Here's the recent Google geonews.

From the official sources:

• Here's the 3-minutes launch video of Google Earth Builder at the Google Geo summit, I like it when Ed Parsons says "Geospatial technologies is moving away from [...] the specialist, it's now available to everyone", since you're reading Slashgeo, you probably are a specialist, should we be afraid or is this just our jobs' natural evolution?
• There's new 45° imagery available for 16 cities: "Europe: Caceres, Spain; Graz, Austria; Montreux, Switzerland; Zurich, Switzerland; US: Bakersfield, CA; Boise, ID; Canton, OH; Centennial, CO; Columbia, SC; Davenport, IA; Des Moines, IA; Enumclaw, WA; Grand Rapids, MI; Kansas City, KS/MO; Lawrence, KS; Los Angeles, CA; Merced, CA; New Orleans, LA; Omaha, NE; Payson, UT; Portland, OR; Springfield, MO; St. Louis, MO; The Woodlands, TX;"
• There's new StreetView imagery of the Swiss Alps, taken from railways
• The tool that allows you to get notified when new imagery is available, Follow Your World, is now available in 43 new languages
• We've been invited to Explore the history of Mexico with Google Earth

From other sources:

• The GEB shares the location of the Turkey earthquake and Gaddafi's death
• The GEB also describe YoubeQ, a 3D social network using the Google Earth plugin: "YoubeQ puts you on a Segway to drive around the globe, with the option to quickly teleport to any location that you wish to visit. You can click on other users to chat with them, collect stamps as you travel the globe, and it has a variety of other features (with many more coming)."
• A week ago the same site offered an entry on what Google Earth can do for responding to the Thailand Floods
• Here's a round-up of the great (American) Football resources in Google Earth
• If you have interest in it, here's how to tweak the Google Earth Flight Simulator
• Last Wednesday, there was new imagery released to Google Maps / Earth

Since the beginning of the year, we heard about geospatial uses of WebGL, and now, Google announced Google MapsGL.

The improvements are simply described as: "With WebGL your maps experience is much better with 3D buildings, smoother transitions between imagery and the ability to instantly “swoop” into Street View without a plugin." Particularly in geospatial, changes are easier to grasp when visualized, here's the short video showing the differences between Google Maps and Google MapsGL. You do need Chrome or the latest Firefox.

Other recent Google geonews:

• Here's an official entry on faster updates to local business listings
• The GEB shares an entry on A tribute to Steve Jobs in Google Earth
• And an entry on the Sea Ice Extent Animation updated

I've been overly busy lately, but give me some time and you'll get all the pertinent geonews. Here's for the recent Google-related geonews.

From official sources:

• Google proudly announced there has been over one billion downloads of Google Earth, clearly Google Earth and Maps were the symbols of a new era in geospatial technologies 
• Google also announced new countries 'graduating' from Google Map Maker: Afghanistan, Antarctica, Ecuador, Georgia, Guatemala, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Honduras, Iraq, Norfolk Island, Saint Pierre & Miquelon and Saudi Arabia, and shares a related entry on Google Map Maker efforts in Afghanistan
• Google Maps added a "My Location" default "From" location to directions, removing the need to type your current address location
• Slashdot noted that there's now an 'helicopter view' for driving directions in Google Maps
• Yes, the famous Google pushpin has been redesigned, amongst other changes of look
• Google Earth Outreach is now present in Canada, Google Lat Long also shared a story on Canada's boreal forest, the world's largest intact forest
• Here's a bunch of minor Maps API news
• And another developer-oriented entry is tips on mapping your business

From other sources:

• Some users might be interested in those tips to make Google Earth Flight Simulator easier to use
• There was new imagery made available to Google Earth yesterday and new 3D trees in Portland, Oregon
• Via APB, Google will use INRIX for real-time traffic for 8 european countries

Here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From the official sources:

• Google announced the release of Google Earth 6.1, the My Places panel is improved, and so is StreetView, and Google Earth Pro too gets several new features. The GEB offers some more details on what's changed
• You can now directly share your activites on Google Maps on Google+, such as directions, places and even search results
• The developer blog has an entry on the Google Street View Image API
• Not directly geospatial, but Google Wallet was launched in collaboration with Visa, American Express and Discover, enabling mobile payments anywhere 

From other sources:

• Here's tips on how to speed up Google Earth
• The GEB mentions Google Earth Explorer, a smooth way to fly through in Google Earth, which is in the process of becoming open source and has been purchased by Google
• Slashdot ran a discussion named Google To Honor "Don't-Track-Me-Bro" Requests, in which we learn "Google will allow owners of Wi-Fi access points to opt out of a Google service that uses their data to determine the location of others' smartphones."
• Ogle Earth shares a detailed entry named Biannual Swedish media panic sets in as Google Earth continues to show Sweden’s “secrets”
• Here's 50,000 worldwide power plants in Google Earth
• The GEB also mentions a few nice global overlays for Google Earth
• There's new imagery today in Google Earth

