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Microsoft Launches WorldWide Telescope
esocid writes "WorldWide Telescope, developed by Microsoft's research arm, knits together images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and others. Windows users (only) can browse through the galaxy on their own or take guided tours of different outer-space destinations developed by astronomers and academics. The application allows viewing from different wavelengths such as X-ray, visible light, and hydrogen-alpha radiation. Business Week has a review and some background on the project, which has been in development for years. Google Sky beat them to the punch but Business Week opines that WWT's interface is superior."
But can it see why kids love cinnamon toast crunch?
The description says it's a "Web 2.0 visualization software environment". Shouldn't that be running in a web browser then? What's with having to download and install the application itself? Being on my Mac, I can't (probably wouldn't anyway) try it out to see what happens, but that description seems a bit misleading.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Ok this is weird, if I run the self extracting installer it starts to install some Xerox printer drivers instead of the WWT. I think it gets its temp files mixed with the drivers that I installed a while ago, it appears to install fine if i manually extract somewhere else and run the setup.exe...
MS's may be better but it required me to download and install their app where as Google Sky is just like Google Maps and runs in my web browser. I don't know if I'd actually compare these two products considering it's web app verse a 20mg install.
That said I personally lost interest with both about 5 minutes after playing with them. I'm not really a solar-system-space nut, but I'm sure those that are will love either.
Ave Molech Setting
(not having read the article)
"WWT's interface is better"... but only on windows... So for the schools, third-world countries, etc. we've read about who are adopting Linux... Microsoft assumes they don't exist?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The sky is blue. However, this might have something to do with the OS running this system.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
They quote Bill Gates who said he was hoping the project would - "inspire young people to explore astronomy and science"
Presumably also requiring Windows is a mere co-incidence!
At least the Beeb article has the decency to mention the Open Source project Stellarium http://sourceforge.net/projects/stellarium/
Awful UID - but I have been here ages...
I never would have expected it, especially in a MS product, but the folks who put the WWT app together also blessed it with ASCOM capabilities, so one may use the WWT app to drive a computerized telescope mount (aka, a "goto mount").
While there are other ASCOM-enabled apps that astronomers have been using for years to point their optics (and manage dome robotics, and focusers, and cameras), I have to say that the basic mount control in WWT is a pretty cool tip of the hat towards to astronomy community in practical terms.
Meh, I found the Outside "user experience" to be far too buggy, and if you're really fully engaged in just the looking upward part, you run the risk of wandering into an unsupported pile of sh|t -- not to mention dramatically increasing the likelihood of a fatal crash.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
It ain't free if you have to buy a computer to use it. It ain't free if you have to pay for internet service to use it. It ain't free if you have to buy food to get the energy to walk to the library to use it.
Since this product isn't available for my operating system, I can't check it our for myself, but I do hope it encourages interest in astronomy. There are valid reasons to bash Microsoft (the OOXML debacle, for example). Putting out a free-as-in-beer science project for their customers only isn't one of them. If some of Microsoft's customers get to learn more about the sky, that's a good thing. I hope they enjoy it.
KTHXBYE
I think you missed his point. You can buy a computer from anyone, from Dell to your local computer shop to Walmart. You can get internet service from any number of DSL, cable, dialup, or wireless ISPs.
You buy Windows from Microsoft. End of story.
Google gets it, MS doesn't. Look at the Apple laptop mix at a college campus or local coffee shop and tell me that supporting platforms other than Windows is still not important when trying to go toe-to-toe with Google.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You sure burned those guys.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Yeah, it runs on 90% (hell, I'll be generous to you, 80%) of PCs out there. That's soooooooooo useless.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I don't really know if it's actually overstated at this point. I would be surprised if a lot of astronomers didn't push their data to it. That's one of the nice features of the software. Look, the twin kecks aren't controlled by Starry Night. But this can totally replace starry night for me it looks like, and as a repository I would absoltely love to have access to real time data and images from *professionals*.
Take your "EVERY OS SHOULD BE FREE" tangent elsewhere.
You obviously don't do astronomy. I have single EP's that cost me $500. The worm gear in my mount costs more then XP. A simple piece of machined aluminum tubing that does nothing but serve as an adapter for me costs almsot as much as XP does. Hell, Starry Night that this will most likely replace for me costs more then XP does. Astronomy aint cheep. In software, sure there are some freebies. I've used Cartes du Ciel for a while but it is no where near as good as Starry Nights.
If this were MAC software would you be on some tangent about the cost of the OS and the hardware? I doubt it. You're just a confused fool on some tangent how they missed the target market when you're clearly not the target market.
I'm looking at this as potentially (will have to see) replacing a very expensive piece of software for me. Your complaints just aint valid.
Ms could cure AIDS and release the patent to the public domain and people like you would still bitch about it.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Yes, it's ASCOM compliant so it does allow mount control. As far as "really" as good. My initial impression is yes. I like it better. Easier to use. Tons of information. The interface is pretty smooth. I went after Eta Carinae first thing. Search went easy. I had several different images to flip through on the "zoomed in" detail view. Several options for research. Even the wiki link for that page. And, "drumroll" when I went to the wiki page for it, it respected FF as my default browser and used that for the browser. So far my initial impressions are very high. But I won't know for sure if it'll replace Starry Night for me until I get a viewing session outside with it.
Microsoft's evangelism team has been advising employees and partners to participate more in tech discussion sites. They're particularly encouraged to post positive comments about MS products. That's why you see a million "[MS product] works fine for me" posts whenever Microsoft breaks something.
Well, Windows 3.11 worked fine for my dad until last year. (He'd argue that it would still work fine if we let him plug the box back in ^.^)
Does this mean Microsoft will write him a check? And do I get a cut for astroturfing here?
DATABASE WOW WOW
Ummm.... I take it that you didn't bother to actually try out Worldwide Telecope. Because if you did, you wouldn't even begin to compare it to Stellarium. Stellarium is sort of neat but offers about 1/100000000th of what WWT has. It's not even fair to compare them. But at least look at WWT before you post this kind of nonsense. Others, you can download Stellarium from here: http://www.stellarium.org/. It's kinda neat but...
Stellarium : WWTelescope :: lynx : firefox
Yes they both technically do the same "thing". But unlike firefox vs IE (where you can argue that not only is the open source solution "as good," but that it's actually BETTER) stellarium is not in the same realm as WWTelescope.