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Google Earth's New Satellites
Rambo Tribble writes "The BBC provides some insights into the next generation satellites being built for Google by contractor DigitalGlobe in Colorado. The resolution of these satellites' cameras is sufficient to resolve objects that are only 25cm wide. Unfortunately, the public will be allowed only half that image quality, the best being reserved for the U.S. military. 'The light comes in through a barrel structure, pointed at the Earth, and is bounced around by a series of mirrors, before being focused onto a CCD sensor. The big difference – apart from the size – between this and a typical handheld digital camera, is that the spacecraft will not just take snapshots but continuous images along thin strips of land or sea.'"
ITAR applying to satellites and space probes is a right pain in the ass for anyone actually trying to get useful work done with international assistance.
What, pray tell, is a "continuous image" and how is it not a series of snapshots?
Is this like a video (which is seemingly continuous over time, made by sequencing snapshots) or like a panoramic image (which is continuous over space, made by processing/overlaying snapshots)?
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Yup Google is in no way in bed with the US Government.
Continuing to do good at any cost because doing good and doing well are the same thing...
I thought the original satellites were not owned by google but the images were leased. Do these satellites actually belong to google?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
The technologies that exist to create such high tech maps are incredible. I find it sad the the average human will mostly never see the extent of this technology. There are many technologies that already exist that we will never see or hear about. It is to bad that we can't even experience a high quality images of the world we live in. I would find it incredible interesting to view.
I'm not exactly crying a river of despondent tears.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I wish they'd do a modern (eg LTE) version of what Teledesic claimed to intend. Global access to data communication with a direct link to Google's cloud services could be beneficial to huge numbers of people on the planet, and would also give Google the sort of infrastructure level access to data that they have seemed to enjoy having in the past.
We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.
WTF?
I'll just proxy that...
Google ties to military and NSA
'The light comes in through a barrel structure, pointed at the Earth, and is bounced around by a series of mirrors, before being focused onto a CCD sensor.
Hmmmm, some kind of "barrel structure" and "bouncing light around with a series of mirrors". That all sounds pretty futuristic. And here I thought they could get by with just using something like a telescope.
Only the military will be able to resolve my dick then.
Unfortunately, the public will be allowed only half that image quality, the best being reserved for the U.S. military.
This is somewhat to be expected for things like GPS (at least if you ignore that the taxpayers are the ones paying for it). But why is this the case when the instruments are being financed by a private company. Or, to look at it another way, the photos fall into two general categories: those outside the U.S.A. and those inside the U.S.A. It is hard to understand that our military would have many problems with us getting the best images available for locations outside the U.S.A. But it is even harder to understand that the military should get better images of the U.S.A. through Google than we can get ourselves. At least in times of peace and while they claim to not be at war with their own citizens. They have their own spy satellites for the super high resolution images (and don't kid yourself that they don't use them). So how and why has it been decided that we are to get degraded images from a private company when we could get better?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Another reason to plant more trees.
There is a lot of new technology out there, but most of us will never get a chance to be a part of it. It is scary to think about what happens when stuff like these images can get into the wrong hands. What do you guys think?
The new Robocop film shows Google like autonomous robotic war machines carrying out a holocaust in Iran, not as SATIRE as the original movie used in its social commentary, but as wonderful example of the future for Americans, when its war machine can 'conquer' nations of 'sub-Human' without risking the lives of 'master-race' Americans.
Google has spent the last few years buying into EVERY available company developing technology of any sort for military robots. Now you have a story about Google buying MILITARY grade surveillance satellites to provide Google war machines with real-time battlefield intelligence.
Up to know, Google has functioned entirely as the R+D arm of the NSA. Google designed hardware and software systems power all the major NSA installations across the planet. The owners of Google believe the NSA project is about done- and that very average work can progress the engineering needed by the NSA in the future. The owners of Google have moved onto the next 'big challenge'.
Long before the first drone strike on a funeral procession held by 'sub-Humans', Hollywood movies proudly portrayed such Crimes against Humanity by an imagined near future US government. The propaganda tactic is called "predictive programming". Robocop is the first film to push the concept of US robotic war machines in near future conflicts, but many similar movies and TV dramas are in the pipeline. Google knows the sheeple are going to need some major GROOMING to gain their passive support of American robots mass slaughtering the Humans of target nations.
Google's robotic tanks need information. They need accurate, up-to-date, images of the streets they will travel down. RING A BELL? They need software systems that can drive the tanks down these roads. RING A BELL? They need real-time face recognition software to target the auto-cannons to slaughter every person in the vicinity of the tank. RING A BELL? They need real-time satellite feeds showing the state of the surrounding area. RING A BELL?
The owners of Google introduce their talks with US politicians and military leaders with an opening sentence. "Why is the USA currently unable to take down Iran?" And then Google goes on to give a presentation of a near-future US military armed with legions of Google designed autonomous robotic slaughter machines, machines depicted as flooding into a near future Iran, exterminating all those who attempt to defend their nation or oppose the US invasion.