While the official Google blog offers a generic entry on the events of September 11. The Google Earth Blog offers entries on the events in Google Earth:

• The first entry focuses on the past, with 3D modles and historical imagery, including how the attack unfolded
• The second entry focuses on the present, the site, but also the memorial
• Finally, the last entry focuses on the future, what the planned buildings looks like, including the 'Transportation Hub'

UPDATE: I disabled the comments for this story. The mission of Slashgeo is to share geospatial content - the comments being posted below on this sensitive topic have nothing to do with geospatial. Thank you for your comprehension.

UPDATE #2: If it's your first visit here, be welcomed! This story got over 35,000 visitors coming from the Official Google blog in its first 10 hours. After several user requests, I have hidden the 28 comments posted for this story. None had geospatial-related content and some of them included profanity. Thank you for your comprehension.

I'm back in front of the keyboard after a 3 weeks break with my wife and daughters. I'll catchup and share the recent geonews in the coming days. Thank you for your patience. Let's start with Google geonews (because they're easier to aggregate).

From the official sources:

• There's new 45° imagery in 24 citites: Augusta, GA; Badajoz, Spain; Boise, ID; Boston, MA; Fairfield, CA; Girona, Spain; Knoxville, TN; Lausanne, Switzerland; Little Rock, AR; Lodi, CA; Merida, Spain; Modesto, CA; Montgomery, AL; Murrieta Hot Springs, CA; Provo, UT; Reno, NV; Salem, OR; Sebastopol, CA; Spokane, WA; Tallahassee, FL; Vacaville , CA; Vallejo, CA; Victorville, CA; Wichita, KS; Yucaipa, CA
• Weather forecasts is a new layer in Google Maps, along with cloud coverage, data from third-party sources
• Google Maps gets voice recognition and you can now say your map queries out loud, if you use Google Chrome
• The new GTFS-realtime, extending the original 'General Transit Feed Specification', has been released to the public by Google, it includes: Trip Updates, Service Alerts and Vehicle Position updates
• Here's the announcement of the deprecation of the Maps API for Flash
• StreetView news;
  • New in StreetView is a 30-mile section of the Rio Negro River tributary in the Amazonian bassin, also discussed over Slashdot
  • Slashdot reports that StreetView has finally been approved by the Israeli government
  • Irak's National Museum corridors can be walked in StreetView
• Using short URLs to share links is now a permanent feature of Google Maps
• Google added a round of 3D trees Los Angeles, Denver and Boulder
• Ancient and modern Rome have updated 3D content (remember?)
• Google announced Map Makerpedia, a crowdsourced guide for Google Map Maker (you mean similar goals to wiki.openstreetmap? ;-)
• The Static Maps API's new feature is the ability to scale the display of maps
• There was an imagey update to Google Earth and Maps for the week of the 15th, and another one on the week of August 29th, with several tens of countries getting new imagery
• Google Maps is now available in 40+ new country domain names, and more languages have been added to "Your World in 3D"
• Paronamio users and contributors can now join groups of interests
• Google mentioned a new book named The Great Global Treasure Hunt on Google Earth, and informed us that they are now at over 700 million activations of Google Earth, which made me though of our current poll

From other sources:

• In a series of generic but useful entries, the GE Blog is offering an entry named Ten easy steps to learn about a place with Google Earth, another one named Measuring distances with the Google Earth Ruler and yet another one named Running Google Earth offline from a portable server
• Ogle Earth analized Sweden imagery update and reminds us of being cautious of imagery tagged January 1st
• Google and OpenDNS are working on global Internet sppedup, and unsurprisingly, they use location data

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode. Yes, on a Saturday! I'll be away for the next three weeks and dare delay my family's departure to feed you with these.

