Here's recent Google Geonews. From the official sources:

• There's new oblique imagery for several U.S. cities in Google Maps
• There's an obligatory entry named Haiti, one year after the earthquake
• Google offers an entry named Rebuilding L’Aquila in 3D with Google SketchUp, referring to the April earthquake in Italy
• You can now Discover New Places From Your Hotpot Friends on Google Maps, and the related iOS new feature, Google Places with Hotpot for iPhone
• Google is proposing Map Maker to build a better map of Southern Sudan, OpenStreetMap efforts for Sudan doesn't seem very active
• In the Augmented Reality realm, Google Goggles gets improved and can even solve your Sudoku

• Via Ogle Earth, we learn from Google that there is now 800 million Google Earth 'activations', that's a very significant amount. In August, they we are 500M, up from 400M in July. How is that calculated? See this entry
• The GEB has an entry on viewing SketchUp models in your hand with augmented reality
• Here's the USCG MISLE public database in Google Earth, MISLE standing for 'Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement'

Slashdot just started a discussion on a story named Google Broke the Law, Say South Korean Police.

Their summary: "South Korean police say Google was in violation of Internet privacy laws when its Street View service archived private information in more than 30 countries, including email and text messages. The country's Cyber Terror Response Center broke the encryption on hard drives raided from Google last August and confirmed that private information had been gathered, violating South Korea's telecommunications laws. Police are seeking the original author of the program, though they say it is likely to be a US citizen. Google said it stopped collecting the information as soon as it realized what was happening. 40 states in the US are demanding access to the information gathered by the mapping service in order to determine what was archived, which Google refused to hand over. 'We have been cooperating with the Korean Communications Commission and the police, and will continue to do so,' said a Google Korea spokesperson."

Here's recent Google-related geonews.

From the official sources:

• Google offers an entry on Mission Blue, a deep look in Google Earth at how the Gulf of Mexico region is recovering from the five million gallons of oil spilled from the BP Deep Horizon Oil Spill last year
• An entry on the Geometry Google Maps API library: "provides a set of utility functions for performing distance, heading, and area calculations in a spherical geometry, such as on the surface of the Earth, and also provides functions for handling encoded polylines."

From other sources:

• Here's a month-by-month recap entry on Year in Google Earth, but I'm surprise the Google Earth Engine is missing from that list
• The GEB also offers an entry on games built on top of Google Earth, including the new GeoGames3D
• The GEB mentions a few nice 3D models efforts: the London 3D Project,  Andy Dell models and Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio
• There's also a generic entry on fixing incorrect information in Google Earth
• Google is working on keeping its Maps in China
• The Ushahidi Founder Goes to Google

Recently, we announced a new partnership with iFactor Consulting. Through this partnership iFactor customers will have access to our ParcelStream™ web service, which boasts over 110 million US parcels. Users can access ParcelStream™ through iFactor’s Web Maps Connector and will be able to easily integrate parcel data, view parcel boundaries, and retrieve detailed parcel information all from their existing GE Smallworld applications and without writing any code. While this partnership is exciting, it begs the question “has mapping and GIS technology really become a mainstream component across (even the most intransigent) industries?” It appears that numerous industries are increasingly inquisitive about the exponential benefits of spatial technology and in particular parcel data. Partnering with iFactor is a prime example of industries (in this case the utility industry) embracing spatial technology and how they can leverage it without having to make GIS one of their core competencies. The utility industry, like many other sectors, now relies on GIS technology and geospatial data (whether they know it or not) to increase operational efficiency and strengthen organizational decision making. In particular, the utility industry uses parcel boundary data for land management, right of way work, and transmission corridor planning decisions. So, how have so many industries come to embrace spatial technology to the point of integrating it into their daily processes? Well, here’s a very probable answer: Microsoft (with Bing Maps) and Google (with Google Maps). These two industry leaders have played an enormous role in bringing mapping and spatial technology to the mainstream. Such technology is incredibly powerful when put into the hands of end-users and thanks to Bing and Google even the most unlikely industries have made mapping part of their business processes. Yet, there’s more to the answer. A big part of the mass adoption of mapping is due to the emergence of geospatial web services. These web services significantly lower the hurdles to deploying advanced mapping by making it much easier to access, integrate, maintain and use GIS technology and data. At Digital Map Products we believe that cloud computing is a key enabler of the widespread adoption of mapping technology. The possibilities for spatial technology are endless and we have yet to see just how far it can go, but seeing the integration of key data sets into mainstream industries is an exciting and the new breed of spatial technology companies is making it possible for organizations to deploy GIS to a wide-set of non-technical users and across all industries.

This is more of an "end of year" geonews in batch mode! Everything pertinent found in the last two weeks that we haven't shared yet. I wish you an excellent holiday break. We'll be back in January. You can still send in your contributions.

From the Google front:

• A summary entry on everything Google Maps/Earth and Santa Claus and another one on holiday trees in 3D
• More details on Google Maps 5.0 for Android
• Paris gets major 3D enhancements in Google Earth
• Google Kills (beta) Location Alerts Feature in Latitude
• Google now offers a 3D Body Browser
• There also was an imagery update in the middle of the month

From the ESRI front:

• ESRI Confirms 400 million user-genenerated maps on ArcGIS in October

From the open data / open source front:

• Via the geodata list, I learned about the U.S. Census TIGER/Line Shapefiles starting to become available, and it's also available from WeoGeo
• OpenLayers gets a new Bing Tiles layer
• Natural Earth map data in the public domain
• An entry on Geocoding Github: Visualizing Distributed Open-Source Development
• An O'Reilly article on Ushahidi enabling crowdsourced journalism and intelligence
• rgeo, a new geo library for Rails
• Here's a new project named GeoApt Spatial Data Browser
• The OpenGeo Suite Community Edition 2.3.2 released
• An entry on QGIS 1.7's vector rule editor and polygon line styles

