Slashgeo

Ben from the Virtual Terrain Project stumbled into serious limitations with DigitalGlobe, owners Quickbird, of one of the only three civil 1-meter remote sensing satellites. Ben's explanation: "It appears that Google licensed ALL of DigitalGlobe's imagery on an _exclusive_ basis for online presentation. So if i wanted to do something on a website, with DigitalGlobe's hi-res imagery, for example if the Google Maps framework isn't flexible enough, i cannot legally go around Google to license the image myself! I can imagine why Google did this - to prevent Microsoft,Mapquest etc. from licensing the same imagery in their webmapping frameworks - but the net effect is that ordinary people, NGOs and small companies are also cut off." See the official DigitalGlobe reply below from the complete thread.

GIS Monitor tells us DigitalGlobe is partnering with Lowrance, a manufacturer of marine electronics that has been making GPS-based navigation systems. From the article: "DigitalGlobe will provide the satellite imagery for the Lowrance iWAY 600C. According to DigitalGlobe, which demonstrated the device at the recent International CES Conference, the iWAY 600C offers detailed satellite imagery of select metropolitan cities, NAVTEQ road maps with voice and visual navigation, more than 5.5 million points of interest, nautical charts for U.S. lakes and coastal waters, an MP3 player, an FM radio receiver, a picture viewer, a 5" high-resolution display, a touch-screen display, and a 30 GB internal hard drive."

Last week the geoblogs mentioned the important exclusivity deal between Google and GeoEye (GeoEye is Space Imaging and OrbImage together, since early 2006). Why important? Because Google already has an exclusivity deal with DigitalGlobe which can cause difficulties to casual buyers. The GEB has a nice summary: "Not only that, as part of the deal, Google's logo is being flown on the side of the rocket. The new satellite is capable of up to .41 meter resolution, but by [U.S.] law Google will be limited to .5 meter/pixel resolution. This is still VERY good resolution, and a bit better than DigitalGlobe's typical .6 meter imagery." APB also offers coverage. The EOPortal informs us on GeoEye-1, to be launched later this week: "[...] the satellite will make 15 earth orbits per day and collect imagery with its ITT-built imaging system that can distinguish objects on the Earth's surface as small as 0.41-meters (16 inches) in size in the panchromatic (black and white) mode. The 4,300-pound satellite will also be able to collect multispectral or color imagery at 1.65-meter ground resolution. While the satellite will be able to collect imagery at 0.41-meters, GeoEye's operating license from NOAA requires re-sampling the imagery to half-meter resolution for all customers not explicitly granted a waiver by the U.S. Government." See also related stories below. Update: Slashdot now discusses the story.

The EOPortal informs us GeoEye started commercial operations for the GeoEye-1 earth-imaging satellite. From the press release: "GeoEye-1 imagery products and solutions are now commercially available in half-, one-, two- and four-meter ground resolutions. Imagery products are available in color and black & white. Color imagery comprises four bands: blue, green, red and near-infrared. There are several ways commercial customers can purchase GeoEye-1 imagery. Service Experts are available to assist with the purchasing of GeoEye's imagery products and value-added solutions." See also many previous GeyEye stories below.