Big Brother is Watching

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Tue May 10, 2005 3:49 am

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=baltimore ... &t=k&hl=en

If the shadows were a little different, you could probably see my car.

Am I the last one to find this beta and think it's the coolest thing in the world?

j$ · Post by j$ » Tue May 10, 2005 4:48 am

It would be a lot cooler if

a) it had anywhere outside of the US that you could see. I mean seriously, put in 'England' and discover that is too specific an area for the beta to be able to handle? Yet I can see your street in Baltimore? Huzzah.

b) It served any actual use apart from making you go 'how cool'. Could you use this to direct you from A to B? Or spy on your neighbours and find out what their sexual predelictions are? Nope.

c) Its eventual use wasn't just so obviously designed to be multi-map / streetmap with a better GUI. A dull. Google seem to specialise in taking other people's ideas and doing them bigger and better. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I wait for the first original Google idea with baited breath.

d) You could zoom all the way out and see Earth from a google camera station on Io.

j$

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Tue May 10, 2005 6:19 am

j$ wrote:It would be a lot cooler if

...
c) Its eventual use wasn't just so obviously designed to be multi-map / streetmap with a better GUI. A dull. Google seem to specialise in taking other people's ideas and doing them bigger and better. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I wait for the first original Google idea with baited breath.

Why? As in, why should Google sate your need for original (risky) initiatives, when they are doing just fine doing what others do, better and cooler? Just curious....

It is pretty useless, but the cool factor can't be denied...at least until after you've located your home and work and your buddies place. Then, after all that...it's not so cool anymore.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Tue May 10, 2005 6:25 am

yes, we've had aerial photos for a while now

earth viewed from io would be really small... not much to see there.
also, a lot of the time the view would probably be blocked by jupiter.
silly j$!
-bill

Bjam · Post by **Bjam** » Tue May 10, 2005 10:20 am

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/B ... sHouse.jpg

Oh, look, there I am, in that little loopy road thing. The aerial over my school though must be pretty old as there's stuff there that wasn't there about 3 years ago when we moved here. But still. Cool stuff, if not useful.

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Tue May 10, 2005 12:47 pm

j$ wrote:It would be a lot cooler if

a) it had anywhere outside of the US that you could see. I mean seriously, put in 'England' and discover that is too specific an area for the beta to be able to handle? Yet I can see your street in Baltimore? Huzzah.

b) It served any actual use apart from making you go 'how cool'. Could you use this to direct you from A to B? Or spy on your neighbours and find out what their sexual predelictions are? Nope.

c) Its eventual use wasn't just so obviously designed to be multi-map / streetmap with a better GUI. A dull. Google seem to specialise in taking other people's ideas and doing them bigger and better. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I wait for the first original Google idea with baited breath.

d) You could zoom all the way out and see Earth from a google camera station on Io.

j$

Actually, I used it today. I needed to know what the building complex I was looking for actually looked like (or if I didn't need it, it certainly helped me figure out which building I was going to). It showed me exactly which fork to take in the cloverleaf (so as not to go on 650 instead of 50), and landmarks (gas stations, McDonalds) near my destination. And you can toggle between the satellite mode and the map mode, so it's mostly up to you--even the regular map interface beats the living shit out of Mapquest.
I think they're working on other regions as it goes along--there are significant portions of the United States that have poor detail in satellite mode (you can see the city or town, but not the streets and buildings, et cetera). It's great for anyone in a US metropolitan area, though, both as amusement and practical tool.

I can also see an aerial map of the hiking trails in the park not far from my old house, which I use from time to time. That's pretty damn useful.

I mean, I'm aware we've had aerial photos for a time, but you can't pretend it's ever been this well-organized. Or if it has been, I certainly haven't seen it. I can actually see how many lanes a listed highway or road has, their relative levels of traffic at a given time of day (morning rush hour, in this case), and I can tell you how many houses are on X residential street. There are a million uses for this, even if you can't think of some great ones just now.

I admit it would be much, much cooler if it were expanded to include more countries, but that isn't the kind of thing that happens all at once.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Tue May 10, 2005 12:51 pm

There are extensive APIs for interfacing with GPS applications, etc.. Do not question the future usefullness of this.

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Tue May 10, 2005 12:56 pm

Also, I'd point out that it covers more populated regions of Canada, too. Mexico isn't in on it, but it'd be funny as hell if it came up before Britain. *grins*

Justincombustion · Post by **Justincombustion** » Tue May 10, 2005 12:58 pm

My friend used to run the spy sattelites for the Air Force, he said with those you could move them around and focus in on a license plate. He said he would also watch his mother gardening (kinda creepy, but okay man whatever!).
It was more creepy because it was "real time" instead of a picture of your house from a year ago. He could watch people walk around and follow them. You know? I would have used them to watch ball games and shit...or check nudist resorts in the Caribbean.

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Tue May 10, 2005 1:01 pm

Uh huh, and they can fire cruise missiles down a chimney. COUGH COUGH.

No, really though, I don't actually doubt it. I just want to doubt it.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Tue May 10, 2005 1:03 pm

Keyhole

And check these out:

Real estate listings

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed May 11, 2005 9:33 am

http://chris.hoblit.net/hoblit/Hoblitshideaway.htm

I actually did this a while back.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Wed May 11, 2005 10:48 am

oops... re-posted from monkey affairs.

Check out the aerial photo of my old university (SUNY University at Buffalo, AKA UB). I used to live in the dorm right in the middle of the photo:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=amherst,+ ... &t=k&hl=en
Check it out! It's an octothorpe building!
-bill

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Wed May 11, 2005 1:17 pm

roymond wrote:Keyhole

And check these out:

Real estate listings

Interesting that Keyhole charges $30/mo for the basic service Google is now providing for free since the purchase. The joke is that Google is going to make way more money off of the stuff than Keyhole did.

Keyhole does have a few things reserved for paying customers, it seems: the "tilt view" mode seems to compare the view with a topagraphic map to produce a "3d' image of the terrain. Sounds better than it looks in practice, though.

mico saudad · Post by **mico saudad** » Wed May 11, 2005 6:38 pm

roymond wrote:Real estate listings

That's really friggin cool. I think it's just a graphic craigslist, but that in itself is so much more useful than the way craigslist is organized! Thanks.

Especially since I'm unfortunately going to have to find a new place to live soon.