Sorry Rich, poor sentence construction on my part: I believe that the breakthrough came from Google's experience with applying technology to the handling of the mass of data that underlies the globe. Globes and dynamic maps were not new but the sheer size of the data processing required to make them efficient on a global scale was mind numbing. Google (the people, not the company) applied their insight to this problem and that is what I see as unique here.
Reading the link that Sean provided reinforces this impression. Cheers AlanK _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Heimann [C] Sent: Thursday, 3 July 2008 3:37 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Critical Theory I would posit that the breakthrough was more than just a technical endeavor of streaming tiles to a client. Clearly, that was an atypical approach to the problem, as clearly dynamic mapping was the norm. Google Earth showed us user-centric views of the world. Al Gore, at the turn of the century, gave a speech on the idea of a 3D globe that modeled all the worlds peoples, places, and actions...maybe what GE will ultimately become. Rich Naval Research Lab From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alan Keown Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 11:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Critical Theory >From what I can tell what Google had was a truckload of "spare" cpu capacity and the insight to apply their <http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce.html> "MapReduce" technology to the slicing and dicing required to make the imagery usable - that was the breakthrough. _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of M J Sent: Wednesday, 2 July 2008 12:54 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Critical Theory Just a thought... On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:23 PM, Eric Wolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Google "solved" similar problems in Google Earth by taking a commonly known concept in cartography (globes are better than maps at representing the world) and throwing just the right amount of technology at it to create a platform that furthers their goals (world domination?!?). Google didn't actually solve that problem. It was Keyhole, a completely separate company who was at the right place at the right time when obtained by Google <http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/keyhole.html> . Keyhole had been peddling their wares since at least 2001 and imo lucky to survive. The company I worked for at the time (long dead) was interested in subscribing to their service (we were building 3D model of cities using photogrammetry, CAD, & GIS), but not enough to actually do it as it cost a fair amount of money to do at the time (for a start-up) and was a pretty intense program for the computers of the time too. I believe that Google by that point was powerful enough to carry it to the next level and continue development. Nif
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