Personally, I don't care which company Google licenses its mapping data from, as long as it is accurate. 

-Eric Zeman, Information Week

When asked about implications of the Google deal with regards to Navigation on the iPhone...

We are making sure that navigation is an application that is allowed.  If there is any restriction on the platform, that indeed has to do with the restrictions that we have in our contracts. Navigation is allowed, provided that the right fees are paid

- Alain De Taeye, Founder, Tele Atlas

Back in the day of GIS 0.1, GIS pros passed around shp files and mif files.  Geometry was described in one file with associated attributes in another.  It was an elegant, simple design for an offline desktop GIS environment, and still supported today by commercial vector data vendors (e.g. NAVTEQ, TeleAtlas) and by private folks swapping files & sharing geographic data.  The OGC adopted these ESRI and MapInfo creations as de facto standards of the day, and are now doing the same for an online Web world of geographic information exchange by adopting Keyhole Markup Language (KML), an XML format designed by Keyhole (now Google Earth).

I often find standards strange in that groups form with the intention of creating a collaborative environment in a competitive sphere.  I never did get that.  OGCs OpenLS started this way, with reps from all walks of LBS life getting together to pontificate what a saving grace standard should look like for a struggling LBS segment.  That de jure standard was built, but who uses it?  No one.   For me, that was narcissistic work and a waste of time and energy.  KML on the other hand fortunately was not conceived, but rather adopted by OGC after hundreds of millions of people downloaded Google Earth.  This adoption in of itself historically suggests a format like KML has promise not because it's technically advantageous, but simply because people use it - just like they use shp files.  And that use will continue, with or without OGC's blessing.  

Wow, real public relations for Android!  That's refreshing kool aid from a stand usually producing cagey question marks shadowed in secrecy for product releases.  Perhaps there's more pressure to be a bit more open on this one, since, well, Android is open LJ with others in the ecosystem involved to support it.  The integrated service delivery between 'features' that might previously been referred to as 'apps' is quite impressive, and the globaltime demo based on OpenGL 3D kicks.   

-Gizmodo

Michael Jones' keynote presentation at SiRF's inaugural Location 2.0 Summit this past Tuesday at CTIA introduced the LBS audience to a larger world of spatial data created by users with local knowledge, suggesting "it's the guy who lives there who knows more, not the guy in a Tele Atlas van". To reinforce his point, Jones demonstrated Google Earth’s use by the US Holocaust Museum to document the genocidal crisis in Darfur, which subsequently sparked a rally of humanitarian aid and due attention for the region.

The power of user based publishing is unprecedented and can indeed inspire rapid change, but these democratized tools and means of production and distribution can also harm - check out this Guardian clip of the al-Aqsa rocket brigade using Google Earth to target Israeli villages with missiles.

I'm stoked. Three months ahead of my 20^th snowboarding season, Google Earth Blog reports new imagery updates for Google Earth including a dump [pun intended] of high-resolution data for my home state of Colorado. Up till now, imagery for reviewing and sharing my snowboarding runs with bragging rights lacked impact—neither Google nor Microsoft's offerings delivered the goods for Colorado slopes—but this new NASA stuff looks great. Check out these runs from last season:

• A-Basin
• Breckenridge 
• Keystone 
• Vail 

Thanks Google and NASA!