From the Microsoft front:

• Bing Maps REST Services now supports transit routes

In the miscellaneous category:

• SS informs us Russia Launched a Geospatial Data and Earth Imagery Portal
• V1 offers their geospatial top 10, DM also have their own geospatial top 10
• Here's a new augmented reality app that translate text that you see
• Still in the AR topic, an entry on how Kinect democratizes augmented reality
• Two Slashdot entries on 3D printing: MakerBot Thing-o-Matic 3D Printer Assembly and Cheap 3D Fab Could Start an Innovation Renaissance
• Still on the 3D topic, Researchers Develop Genuine 3D Camera
• TanDEM-X is now operational

In the maps category:

• Here's visualization of Wikileaks mirrors around the world
• A colleague sent me a link to the BBC Facebook connections map the world
• An Interactive Map of Diabetes in the U.S.
• Don't we all dream, here's an Atlas of Remote Islands

And the almost-off-topic link of the week, an amazing 4-minutes animation of the last 200 years of global history

Plenty of interesting recent Google related geonews.

From the official sources:

• Google Building Maker continues to expand, now with 109 cities, new cities: Oklahoma City, Oslo and The Hague.
• Google Maps 5.0 for Android has been released with plenty of new or improved features
• Google Earth Enterprise 4.1 has been announced: "The new version 4.1 brings with it: 2D Map Cutting and 2D Map Portable Serving, Google Maps API V3 on Google Earth Enterprise Solution and Customized search services for Google Earth."
• An entry to introduce the Google Latitude app for iPhone (a real app, not a web app as before)
• More options have been added to customize preferences when you get directions in Google Maps
• And on the same topi, a tutorial on how to find directions online
• The official developer blog discusses 5 Chrome Web Store Apps that includes maps

From other sources:

• An intriguing way of Skydiving in Google Earth
• The GEB also shares an entry on Android and Google Earth Technology
• James Fee discusses Google's Chrome OS and GIS

In what seems like a never ending publicity nightmare for Google, or a photo opportunity for others...here is another Street View privacy case that has popped up. From Cnet News : "Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has been leading a cadre of attorneys general investigating Google's Wi-Fi Street View data gathering, formally ordered the search giant today to hand over data gathered during the years it operated Street View cars. He issued a civil investigative demand, a legal order similar to a subpoena, after Google refused to provide the data after less formal requests, according to a statement released by his office."

A series of recent Google-related geonews in batch mode. Nothing major (that's subjective ;-), but still interesting news.

From the official blogs:

• An entry on changes to historical imagery in Google Earth 6
• StreetView is now available in Romania
• An entry named Hurricane Visualization using KML
• For developers, Samsung Bada and BlackBerry 6 platforms now supported by the Maps API v3
• You can now also animate markers in the Maps API v3
• There's a Google Earth tour for the cricket season that just begun

From other sources:

• Ogle Earth reports that Wikileaks informed us that in, China asked US to get Google Earth censored
• Yesterday, new imagery in Google Earth has been released
• Via O'Reilly, a long and interesting entry on Google Maps & Label Readability
• The GEB is sharing surprisingly nice 3D models in Google Earth

Here's the traditional Friday geonews in batch mode.

Christmas geo-gift ideas:

• Four entries from Very Spatial: The four days of holiday gifts, Day 2: Sneaky Geography Gifts, More holiday treats for the geographer in your life, To round out our holiday gift ideas
• TMR shares an entry on Map Blankets

From the Google front (yes some more since yesterday):

• An official entry named How Local Search Ranking Works
• The GEB shares an entry named Google Earth continues to reveal strange sights from above
• APB discusses the Google Earth Engine as an Image Analysis for the Masses

From the ESRI front:

• I was amongst many to notice that ArcGIS for iOS now has data capture capabilities

From the open source / open data front:

• The OpenStreetMap editor Potlatch 2 has launched
• MapQuest is now using Swizerland and Netherlands data from OpenStreetMap
• Here's details on the Microsoft imagery access given to OpenStreetMap
• Thanks to open data, you can generate added-value for mostly anything, including an OpenFireMap
• V1 shares a long review of the OpenStreetMap - Be Your Own Cartographer book by Jonathan Bennett
• Via the OSGeo Discuss, I learned about the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review journal

In the miscellaneous category:

• Don't we all at some point look for a Free Shapefile of Countries of the World, here's a comparison
• Via the EOPortal, here's an article named Russia To Spend 2 Billion Dollars For Space Clean-Up
• SS shares an entry named Psychological Scientists Look at Spatial Skills for Indoor Navigation
• Slashdot ran a few somewhat geo-related stories: Combining Two Kinects To Make Better 3D Video, Aussie Government Competition To Predict Commute Times, and Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans' Real Time Credit Card Activity
• The GEB shares an entry named Take your own aerial photos with the Swinglet CAM
• The EO-1 satellite has been acquiring imagery for 10 years already

In the maps category:

• TMR shares a map of Natural Disaster Hot Zones

And the new somewhat off-topic link of the week: and entry from 'Information is beautiful' named Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom?, a quick look at the pic is enough, and it includes mapping ;-)

Currently in discussion on slashdot : "Two and a half years ago, the Borings sued Google for invading their privacy by driving onto their private driveway and taking pictures of their house to display on Google Street View. Now, the case has finally come to a close with the judge ruling in favor of the Borings and awarding them the princely sum of $1. While the judge found the Borings to be in the right, she awarded them only nominal damages, as the fact that they had already made images of their home available on a real estate site and didn't bother to seal the lawsuit to minimize publicity indicated the Borings neither valued their privacy nor had it been affected in any great way by Google's actions."