Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Confessions of a Nerdish Child


When I was a young(er) girl I recall being fascinated by maps. Particularly how you could start with a big map and then gradually get more detailed maps until you were down to even a street level. I had in my mind a picture of a future map that had maps inside of maps that eventually you could get to a building floor plan level. I didn’t have the internet in mind but I had a strong sense that the future would offer a way to have these kind of maps inside of maps. As I recall those thoughts were coming about the time we were seeing pictures of the earth from the vantage point of rockets. As I was looking up something on Google Earth the other day I was reminded of that thought I had as a child and realized that it was more than just a day dream. It’s just about true. And I suspect it won’t be long until the building floor plans will be retrievable through these maps inside of maps. What I hadn’t anticipated was the ability to do street views: where you can zoom in on the satellite pictures and then shift to video on the street level; rotating your view 360-degrees as well as “travel” down a street via camera, viewing the roadway as you progress, as well as everything around it. It’s truly amazing. Wonder what next technical advances will be. I just got an iphone and what that alone does is pretty amazing. Who’d of ever thought it? Some other former ten-year-olds I guess.

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