Google owns a big computing infrastructure, but it doesn't shoot up its own satellites to acquire imagery for Google Earth and Google Maps. One of its orbital providers is DigitalGlobe, which has announced two new camera stellites scheduled for launch in 2006 and 2008. The first will reportedly provide resolution of a half-meter, which would be fabulously detailed for most purposes. It can collect 500,000 square kilometers a day. In the satellite food chain, these new machines would bump previous collectors away from populated areas, allowing them to concentrate on less developed areas that now are featureless blobs in Google's products. [via Albertpacino]
