Google back down to earth.

Silicon.com reported overnight on the launch of the Google Earth Engine

It's a global mapping tool consisting of a database of satellite images of the Earth's surface - 25 years' worth - and specially designed software to spot any envirnmental changes in those images, which are then mapped.

Quite apart from the technological achievement and the benefit that environmental researchers and scientists worldwide will gain from this tool, Google is also donating ten million computer processing hours on its servers each year over the next two years for this analysis. So, it's giving to charity through doing what it's mission set out to do - organising the world's information.

Cynics might say that for Google this is a drop in the ocean - geographically, environmentally, technically and commercially and, yes, there will be many marketing opportunities arising from them showcasing the software capability in this way. But they didn't need to do it.

While others sit on the fence, Google is more akin to Nike: it just does it. Oh, and make sure that fence isn't made of wood or you may be last past the post.