Slashgeo

The EarthBrowser blog has an interesting summary of how virtual globes are becoming closer to software platforms. From the entry: "I have no doubt that each of the development teams of the major virtual globes want their creation to become the default platform for geospatial content. Why shoot for anything less?"

The Google Earth Blog links to a very long MIT Technology Review article summarizing the state of 3D immersive virtual worlds. From the article: "So while virtual worlds are good for basic instruction and data representation, professionals aren't yet rushing to use them to analyze large amounts of spatial information. For that, they stick to specialized design, animation, modeling, and mapping software from companies like Autodesk and ESRI. But there's another new genre of 3-D visualization tools that are accessible to both professionals and average Internet users: "virtual globe" programs such as Google Earth, Microsoft's Virtual Earth, and NASA's open-source World Wind. [...] Even as social virtual worlds incorporate a growing amount of real-world data, virtual globes and their 2-D counterparts, Web maps, are getting more personal and immersive. Digital maps are becoming a substrate for what Di-Ann Eisnor, CEO of the mapping site Platial in Portland, OR, calls "neogeography": an explosion of user-­created content, such as travel photos and blog posts, pinned to specific locations (see "Killer Maps," October 2005)."

Vector One offers an interesting entry on the benefits of having multiple parallel virtual globes. From the entry: "Are We Destined to Have Parallel Digital Earth’s? The alternative to parallel digital worlds is one digital world - no thanks. I don’t want Google, Microsoft, WorldWind, TITAN or any other single world becoming the dominate, stand alone, source for digital spatial content. In fact, I think each of these do their best work and will reach their highest potential through competition and interaction. [...] The primary difference between digital worlds and all other mediums for communication will simply be that they are digital and characterized by what one can do with digital data." From my point of view, interoperability is the key component for the users. Update: 09/28 15:29 GMT by S : Spatial Sustain's Matt Ball also shares his thoughts on the subject: "There’s currently ample opportunity for niche players in this space, but the gap between the leaders and others is rapidly expanding to the point that it will be a chasm where vast amounts of investment will be required to catch up."

Both Vector One and Spatial Sustain discuss this week what is the influence of gaming on geotechnology. From V1: "In fact, it can be argued that as GIS and geotechnology contribute real-world spatial data into the modeling and gaming environment – games becoming more reality based. [...] Gaming is shifting science to entertainment – make no mistake, some serious science is embedded into gaming development, tools and products. The shift that is taking place is more subtle, causing science to be fun and the pursuit of knowledge and discovery (key ingredients of science) to be entertaining." From SS: "Microsoft’s Virtual Earth technology is being married to their Flight Simulator software program to provide greater realism at multiple scales so that those piloting simulated aircraft have a more realistic experience from the cockpit. [...] We are in need of greater realism, and the expanded demand of the gaming community means that there is a revenue stream to pay for the collection of more detailed and realistic models. The geospatial community is in need of more interdisciplinary interaction, and the creation of more collaborative gaming platforms could help pave the way for more interactive simulation environments that could be harnessed to understand earth systems." I copied below a few geospatial games mentioned previously, yes, there's *a lot of them* (and much more that probably weren't shared on Slashgeo).