p2pnet.net News:- Google long ago abandoned its ‘Do No Evil’ maxim, adopting the view shared by Microsoft and Yahoo in equal measure that working with China to censor the Net is OK as long as cooperation translates into enhanced corporate cash flows.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occasionally come out with genuinely valuable products, one such being Google Earth.

Now the company has taken the concept a fascinating step further with Featured Content, “a new showcase of multimedia overlays in Google Earth that connect users to information about the world around them from a variety of premium content providers”.

We’re home-schoolers and the Net is a primary tool both for providing information and keeping us in touch with other home-schooling families locally and in other countries, and now Google Earth has taken on new relevance.

We live on Vancouver Island in BC, Canada, where the once heavily forested mountains now have huge, naked areas, down to logging.

Our just-turned-10 daughter, Emma, is a wild-life nut and she’s always talking about the effect deforestation is having on local flora and fauna so it’s interesting to see the Jane Goodall Institute feature where surfers can visit Frodo, Beethoven and the other Gombe preserve chimpanzees, “and follow their daily exploits”.

Updated daily, “this geo-blog captures the work of the Jane Goodall Institute, illustrating the Institute’s research on chimpanzees and the effects of deforestation in Africa,” says Google.

You can zoom in for 3D area views and close-ups, and click on individual chimps for biographical details, including pix such as the shot of Beethoven.

Other features areas include:

United Nations Environmental Program – Successive time-stamped images illustrating 100 areas of extreme environmental degradation around the world. From the deforestation of the Amazon to the fallout of raging forest fires in Sub-Sahara Africa and the decline of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, this before-and-after imagery spanning the past 30 years offers users an online resource for learning about the environmental crisis zones around the world.

Discovery Networks World Tour – Virtually visit major world attractions, cities, and natural wonders through Google Earth. Featuring streaming Discovery video segments, users can learn about the history and significance of various world landmarks, national parks, American and European cities, and African locations. These multimedia vignettes introduce users to the wonders of King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of Kings to the history of the gate of the Itsukushima Shrine in Japan.

National Park Service – Learn more about the natural recreation opportunities in their own backyard. This includes detailed park descriptions, information on visitor facilities, and more than 10,000 miles of trails within all 58 US National Parks.

Turn Here – City video guides for travel, restaurants, hotels, local events and music around the globe. Told from an insider’s perspective, these short films connect users to information about the best pizza shop in New York’s Little Italy to Pablo Picasso’s favorite hang-out in Halmstad, Sweden.

Very cool. JN