From the open source front:

• Mentioned before, the open source map design tool TileMill reached version 0.4.1   
• Some recent improvements of QGIS: an extraction projection tool for QGIS, a new MapInfo to QGIS style converter and Shield Labels for QGIS
• Not the first time it happened, a briton got arrested during his OpenStreetMap mapping activities, yes, that was before the recent London riots
• O'Reilly offers an entry named Open source maps tell data journalism stories in Afghanistan
• Paul Ramsey of the PostGIS fame shares interesting arguments on the open source vs proprietary debacle
• Here's an entry on generating elevation maps from along-track stereo pairs using the open source Orfeo ToolBox
• We told you ourselves a few times, but here's how James Fee telling us Why You Can’t Afford to Miss FOSS4G

From the Esri front:

• The File GeoDatabase API version 1.1 has been released, in includes a .NET wrapper and bug fixes
• James Fee mentions PgMap and QMap to connect to spatial databases with ArcGIS 10.1 without SDE

From the Google front:

• In their learning series, here's an entry on GIS with Google Earth and Google Maps
• Google shares an entry on famine crisis relief in the Horn of Africa
• Here's the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall in Google Earth
• Google invites us to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial with Google Maps

On the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft updated their Bing Maps Account Center with three main improvements: Direct Publishing of Data Sources, Map Navigation for Data Editing, and Enhanced POI Data Search
• Here's an entry named KinectFusion Provides Low-Cost and Accessible 3D Interior Mapping

In the miscellaneous category:

• The Spatial Law blog shares a long entry named Geolocation and Privacy: Are We Going the Right Way?: "However, many of bills are so broadly written that if they were to become law they could apply to a broad range of geospatial products and services, including satellite and aerial imagery, GIS and GPS."
• VerySpatial mentions the launch of the augmented reality Layar Vision app to "recognize real-world objects and then trigger digital content based on that object"
• The GEB shares satellite imagery on the Japanese Tsunami that created some massive icebergs
• MacRumors details an Apple patent on schematic maps: "[...] a new maps application that could display a simplified subset of information most relevant to a user seeking specific information or routing."
• In special remote sensing news, Slashdot mentions a camera reaching its target by being thrown by a grenade launcher
• MapQuest tells us how free listing works on their MapQuest Local Business Center

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly discuss maps of the recent London riots
• Mapperz mentions the release of USGS historical maps

Here's the recent Google-related geonews. From the official sources:

• Here's an entry on Belgium's Brussels in 3D in Google Earth, named Europe’s best kept secret revealed in 3D
• Google updated the Help Center of Google Map Maker
• Google is updating their maps data from authoritative sources for France, Monaco and Luxembourg
• Google shared an entry named using search patterns to track dengue fever
• Google's Ed Parsons shared his Location Business Summit slides, a presentation named "Making the most of place", Google Places, of course

• Here's a 3D model of Joplin tornado debris
• Slashdot ran a discussion named Google Wallet: the End of Anonymous Shopping, about the probable upcoming systematic location tracking of all purchases
• It seems Apple Just Renewed Maps and Search Partnership with Google
• The GEB has an entry named Space Archeologists discovering egyptian tombs
• The same site is also enthusiastic about Sony's Project Shiphunt, a fun game using Google Ocean
• And there was a new imagery update on May 31th

Here's the recent Google-related geonews. From official sources:

• Here's the Grimsvötn’s ash cloud visualized in Google Earth, the Iceland volcano in eruption
• Google updated Google Maps on your mobile browser, specifically smartphones and tablets 
• Learn more here about Fusion Tables dynamic styling
• Here's an entry on Google Map Maker on U.S. campuses
• If you're looking to images and data of Mississippi floods, here they are
• And there was an imagery update to Google Earth and Maps last week, bringing more high resolution imagery to tens of countries

• Here's an update on the collection of weather and storm tracking tools for Google Earth
• Mapperz mentions a new feature being tested, Google Maps Sneek Peek
• An entry on analyzing ancient bays, the Carolina Bays, with hsv-shaded LiDAR DEMs and Google Earth

Here's the recent Google geonews for the last 7 days. From the official sources:

• Google announced that Google Earth is now optimized for Android-powered tablets, which includes fully textured 3D buildings
• Google announced the Distance Matrix API web service, providing "a chart that showed the driving distance and journey time between pairs of major cities"
• Google shared an entry named Using the power of mapping to support South Sudan
• There's a new Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants Program
• Traffic information is coming to Google Maps in Sweden and Taiwan
• On the gaming front, here's an entry on the Travel Game and Google Earth as a gameboard
• And there was yet again a new imagery update for Google Earth and Google Maps, with tens of countries getting fresh imagery

• About an hour ago the GEB published an entry on High-res imagery of the Mississippi River flooding in Google Earth
• Google Building Maker supports new cities and offers expanded coverage for others, including Fresno, Lake Tahoe, Austin, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego and St. Louis
• The FGT blog mentions a tool to Generate Custom Color Code For Google Maps
• Here's an entry on powerful drag-and-drop capabilities with HTML5 and the Google Earth Plug-in, and another entry named Quickly share locations using the Google Earth Plug-in
• Inevitably, there's plenty of new Osama bin Laden's compound 3D models for you to explore in Google Earth, and there's even fresh imagery of the area taken on May 2nd