From its humble beginning as a meta-search engine, I’ve been a firm believer in the power of Google. Google’s search engine-driven contributions to cyberspace have changed my life for the better. (How the hell can I get in touch with Evel Knievel? Google him, of course.)
As Google began to launch things like searchable email and satellite-fed mapping features, my interest became more piqued, and while monitoring their beta releases, I soon discovered the holy grail of kickass free software downloads: Google Earth.
In 2004, Google swallowed 3-D mapping company Keyhole; their bastard offspring is Google Earth (earth.google.com), a program that allows PC users to download a virtual globe. It’s fully searchable, fully zoomable, and can be handily manipulated by even the most topographically- and technologically-challenged. Type in your home address, and you’ll be flown there–as if by magic carpet–to a comfortable hovering altitude to within a couple of hundred feet of your roof. The image is an actual picture taken by a satellite within the past three years–and everything’s updated consistently, be it a shot of your apartment complex’s swimming pool or the rocky minutiae of Mount Kilimanjaro. As if this weren’t impressive enough, you can add and subtract things like international boundaries, roads, 3-D buildings, census information, and all manner of business and commerce-related locations. As these are displayed, you’re immediately given the choice of getting directions or viewing that location’s website. It doesn’t end there: You can adjust the viewing angle so you fly above Earth like Superman, take a virtual flying tour of places you’ve marked, or email directions and screenshots.
Is the world ready for a highly visceral, real-time, searchable interface that deals–in astounding detail–with the very soil upon which we tread? It’s hard to say, but regardless, your trusty desk globe–and well, probably any other map you’ve ever had–just became obsolete.