During a week marked by environmentally-related news that includes pressure on the US by European governments for mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions and an unprecedented lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Jerry Brown against sprawling San Bernardino County for failing to account for greenhouse gases when updating its 25-year blueprint for growth, the Microsoft Virtual Earth team is participating at the 5th International Symposium on Digital Earth at the UC campus in Berkeley, CA. 

At this bi-annual event, held for the first time on US soil, representatives from industry, academia, government, NGOs and the private sector have gathered from around the globe, brought together by their shared interest in digital earth technologies for the betterment of the planet. Rousing and provocative keynotes have have been given by the likes of California Lt. Governor John Garamendi, former Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, Xu Guanhua, and Brig. General Peter Worden, Director of the NASA Ames Research Center (to name just a few ... my apologies to other speakers not mentioned, who were also quite engaging).

Microsoft's Dr. Vincent Tao gave a talk on Empowering the Digital Earth Community through Virtual Earth, and Dr. Bill Gail, who has been receiving attention lately for his thoughts on climate control, is on a panel that will chair a session on Virtual Globes for Science and Humanity tomorrow (Friday).

And, of course, our friend Michael Jones, CTO of Google, presented on the Google Earth offering and community, once again making the claim that Google Earth has seen 200 million downloads but this time adding that this makes their community the 5th largest population in the world. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will note that this is the first time I have mentioned either Mr. Jones or Google, as I prefer to focus on Virtual Earth and its value to government applications. However, I am always curious about this statement due to the sheer bandwidth it would take to support 200 million users and would just like to emphasize that Jones speaks to "downloads" which is very different than active users, especially when you consider that Google Earth is a client-application that must be downloaded and installed onto machines every time Google releases new beta versions, which seems to be every couple of months. Until now, I have suspected that Jones might unintentionally misleading when he makes these statements but this latest claim (with respect to their status as the 5th largest population in the world) makes it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In addition to environmental topics, digital globes for humanitarian causes was a focus at this conference which prompts me to just hint here that Microsoft has been collaborating with a human rights organization, a US Federal agency, and various Microsoft partners on a Virtual Earth-based application that I hope to be able to share with you very soon. So be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed on this blog (top of home page) if you haven't already.

Meanwhile, we highlighted in our exhibit booth a demo version of the Virtual Earth-based Avian Influenza Mapping System (AIMS) developed by Microsoft partner IDV Solutions and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, in collaboration with the Director of National Intelligence, Chief Information Officer, Intelligence Community Enterprise Services (DNI/CIO/ICES). The portal is an unclassified website serving the Intelligence Community, U.S. Government Agencies, State/local public health authorities and the U.S. Academic Community as well as the International community of Avian Influenza experts.

This is a topic that warrants its own blog entry and I will post on this later this evening after show hours.

In the meantime, I will just leave you with this screenshot as a tease.