disk space
- 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 32MB VRAM or greater
- 1280×1024, 32-bit true color screen
- Network speed: 128 kbps (”Broadband/Cable Internet”)
I had to download, save, and add “.exe” to the end of the install file, but that’s probably because I’m doing all this as Google is uploading it. I’m sure they’ll fix it, but just be aware of the issue. Also, Googlers, fix the typo on this page (”Googsle Earth”) at the bottom.
Google has put together a Google Earth Sightseeing page with images of famous landmarks, and the KMZ files that will get you there.
UPDATE 4: Installed, and using it. Here are some screenshots (click to enlarge):
The Earth, baby!
The fair city of Manhattan
The Empire State Building, as viewed from overhead
The Empire State Building, as viewed from a tilt. That’s New Jersey in the distance.
The Empire State Building, as viewed in 3D
The streets of midtown Manhattan
UPDATE 5: Final update. I cannot contain how impressed I am with Google Earth. Absolutely, this is a great release. The feeling you get when you double-click on an area and the map glides over, falling into the Earth, with place names and street grids revealing themselves, is stunning and jaw-dropping
Sure, there are things that pissed me off, like it completely sucking at finding residential street addresses, that the satellite maps are one level too blurry to 100% identify any house, and that the road maps are harder to follow than those in Google Maps. All that went away, when Google Earth flew me into my neighborhood, and I started putting placemarks on my bedroom and on the homes of some of my friends. Then, I set up a tour of those locations, and marveled as I was, indeed, taken on an aerial tour of my ‘hood. All the while, street names fluttered in and out as necessary, and most of the stores on Main Street (yes, we have a Main Street in New York, or at least in Queens) had nice labels that appeared on some zoom levels.
Then I turned on the overlays. Now I know how many murders were in Queens in 2000 (187), the population (2229379) (even if the overlay icons were on top of each other, forcing me to shut one off to see the other), see all the pharmacies, gas stations, restuarants, libraries, parking lots, hospitals, banks, airports, fire stations, parks, stadiums, golf courses, churches, trains, movie rental stores, malls, bars, and highway exits in the area, and find out where my ZIP code congressional or school district ends.
Unbelievable. Amazing, absolutely amazing. You will be showing this off to your friends. I’m probably coming off as a little too excited, true, but I just genuinely enjoy using this product. Google did good with this one, and Keyhole did a great job. Bravo!
June 28th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Keyhole, General |
243 comments
What happened this year?
January
Google has had an excellent year. At the beginning of the year, Bill Gates famously said, “They kicked out butts” about Google’s domination of and enormous profits on search, but promised a MSN Search engine within a year. Google began the process of going public. Yahoo freaked out and announced its new search engine and plan to dump Google as its results provider the next day. Google released Orkut, which everyone was convinced was the next big thing is social interaction.
February
In February, Bill Gates vowed, “We will catch them”. Google won “Brand of the Year” from BrandChannel, and I think everyone agreed they had a powerful brand. They were also named fifth best internet property by Media Metrix. Google’s overall index (web search, images, groups, print) reached a milestone with 6 billion items indexed and searchable.
March
March brought Froogle Wireless and the beginning of an issue that would dog Google all year, (and still does) sensitive information available on Google). Google Local launched, a model that would be eventually emulated by every major search engine. A man sued Google because his vanity search said terrible things about himself. MSN announced Newsbot. At the end of the month, Google got a facelift.
April
Gmail was the big news for April, and everyone thought it was an April Fools joke. It’s combination of unprecedented free storage and invite-driven exclusivity made it the hot thing through the summer. It also brought a new trend: privacy advocates vs. Google. Gmail’s scanning the text of messages for ads presented the first of many battles Google would have with privacy hawks. Google began scanning academic papers, a project that would eventually become Google Scholar. Amazon launched A9 in beta, putting itself in competition with Google at the same time it was using Google search results. Google announced it would allow the selling of trademarked terms in ads. At the end of the month, Google did the one thing that could be bigger news than Gmail: it filed for its initial public offering.
May
Google’s IPO dominated the conversation well into May, as the odd dutch auction style was debated among analysts and armchair stockbrokers all over the net. Google “joined the conversation” and launched the Google blog. Google brought out Google Groups 2 Beta, an attempt to expand Google’s Usenet archive to be like Yahoo Groups. Geico sued Google for selling its name as an ad keyword. Google topped the Wired 40.
June
June saw Hotmail announced increased email storage, something Yahoo unveiled the month before, as a response to Gmail. Google had such a slow month, it actually published a recipe for Buttermilk Fried Chicken Elvis Loved on the Google blog, the pre-IPO quiet period taking its toll. AOL bought Advertising.com.
