http://newcurator.com/2009/08/listen-to-the-gears-8/ Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:20:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 http://newcurator.com/2009/08/listen-to-the-gears-8/comment-page-1/#comment-1419 August Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:14:06 +0000 http://newcurator.com/?p=1346#comment-1419 Exactly! That's a great example of just what I meant. Exactly! That’s a great example of just what I meant.

]]> http://newcurator.com/2009/08/listen-to-the-gears-8/comment-page-1/#comment-1416 Ivan Pope Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:20:43 +0000 http://newcurator.com/?p=1346#comment-1416 My father was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1920. Until recently I just thought of the place where he grew up (we live in England) as a lost forgotten world. Then, during a visit recently, I asked him about where a photograph of his mother and grandparents was taken. He told me the address, so I looked it up on Google Maps and switched to satellite view. Hey presto, we were suddenly in the town where he grew up. We quickly found his house, school and dozens of places around there that he remembered. It brought his early life into mine with huge force. I made a Google map of his youth - wonderful. Now I can envisage his early life much better. From that experience I realised that Google Maps (and by extension, as you say, Google Streetview, and Earth etc) have the ability to be time based services. So long as Google Maps keep previous versions and make them available via the API it will be possible to go back in time, to look at the planet at different stages in the past. After a hundred years or so, this will become a vastly powerful tool for all sorts of research. My father was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1920. Until recently I just thought of the place where he grew up (we live in England) as a lost forgotten world. Then, during a visit recently, I asked him about where a photograph of his mother and grandparents was taken. He told me the address, so I looked it up on Google Maps and switched to satellite view. Hey presto, we were suddenly in the town where he grew up. We quickly found his house, school and dozens of places around there that he remembered. It brought his early life into mine with huge force. I made a Google map of his youth – wonderful. Now I can envisage his early life much better.
From that experience I realised that Google Maps (and by extension, as you say, Google Streetview, and Earth etc) have the ability to be time based services. So long as Google Maps keep previous versions and make them available via the API it will be possible to go back in time, to look at the planet at different stages in the past. After a hundred years or so, this will become a vastly powerful tool for all sorts of research.

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