In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Slowly starting to catch up mid-August geonews, here's the associated recent Google ones.

From official sources:

• Bikers rejoice, biking navigation in 12 countries in Google Maps for Android: "That’s why today we’re bringing mobile biking directions and navigation to the 10 countries [...]. Plus, we’re adding turn-by-turn, voice-guided biking navigation to Google Maps Navigation (beta) in every country with biking directions."
• There's Map Maker updates for Lesotho, Oman and Trinidad & Tobago and Detroit, Michigan
• Street View:
  • Google Maps and Street View are going to Canada's far north
  • Street View is also much improved in Brazil and prehispanic Mexican cities
  • You can See Rebuilding in New Orleans Through Updated Street View Imagery
• As a public transport daily user, I'm happy that Google Maps now has schedules for more than one million public transit stops worldwide
• We did mention geo-wiki.org last February, and now Google shares an entry named Validating Land Cover Datasets with Geo-Wiki.org, using a blend of Google tools and open source ones (e.g. MapServer, PostGIS)

From other sources:

• The GEB links to 'A New Life' new country generator in Google Earth for use in education and fun
• APB mentioned Google acquired 7 deCarta LBS patents
• There's still much left to discover on this planet, New Egyptian pyramids found using Google Earth?
• There's Mars' Curiosity rover imagery in Google Mars now

You guessed it, that's the last 'batch geonews' entry for the next two weeks. This edition is much shorter than usual. 

From the open source front:

• The open source virtual globe Marble 1.4 has been released for MS Windows
• On scalability, Troubleshooting large GeoServer deployment

From the Google front:

• Nothing less than 130 smaller U.S. cities now with traffic on Google Maps, along with additions and improvements elsewhere
• Expect cities added to the new Google 3D display mode on a regular basis, this time, fly through Seattle and Denver with new 3D imagery on Google Earth for mobile
• Google Map Maker spreading, add your knowledge to the Poland and Ukraine maps (you know me, I am going to tell you you can also add it to OpenStreetMap ;-)
• Kurt shares two short entries on MSL/Curiosity in Google Mars and Gale Crater - Mars Science Laboratory / Curiosity

In the miscellaneous category:

• A demonstration of how things can be easy nowadays, a DM article named Georeferencing on a Budget: Using iPhone and Freeware Apps to Geotag a Mountain of Image Files