Jeff Vail has a post about how the map is closing in on the world with the advent of cheap and widely used satellite photography. The one we all know of is maps.google.com which takes photos which were already out there and gives us a way to freely play with them. After you get done searching for your house, go check out google sightseeing with cool and interesting maps. It seems to me that this kind of thing would be super useful when organizing a major protest or backwoods earth first actions. I was also disappointed at the detail once you leave urban areas or the US. Many times we can't photo environmental destruction, but with this we can get good overhead shots. Even if keyhole map isn't enough detail, the activists can then go back and buy a much more detailed image of the area.
Posted by rabble at April 13, 2005 09:42 AMI think Vail misses the point of all the Google Maps brouhaha, though he comes close; these satellite images have been available to the authorities for ages, but it's only until now that anyone can access them. He talks about other satellite map providers that have been doing this for a while, but the simple fact is that they haven't been doing this.
The tourism stuff is interesting, but the real power (as you suggest) is in the access that this gives the *average person*, or *underfunded activist* to the tools that government and industry have had for ages. It's the sort of things that I linked to at http://romeda.org/index.php?p=54 that can actually be used to change things, because they have the power to change the way that people think about things, on a fundamental level.
Posted by: Blaine Cook at April 14, 2005 10:16 AMok get this,, scroll right and europes missing. tut
Posted by: blink at April 14, 2005 10:34 AMIf you go to the satellite option they do have europe, but not in very much detail. See europeans don't have roads, but if you take a photo of the world, there are other blury parts of the world out there....
Posted by: rabble at April 14, 2005 12:52 PMHey. I've created a site that users can submit cool Google Maps to:
http://gmaps.nicj.net
Please check it out!
Posted by: Nic J at April 17, 2005 09:54 AM