A Google contractor thinks the search ad company stole his idea for Google Sky, a popular addition to the Google Earth product.

Images on Google Earth are highly detailed but do not show imagery in real-time.

Many people according to Frank Taylor at his Google Earth Blog believe the images are in real time. He believes that is because of weather satellite photos that are a few hours old or because of live weather radar. He goes into detail how Google collects its images for Google Earth.

Celebrities and star athletes endorse products; why not teachers?  Granted, young boys may not be in a rush to imitate Mr. Oldman’s turkey neck or Mad Hatter hair, but he still spends a lot of time with the lads.  Hence (we believe) Google’s new move to introduce educators to Google Earth.

Updated features for Sky in Google Earth arrived for the popular application, with more content added to the platform.

The Virtual Earth team wants our feedback.

Wonderful. Kudos to any company that wants its customers’ feedback and offers a participatory approach. So, here’s my feedback…

Microsoft added a LOT of whizbang features to its maps.live.com maps (3D, lots of photos, and such) but they didn’t focus on the basics.

Improvements to the search engine at Google.com are undeniably newsworthy, but on a sort of life-and-death scale, adjustments to the Google News engine are also important.  And a few changes (and reminders) cropped up recently.

Almost two weeks ago, a post called "December Updates in Google Earth" was made on the official LatLong Blog, and I figured Google’s geographic information system (GIS) specialists were done for the year.  I was wrong, though, as they’ve just released new, more detailed imagery.

Police in Melbourne, Australia are scrutinizing satellite images to see if a murder suspect was caught on film dumping a woman’s body in the front yard of a house.

Microsoft has purchased UK online mapping company Multimap.

A French photographer named Yann Arthus-Bertrand is famous for many things, including an “Earth from the Air” exhibit.  It seems perfectly natural, then, that about 500 of his photographs have been used to create a new “Earth from Above” layer in Google Earth.

Updates to Google Earth are always fascinating, but sometimes, that’s all they are; there aren’t any obvious practical benefits.  The latest update should be pretty useful, though, as Google has added roads and business listings in a number of countries, and also updated its Transit symbols.

It’s been in the works for at least five months, and Governor Bob Riley has now unveiled the Alabama Department of Homeland Security’s “Virtual Alabama,” in which Google Earth will serve a pivotal function.

Just about everybody uses Google, and the statistics that prove this are always impressive.  It’s especially interesting to see government agencies tied to the search giant, though, and in the latest example of this, the EPA is working with Google Earth.

It’s unfortunate that they’re getting so much practice, but people are, in any event, learning to document disasters with Google Maps and Google Earth.  The latest problem to get this treatment is the San Francisco oil spill.

Last week, Google partnered with the United Nations in an effort to end global poverty.  It was truly startling to see the two entities together, and all the better since they had such a laudable goal.  The partnership may not have been too effective, though, and Google’s done something about that.

The 85 buildings come in different shapes, sizes, and colors, but environmentally speaking, they’re all “green.”  They’re also all well-liked by Google, which has made models of them in Google 3D Warehouse.

The weather can cause a lot of headaches, and due to its questionable reliability, a new weather-related update to Google Earth might also become a source of frustration.  But with options like “Clouds,” “Radar,” and “Conditions and Forecasts,” the update’s cool factor is likely to outweigh any complaints.

Google and Cisco have partnered with the United Nations to launch a new Web site that will detail how and where Millennium Development Goals on ending poverty are being met.

Eye doctors should ready themselves for a flood of patients; Google Earth and Google Maps have just received yet another huge update that’s sure to have users squinting at their monitors all day and late into the night.

Google’s products and services can’t don fire gear or grab a water hose.  But people are still using them in ways that will hopefully reduce the impact of the California fires.

Thanks to the release of a new 3D modeling system, Microsoft Virtual Earth is a step closer to achieving parity with its main rival, Google Earth.  Google Warehouse, meet 3DVIA.