Sounds Bring Google Earth to Life

Strudelkugel writes "The BBC is reporting that a Californian company has created software that can layer relevant recorded sounds over locations in Google Earth. The firm, Wild Sanctuary, has thousands of hours of recordings from all over the world. Company director Dr. Krause has spent over 40 years collecting sounds from natural and man-made habitats. '... his recordings include more than 15,000 animal noises, and sounds from a huge array of habitats, including cities, deserts, mountains and the marine environment. It is the largest library in existence of natural sound, he said. He said the idea would be to zoom-in on a particular area and then have the option to listen to the accompanying sound.'"

Comments

do you hear that?

[LiquidMind]

the idea sounds nice on paper, but who will actually benefit from this?

Re:do you hear that?

[Itninja]

I don't know.... who ever thought that a six-year-old aerial photo of the desert would be practical? But now those Google Earth images are shown on the news as visual aids when they are talking about Iraq or some such. I can see this turning into the equivalent for radio news shows.

40 yrs of a life / 1 click / "that sucks" / CTRL-W

[mnemotronic]

To have worked for 40 years on something, to believe in it, and dedicate a life to it, to collect samples of sound, or smell, or taste from across an entire planet, then along comes a tool that makes it easy to share the results with other people, to disperse the cumulative knowledge and experience of a lifetime, only to have some bored slasher dis it off after a click and a couple seconds of listening; I'm hurt just thinking about it.