What will this program be like in 10 years? Given London’s nearly complete coverage of the city by cameras, suppose all these are hooked into Google Earth which maps the images onto the buildings providing the ability to see the city using real-time images. Then add in webcams and surveillance cameras inside the buildings. If you worked in a London building, you could zoom into your office window and see yourself sitting at your desk viewing yourself on Google Earth and wave to yourself recursively.

Now imagine the government using this tech to watch its people. In real-time. To prevent crime, of course, and make you safer. Makes the next step of being forced to put up cameras inside the buildings (homes?) worth it, right? I bet you can’t wait for this to be implemented in your town!

Google has updated the 3D buildings in Google Earth for New York City! This is a HUGE update with at least hundreds (if not thousands) of new 3D buildings with photo textures applied. Basically, Google has completed nearly every building in Manhattan Island for Google Earth. Just fly to “New York City” and turn on the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. Tilt your view so you can see the buildings in all their glory. This is the largest city i’ve seen done with photo-realistic textures to date.




  1. bobbo says:

    You’ve just written the plot of “Babylon AD” starring Vin Diesel.

    I still find too much of the world out of focus below 3000 feet. Makes checking out Mumbai or Chechnya not as much fun as it should be.

    Freedom for Google===I want to read license plate numbers!!!!

  2. Dallas says:

    Quite spectacular indeed. The confluence of these three technolgies will be truly revolutionary in terns of the impact.

    > High res imaging (like above)
    > GPS navigation
    > Wireless Broadband enabled portable devices

    WOW.

  3. Bob West says:

    MS did this first over a year ago with Virtual Earth.

  4. LOL says:

    Yea, you can sit there and watch technology rob you blind.

  5. Bob West says:

    They also added a flight simulator.

  6. Paddy-O says:

    I’d rather that they improve resolution of “Earth” & update major metro area more than once every 8 years.

  7. bobbo says:

    Heres a link on a Japanese group asking for “Street View” to respect privacy. There will be a lot more of this.

    Privacy or anonymity? Is there a “right” not to be seen coming out of a strip club?

    Other nice links too, to stock price over the years, Hugh Hefners Sons==never knew he had any, and a real test for Obama==making Federal Information Data Bases more searchable. I suspect little transparency will come to our Bureaucracy==like Google, the potential will be squashed for “the right to anonymity.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121900276.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

  8. bobsyeruncle says:

    Will the Google Earth flight simulator let you practice crashing into skyscrapers?

  9. JimR says:

    Strip clubs are public places. If you are worried about being seen in certain public places, either don’t go or accept the risks.

    A view from the sky is no mores infringing than a view from the window of a neighbor, a nearby business, or a passing car.

  10. hhopper says:

    Must be a lot of people viewing NYC. Google’s server is slow as molasses. About one building a minute shows up.

  11. turbo says:

    Feels like you’re there!

    It’s cool to see some of the old and new architecture that I had no idea existed.

  12. Sea Lawyer says:

    Too bad it’s still a big, smelly, overcrowded city.

  13. SnotLikeBlasterpoop says:

    As “privacy” in cities continues to erode a very good thing occurs. People start to realize that a city is not a good place to be and they should spend as little time there as possible.


0

Bad Behavior has blocked 5038 access attempts in the last 7 days.