Bhuvan, India's response to Google Earth

Bhuvan, India's response to Google Earth, will be launched in March 2009 and will provide high resolution imagery data of the order of five metres which would be of great help for real-time exercises, including disaster management and military operations.

"Google Earth is providing high resolution data in the order of less than a metre. But the data is two to three years old. But Bhuvan will provide the relevant data for any real-time exercise," SK Pathan, head, Geo Informatics Data Division, Isro, told PTI.

For real-time exercises, the latest data is a guiding force, he said. It can show the topography, altitude and other features of a location. The data could be of use to manage public services, internal security, town planning and infrastructure development activities.

However, it is not yet decided whether the data can be put on the web as it could be misused. Some locations can, however, be blurred or blocked due to security reasons. "Bhuvan will be created by March next year. Then we will seek the government's permission to put it on the web," Pathan said.

Blogger Introduced New Feature: ‘Geotagging’

Blogger (Also called blogspot) in draft has recently announced a new feature called Geotagging or location labels which enables you to add locations to each of your post through Google Maps. It is similar to time stamps of blogger posts which help to browse using specific date/month whereas Geotag give your readers a way to browse posts near a specific location.

As per official blog of Blogger in draft

We’ve just added geotagging to the new post editor on Blogger in draft. With geotagging, you can add a location to your each of your blog posts. Just as time stamps help readers find posts from a certain date or time, geotags give your readers a way to browse posts near a specific location.

Adding a geotag to your post is easy. Log into draft.blogger.com, open the post editor, and click the ‘add location’ link below the main text field.

Use the location editor to search, drag, click and zoom on a map to choose and save a location. Google says- “We’ll try to label the location you choose using our reverse geocoder, which looks up a name for a point on the map”. You can also edit the location name by clicking the blue location name text below the search field.

As said earlier, you can see clearly, this feature is integrated with Google Maps: