Short news: Google Earth Community does Maps; India; Argos

Monday, November 27, 2006 (00:40 UTC)

Just Getting Things Done (tm) on a Sunday night:

Noted: Google Earth Community these days also lets you see uploaded KML files in Google Maps via a link. Here's how it looks for the Darfur refugee camp post. (Google Maps hasn't been updated yet at the moment, so you get to see what the low-resolution imagery looked like before.)

All Points Blog points to The Hindu reporting the further utterings of Indian president A P J Abdul Kalam to the effect that there should be laws that regulate the use data acquired by satellites:
"We have to have a law of space like the United States," Kalam said addressing the 26th Congress of Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) here.
It's not clear if he knows what he's talking about, because US law only applies to US companies seeking licenses from the US government to launch and operate remote sensing satellites. If Kalam wants to regulate Indian satellite operators, he's very welcome to, but I suspect that's not what he had in mind; India has on several occasions made it clear "there should be an international agreement that before satellite pictures are taken over a particular country, the permission of that country has to be taken."

Further reading: Google Earth and India redux redux, Google Earth, India and international law and Have I got a CAGE for you!

Valery Hronusov notices that the Argos satellite tracking and monitoring services begins offering KML as a download option.

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