France's 'Geoportail'

A new wanna-be map service is ready to rival with Google Earth, but this time it is not a MSN or Yahoo product. The new service, called Geoportail, was created by France and it will allow users to view ultra-high resolution images of the country. The project was developed by the National Geographic Institute and the Office of Geological and Mineral Research and it includes 400,000 images along with 3,700 maps, which are updated every five years. Similar to Google Earth, Geoportail.fr offers various views and users may switch from aerial views of a site, to detailed maps, charts and geological data. As AFP reports, in autumn, the project will add 3D imagery. According to Reuters, in a ceremony unveiling the new technology, President Jacques Chirac called the move significant as it "places France at the forefront of new technologies." "With Galileo (the European Union satellite navigation system), with the mobile telephone, services linked to global positioning will develop a lot. It is also about democracy because our citizens have the right to know all the facts about the environment.", said also President Jacques Chirac. According to AFP, the total cost of the project was 6mn-euro ($7.5mn). Still the Geoportail project isn’t a real competitor to Google Earth, because it can only show images of French territories.