The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Over the last few months, an interesting trend has emerged with technology and mapping tools: they are finally really being put to work. Software like Google Earth can change our idea of the globe forever. You can download Google Earth for free and spend hours and hours exploring cities and landmarks all over the map. It has been steadily improved with every upgrade, with more and more places becoming higher resolution and easier to see; but it has also improved because of all of the additions they allow people to make to it. Just like anyone can add something to a Wikipedia entry to improve it, or add a picture to Flickr, anyone can now add their photos and videos to Google Earth, allowing us to see the places we are exploring from ground level. All of the information in Google Earth comes from satellites. Google partnered with NASA and a company called DigitalGlobe several years ago and every few months, the shots around the entire world are updated. But more recently, Google has allowed this tool to work for other purposes. Take the disappearance of Steve Fossett recently. Famous as an explorer and a world record setter in many different categories of aviation, Fossett disappeared on a routine flight over the Nevada desert in early September. Only four days later, Google requested that DigitalGlobe move their satellite in space to a new orbit so they could concentrate more on the area where Fossett went missing, and take a new set of high resolution images of the entire area. All of this information was then uploaded to the Internet and thousands of people flocked to the site, sorting through all of this data square by square, basically performing an amateur search and rescue sweep from the comfort of their homes. This is the second time this was done. Less than a year ago, Jim Gray, a famous computer scientist and sailor, disappeared in the Pacific Ocean south of San Francisco in calm seas. Google asked DigitalGlobe to move their satellites and search this area. As with the Fossett's disappearance, all of the images were placed online and thousands of people sorted through them. Many potential clues were found in both instances (actually, in Fossett's case, seven other lost planes were found in the high desert), but neither of the men being searched for were actually found. The change in how these mapping tools are being used is similar to the change that the entire web has undergone in the last two years. The Internet used to be a place that we went to when we wanted to read. Companies who had the knowledge and the know-how hired people to design websites that other people could read. Not anymore. Cornerstone sites like Facebook, Myspace, flickr, etc. are all communities. These are places we change, add information to, and go to when we are looking for new ideas. They are changing minute by minute. This is how Google Earth is changing, too. Not wanting to lose its audience and its lead in the area of computer mapping, it has had to allow people to add their own content to the tool they have created, and to personalize it with different data views and add-ons. Software is not about the companies and the people who make it anymore, it is about us the users. There are countless choices available and many different places we can go for our information and to meet our needs. Companies know this and they need to meet our needs. If they don't, we can simply go someplace else. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
