Today's Washington Post has a discussion of Google Earth resolution in central DC. They say that Google had two options: (1) high resolution images from an official source which had a number of locations fuzzed out, or (2) somewhat less sharp images of this area which had not been further degraded. They chose (2) for parts of central DC. They used the high resolution official pictures for the rest of the city.
Edited to note that the newspaper story was about Google Maps, not Earth. I don't see "fuzzing" on either Maps or Earth, except at the Naval Observatory where the Vice-Presidential Mansion is located. The story seems incorrect to me. I find that some atomic electric generating stations in the USA are low resolution while others are not.
Last edited by seacue; 23rd July 2007 at 00:00.