NASA Porting More Data into Google Earth
Tags: Google | NASA | Search | SpaceRemember that NASA-Google Space Act Agreement I mentioned? Turns out it’s mostly NASA incorporating more data into Google Earth.
Google and the NASA Ames Research Center have signed an agreement to work together on a variety of projects that include large-scale data management and distributed computing and human-to-computer interfaces.
The search engine and the space agency said Monday that the first in the series of joint collaborations covered under the Space Act Agreement would make more NASA information available on the Internet. Such projects would include real-time weather visualization and forecasting, 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, and tracking of the international space station and the space shuttle.
“This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA’s space exploration work accessible to everyone,” NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in a joint statement.
For Google, the deal was expected to give it access to a “wealth of technical expertise and data that will be of great use to Google as we look to tackle many computing issues on behalf of our users,” said CEO Eric Schmidt.
The two organizations said they intend to collaborate on incorporating agency data in Google’s geographic mapping service called Google Earth. In addition, they plan to focus on user studies and cognitive modeling for human-computer interaction, and better search for scientific data.
I was hoping for Google Gundams, but fast, free, searchable, visual meteorological data for everyone is cool too. NASA’s already made a plugin for Google Earth, so this deal is a natural progression. The local weather bureau is looking even more useless.
(Via Benj Arriola.)
December 23rd, 2006 at 9:12 am
[...] Comment: Now this is a little off topic but I read an article the other day on Google and NASA teaming up and this excerpt instantly came to mind. The above excerpt references a more powerful version of Google Earth (unlike Google Earth it is accessible in real time) that can be accessed through the Metaverse, but costs a fortune. Granted Google Earth is free right now, but Microsoft was definitely outmanuevered on this one. Imagine what you could charge for real time satellite imagery of the earth. Of course there are going to be a hell of a lot of national security concerns, but you have a hell of a money maker even in a limited form. …key realization was that there’s no difference between modern culture and Sumerian. We have a huge workforce that is illiterate or alliterate and relies on TV - which is sort of an oral tradition. And we have a small, extremely literate power elite - the people who into the Metaverse, basically - who understand that information is power, and who control society because they have this semimystical ability to speak magic computer languages. [...]
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