July
Google shut down Gmail account sales in July, while adding address book importing. Google choose the NASDAQ for its IPO, which seemed so imminent that it could be any day. Google bought Picasa, then gave away its software for free, but is still developing its big plan for the software. MSN released Newsbot. Google announced its price range for the IPO, an astounding $108-135, and opened the dutch auction registration process as the month closed.
August
All through the beginning of August, speculation mounted, as everyone wanted to know if Google was worth its high asking price. As the IPO neared, Google settled its patent dispute with Yahoo/Overture, giving Yahoo 2.7 million shares of their stock. There was also a major flap when an interview with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s interview with Playboy was printed during the quiet period. Google submitted its IPO for final approval, and wound up with a much lower price target of $85-95, and with a smaller number of shares. Google opened at $101, and has never dropped to double digits. Yahoo started its own blog. Yahoo sold its Google shares at $82.62, losing, at current prices, just under $300 million. Microsoft announced WinFS, its searchable file system, wasn’t going to make it to Longhorn, something it had hidden for months as it developed MSN Desktop Search.
September
September began with a return to business as usual as Google decided it would be fun if its ads started saying ‘Ads by Goooooogle’ for no particular reason, a dumb idea which continues to this day. It also allowed up to 3 AdSense ads per page. MSN began girding for battle, as Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was “hell-bent and determined” to beat Google. Google celebrated its sixth birthday. Google Alerts came out of beta, with a neat interface for Web and News alerts. Google Local got a major interface upgrade, while Yahoo bought MusicMatch and A9 finally went live, but the biggest move was Jeeves, which upgraded a lot of services, adding MyJeeves.
October
October was Google’s last big month. Before “it” happened, MSN held its Search Champs, flying in search experts to test out the new engine months before it launched. Clusty launched, Yahoo Local went live, I finally got noticed when I posted about Gmail Atom feeds, the MSN Search Preview went online, My Yahoo launched, Bill Gross launched Snap, Google Print got bigger, Evan Williams said nice things about me, Yahoo uncluttered (somewhat), Yahoo revenues increased 212%, Larry and Sergey went to India, Howard Dean shilled for Yahoo. But on October 14, I attended Digital Life and saw firsthand the release of Google Desktop Search, which everyone treated like the second coming, and got a lot of notice for my post on Hello, Google’s instant messenger in Picasa. For the next several weeks, it seemed like Google was rocketing upwards, with a 105% increase in revenues, boosting Google stock to $175, a number it has stayed near for most of the time since, even though it approached $200. Google bought Keyhole, added merchant ratings to Froogle, Page and Brin hit the Forbes 400. Jeeves reported very good earnings. In a snapshot of things to come, MSN accidentally leaked its new search interface.
November
Google stayed back for the election (wisely, since their guy lost), but it did get embroiled in problems as its Desktop Search’s web history was declared a major privacy and security risk. Companies started bragging about their great PageRanks, Amazon started selling sex toys, and AskJeeves Local launched. I speculated on Google TV Search (and was proved prophetic by C|Net). Apple started promoting Spotlight, which shone a spotlight on how inadequate Google Desktop Search truly was. Gmail offered POP3 access, and Google doubled its official index count to eight billion (the actual number is higher than ten billion). That night, MSN Search Beta launched, too much acclaim for its technical wizardry. Google Images was revealed to be inadequate. InsideMicrosoft launched. Google stock plummeted after a lockup expiry. Google Scholar launched. Google opened a Kirkland office. The L.A. Times quoted me, and Target sold drugs.
December
December was all about MSN. Besides a “good enough as Google” search engine, MSN launched Spaces, a more mainstream blogging service, and later, the superior MSN Toolbar Suite. Overture settled its suit with Geico, not willing to take the risk Google would. Google Groups 2 got top billing, but it didn’t go over well. Yahoo announced its desktop search, and Jeeves delivered its. Google unveiled Google Suggest, which, because of its open architecture, has become more popular than some other, larger Google services, as well as announcing Google library search. Google beat Geico. Yahoo launched video search, while Blinkx launched TV search. Cindy McAffrey left.
Next: A look at what Google needs to think about to succeed in the coming year.
December 26th, 2004
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Jeeves, Yahoo, Microsoft, Orkut, Groups, Keyhole, Froogle, Google Suggest, Google Images, AdWords, Gmail, Search, Desktop Search, Picasa, Desktop, Email |
5 comments
