I am still excited about the new Google Earth application I mentioned in the last post. However, after spending way too much time playing with it yesterday some concerns and caveats:

1. I’m not sure it really needs the computing power claimed. It never seemed to use more than 3-5% of CPU on my laptop which is hardly a speed demon (Pentium M 1.6GHz).
2. The above might be because it is currently interminably slow uploading data. Individual locations seemed ok at first but then became very slow and if you try to do anything really interesting like tilt and scroll (like driving down the highway) it is just not ready for prime time.
3. There are a lot of gaps in the satellite images and some are pretty old. I’d like to know they are making a concerted effort to fill the gaps and update the old pictures.

On the other hand, I am really excited for the future of these type of applications. Microsoft, Yahoo, etc., will have to respond and then Google again, and, will, just let your imagination run wild. We think there is cool stuff on the web now. It will seem like horse and buggies in a few years.
Update: With somewhat faster data loading this morning I did see CPU spikes up to 52%. Also, testing some local directions I discovered that Google does not yet know about a major new local freeway interchange that was completed about 6 months ago. They definitely need to work on their updating.

Barry has the goods on Google Earth.
This is too cool! Never mind playing games to dribble away time. If you’ve got the bandwidth and the system go now and play.

• Watching the earth spin as you swing from the US to, say, Fallujah is pretty nifty.
• Even though I’ve seen the shot before it is still a bit unnerving to be able to identify my car in the driveway of my house!

Warning: Broadband and computing power needed. You will not want to play with this if you are a dial up user! Well, you will want to, but it will be really, really slow.

When I saw this I headed right over to Amazon to buy the Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 DVD Ultimate Reference Suite. And then saw that there was not 1 but 2 separate rebates involved from some company I’ve never heard of. Oh, you can track it beginning 4 weeks after submission and don’t expect anything from us for 8-10 weeks.
I decided that there was no way we would use this enough to make it worth the rebate hassle. Your mileage may vary!

I suspect that not many have ever doubted that Microsoft would do whatever it took, give up whatever was necessary or cooperate with any government to make a buck yuan.
Google, though, has tried to make us believe that they are different. Take a look at the Google Corporate Philosophy. Here are a few items:

• You can make money without doing evil.
• The need for information crosses all borders.

Unless you want to make money in China and then the definition of evil may be a bit fluid:

In an interview with Playboy, Brin was asked what Google would do if faced with a choice between compromising search results and being unavailable to Chinese users. He responded: “There are difficult questions, difficult challenges. Sometimes the ‘Don’t be evil’ policy leads to many discussions about what exactly is evil.”

What you think is safe today may be well be in a government file tomorrow. What you believe is accurate today may well be revised tomorrow at the direction of your friendly government revisionist. Be careful out there!
Via Heretical Ideas.
Update: For a different take see Scobeleizer.

Update: Corrected currency spelling error.