AlbertPacino
Skilled
Notable surprises include a just-erupted volcano, violent scenes from Iraq (a bomb going off in Baghdad and a firefight in Najaf) and even a 747 landing in Tokyo, something difficult to capture given that the satellite is moving at 17,000 mph. (Note: Story contains a picture gallery.)
For many years, Mike Leeds has been road-tripping from his home in Portland, Oregon, to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the Burning Man arts festival.
So last week, when Google announced its new Maps service, which includes the ability to view and navigate with high-resolution satellite images, Leeds couldn't resist tracing his 500-mile route, one screen at a time, to see what he drives by on his annual round trip. He never expected that the last of his "45 miles to the click" route images would show, in great detail, the early setup of Burning Man.
Indeed, it is possible to see in the satellite image the complete layout of the streets and infrastructure of Black Rock City, the makeshift town around which Burning Man, a countercultural festival held late each summer, is built.
But the unexpected appearance of the pre-event Burning Man construction is hardly the only surprise in Google's database of satellite images. And other satellite imagery companies say that they, too, are often startled by what they find when they analyze the hundreds of shots they take daily.
Notable surprises include a just-erupted volcano, violent scenes from Iraq (a bomb going off in Baghdad and a firefight in Najaf) and even a 747 landing in Tokyo, something difficult to capture given that the satellite is moving at 17,000 mph. (See the picture gallery at left.)
"Part of it is that we collect so much imagery that a lot of times no eyes have seen a lot of this stuff," said Chuck Herring, director of marketing communications at DigitalGlobe, a major player in the commercial satellite imagery business. "And so (we) go to an area, pop it open, and wow, we didn't intend to capture this icebreaker pushing this submarine."
Although satellite imagery has been generally available in one form or another for years, Google's launch of the image database it got when it purchased Keyhole last fall is likely to dramatically increase public interest in the technology, especially since so many people are already using Google's service for mapping, driving directions and even creative projects like annotating maps of places they've lived.
"What (Google is) doing for text-based searches, they wanted to start doing for geospatial, so that could bring satellite imagery down to earth, if you will," said Mark Brender, vice president of corporate communications at Space Imaging, another owner and distributor of satellite-imaging technology. "It was the Babylonians in 2300 B.C. that first etched the lay of the land on clay tablets. Google will be taking this to a whole new level."
In most circumstances, the interesting things in satellite images are captured intentionally, as were pictures of the floods of people jamming into the Vatican after the death of the pope.
For more [RANK="www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,67190,00.html"]here[/RANK]
For many years, Mike Leeds has been road-tripping from his home in Portland, Oregon, to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the Burning Man arts festival.
So last week, when Google announced its new Maps service, which includes the ability to view and navigate with high-resolution satellite images, Leeds couldn't resist tracing his 500-mile route, one screen at a time, to see what he drives by on his annual round trip. He never expected that the last of his "45 miles to the click" route images would show, in great detail, the early setup of Burning Man.
Indeed, it is possible to see in the satellite image the complete layout of the streets and infrastructure of Black Rock City, the makeshift town around which Burning Man, a countercultural festival held late each summer, is built.
But the unexpected appearance of the pre-event Burning Man construction is hardly the only surprise in Google's database of satellite images. And other satellite imagery companies say that they, too, are often startled by what they find when they analyze the hundreds of shots they take daily.
Notable surprises include a just-erupted volcano, violent scenes from Iraq (a bomb going off in Baghdad and a firefight in Najaf) and even a 747 landing in Tokyo, something difficult to capture given that the satellite is moving at 17,000 mph. (See the picture gallery at left.)
"Part of it is that we collect so much imagery that a lot of times no eyes have seen a lot of this stuff," said Chuck Herring, director of marketing communications at DigitalGlobe, a major player in the commercial satellite imagery business. "And so (we) go to an area, pop it open, and wow, we didn't intend to capture this icebreaker pushing this submarine."
Although satellite imagery has been generally available in one form or another for years, Google's launch of the image database it got when it purchased Keyhole last fall is likely to dramatically increase public interest in the technology, especially since so many people are already using Google's service for mapping, driving directions and even creative projects like annotating maps of places they've lived.
"What (Google is) doing for text-based searches, they wanted to start doing for geospatial, so that could bring satellite imagery down to earth, if you will," said Mark Brender, vice president of corporate communications at Space Imaging, another owner and distributor of satellite-imaging technology. "It was the Babylonians in 2300 B.C. that first etched the lay of the land on clay tablets. Google will be taking this to a whole new level."
In most circumstances, the interesting things in satellite images are captured intentionally, as were pictures of the floods of people jamming into the Vatican after the death of the pope.
For more [RANK="www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,67190,00.html"]here[/RANK]