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From the All Points Blog : "We have been contacted by the military," Google spokesman Larry Yu said. "In those instances where they (the U.S military) have expressed concerns about the imagery, we have accommodated their requests."... The images that worry the Pentagon include views of bases, including security at the entrances to those installations. "It actually shows where all the guards are. It shows how the barriers go up and down. It shows how to get in and out of buildings," said Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command.

For more information and a link to the original article, please visit the All Points Blog.
Update: 03/07 21:51 GMT by S :Slashdot users also discuss the issue. I dare remind our users that anyone can Google to remove specific StreetView imagery.

Google has pulled StreetView images showing military bases, at the request of the U.S. Military.

See the All Points Blog story for more information.

Mapperz runs a comparison of MapJack vs Google StreetView. From the entry: "Well who wins? In this case, it's unfair to say either is a clear winner, Mapperz prefers MapJack's 'User Interface' has more functions more interaction on the surroundings, while the might of Google tries to map and photograph every square inch of every US City (and told not to in places) they do have more coverage. But MapJack wins on being the first location outside of the US (Chiang Mia, Thailand)." Disclaimer: MapJack is a Slashgeo.org donor.

The Digital Earth Blog has a blog about this. Remember, nothing is confirmed, so don't take it too seriously until it happens. From their blog : "According to Rafe Needleman of Webware, StreetView will be available inside of Google Earth “within a few weeks”. Rafe quotes an unnamed source with that info. He states that it’s not clear if this will be a public release or an internal testing release. If done smoothly, this could be very slick. It’ll be interesting to see how Google implements it."

For more information, as well as some Virtual Earth talk, please visit the Digital Earth Blog.

Mentioned earlier this week, here's the official announcement and a description of a new feature, 3D building swooping. The release provoked a lot of reactions and writings in the geoblogs. Here's the GEB entries on his first impressions [with screenshots], a video demonstration, well worth the 6 minutes (really), a short explanation of the new navigation widgets and some final thoughts on GE 4.3. Ogle Earth also shares his comments and discuss the differences between atlases and mirror worlds. Interesting to note that not everyone is pleased with some of the changes, with GE being dubbed the AOL of the Geoweb. APB also links to a IW article on the practical uses of Google StreetView.

In other related Google geonews, there's new Google Transit cities and YouTube videos in Google Maps.

The What Is Special About Geospatial blog informs us about this. From their summary : "Today Google has integrated Streetview in Google Maps routing. If you generate a routing inside a city with Streetview you can see a camera. With a click on this camera a Streetview window is comming up where the street scene of the position is shown."

For more information and a link to see it in action, visit the blog link above. Remember, click on the camera next to the turn by turn direction to see the streetview representation of it. Update: 04/29 21:09 GMT by S :Here's the official Google Lat Long announcement.