February 28, 2008...11:44 am
Microsoft World Wide Telescope Trumps Google Earth
[UPDATE : May 2008, Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope can now be downloaded for use]
Microsoft revealed the World Wide Telescope yesterday after it had been one of the worst kept secrets of the um … past few weeks. The buzz started a few weeks ago when Robert Scoble announced that he’d seen technology that had made him cry (in the good way, not the every day bad way).
What Is The World Wide Telescope?
Think Google Earth for the universe. Microsoft have created an application that has stitched together satellite imagery and data from space telescopes such as Hubble and enables us all to take a wander through the parts of the universe where this kind of data exists.
Now I know that Google Earth has a feature to explore space, but it’s rubbish and according to the massed ranks of scientists and children that have sat in front of Microsoft’s publicity video cameras, WWT will make our jaws drop in wonder.
I’m going to remain sceptical so I can be pleasantly surprised when it becomes available to the public.
Of course, the great strength of Google Earth, is it’s relevance. I live on Earth and I like to visit places on Earth. I think this is probably true of most of my readers. We’ve all checked out our house on Google Earth and peered into the garden of that big house at the end of the road etc or shown someone the nice little village where we went on holiday last year.
I’m not sure there will be many people thinking, “Ooh, I used to live on Alpha Centauri, I wonder if my old house is still there.” But if the hype is right, World Wide Telescope isn’t just going to be limited to the astronomy community (though they’ll get most out of it) , it should bring a little bit of wonder to us all and that can’t be a bad thing.
For me, nice thing about all of this is that Microsoft launches WWT at TED, which is great for TED as the massive coverage that this project is going to receive will undoubtedly bring TED.com to a much wider audience. If you don’t know what TED is, throw out your TV and get on over to their web site now. www.ted.com
Ted Have also posted a video of the launch presentation. www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/224
You can check out the WWT web site at worldwidetelescope.org
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