Google says "nukes are useless, and so is the massive arsenal of chemical and biologic weapons that the US military holds. What is the point of a weapon system you cannot use?"
Then, Google goes on to say "our robots will CHOOSE every Human target, and in war, under US rules, if you 'choose' a target, the 'kill' is always 'legal'".
Obviously, Google faces scepticism that robots can ever perform as promised, which is why Google is currently engaged in a HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR+ project to build the first prototypes, and prove their effectiveness. And remember, by 'robot', Google simply means an autonomous tank, not some SF terminator nonsense like the usual vile shills will try to pretend makes the proposal laughable.
google will be able to resolve mine.
So how exactly does this 0.5 meter resolution compare to the current resolution on google's sattelite pics? Seems to me like the current pics have pixels thinner than 0.5 meters... I feel like I am missing something? I don't really know much about photography, so maybe someone can fill me in.
"We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee."
Not cool BBC, not cool.
"“Once a year they pick cities like Denver or London and rescan them and they get it into their database – how often Google buys those images and updates its maps, is up to them.”
I'm surprised that Google is still buying DigitalGlobe imagery for the continental USA, ESPECIALLY for major metropolitan areas.
Most states have state-level orthoimagery collection programs, and as a result, there is high-quality aerial imagery significantly exceeding these satellites in quality over most of the USA, especially in metropolitan areas.
For example, New York State has 2 foot (24 inch) resolution across the entire state (only slightly worse than DigitalGlobe's best quality available), and over much of the state has 1 foot (12 inch) and even 0.5 foot (6 inch) resolution, the latter of which is better than what DG offers government customers. This data is under similar extremely permissive licensing to most other government GIS data such as TIGER. (Anyone can download NYGIS orthoimagery, and this same imagery is what Google uses for Maps/Earth for "satellite" which is really "aerial")
Pennsylvania has similar quality statewide imagery. Same for New Jersey (1 foot in the case of NJ).
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Looks like new and cool revenue stream for Google. Are they becoming military contractor for war criminals^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HUS Army ?
Google's New Revenue Stream: Pron from space!!!
... now everyone will be able to see that I'm bald.
That means it's probably safe to assume the ones we're not allowed to know of are substantially better than that.
Can someone draw a venn diagram of google and the NSA/CIA.
I keep drawing one big circle.
Pitty the space people who will not be able to see my 10 inch penis for lack of a decent magnifying lens.
Congratulations, your writing instantly caused me to recollect a theorem that I haven't thought about in over 15 years: "The Earth has 4 days in one 24 hr cycle". Check it out, you might appreciate this work and learn a thing or two about effective argumentation style. #timecube
Sounds like the cameras that Urthecast just had installed on the International Space Station (ISS)
What would happen if a civilian entity launched high res sats and allowed civilians to use it at the highest res.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I don't agree with the way google has evolved in regards to privacy, and the freedom of our information. Granted the U.S. Gov. has alot to do with it also. But they don't have to be a willing participant with the way our society is moving away from civil liberties and privacy.
capable of seeing objects just 25cm (10 inches) across
Well Ron Jeremy is safe from observation, but John Holmes apparently isn't...
Like calling folks idiots? Like this from you troll http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Prove me wrong dumbass http://games.slashdot.org/comm...
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APK
P.S.=> Come on big talker - go for it: I'll eat you ALIVE here publicly just to laugh @ your DUMB ass even more...apk
Am I the only person who considers it interesting that DigitalGlobe is prevented from selling high resolution images by the US while state governments are practically giving away even higher resolution images. This kind of crap is why conspiracy theories are so common. Though, my bets on good old government incompetence.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
The resolution of these satellites' cameras is sufficient to resolve objects that are only 25cm wide.
Seems I can choose a much smaller font (and thus get in more text) for the message in my backyard....
Like Iran couldn't buy those from china or russia if they wanted them. What the heck would they do with highres images anyways?
what the hell does US militairy have to do with satelites being designed and payed for by google? the militairy doesn't have anything to say about what is allowed or not..
Like calling folks idiots? Like this from you troll http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Prove me wrong dumbass http://games.slashdot.org/comm...
It works, & gives folks what they want here (no beta site redirect foisted on them without asking, which is WHY I put it up... they did it to me 1 or 2 times, that beat it, & I gave folks what they wanted).
You're also FREE to *try* to disprove 17 points of FACT that use of custom hosts files gives users more speed, security, reliability, & even added anonymity that I list here where you can download it, free -> http://start64.com/index.php?o...
(Only thing is, on the latter, that FAR more skilled trolls than you have TRIED to, only to get shot down in flames each time, by yours truly)
APK
P.S.=> Come on big talker - go for it: I'll eat you ALIVE here publicly just to laugh @ your DUMB ass even more...apk
When I was in Iraq I wanted an overhead view of our living area for a project. I went to my Brigade Intel Officer and asked if they had anything that would fit the bill. He told me to wait a second and proceeded to open a "Secret" Google Maps on the secure system. So this has already existed. Kinda blew my mind, just a little. They like Ventrilo too, lol.