World Wide Telescope
Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:38 pm
I thought as you are a group of pretty enlightened folks you might be interested in this. I had to pinch myself twice when I realised it was from Microsoft and it was free product, but it look drop-dead amazing.
I've long been a keen amateur astronomer (I look up at the sky and squint, I don't have a telescope or anything fancy), and I'm fascinated by the vastness of space and what it contains. This sort of program inspires and excites me, not only form my own POV, but because I can see it being genuinely inspiring to everyone who uses it, imagine what a curious 12 year old kid will make of it?
Once in a while something pops up that makes everything else look like pith, I mean when you can make stuff like this who the hell wants to spend time trying to zombify their friends on Facebook or making crappy half-rate homepages on MySpace? I don't care about anything else that's happened in the world of computers this month, hell even this year. This is why I maintain a glimmer of hope in the world of technology, because occasionally people do something *truly* amazing with it. They aren't interested in money or advertising potential, they just want to share something incredible.
Anyway, here's a demo of the thing in action (props to Robert Scoble):
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/224
It's been slated as for 'Spring 2008' so I'm expecting a Beta in late April/May time. I am not holding my usual wand of cutting cynicism out for this Microsoft product, as I think they'll ship it whatever, and it'll be great even with bugs.
I've long been a keen amateur astronomer (I look up at the sky and squint, I don't have a telescope or anything fancy), and I'm fascinated by the vastness of space and what it contains. This sort of program inspires and excites me, not only form my own POV, but because I can see it being genuinely inspiring to everyone who uses it, imagine what a curious 12 year old kid will make of it?
Once in a while something pops up that makes everything else look like pith, I mean when you can make stuff like this who the hell wants to spend time trying to zombify their friends on Facebook or making crappy half-rate homepages on MySpace? I don't care about anything else that's happened in the world of computers this month, hell even this year. This is why I maintain a glimmer of hope in the world of technology, because occasionally people do something *truly* amazing with it. They aren't interested in money or advertising potential, they just want to share something incredible.
Anyway, here's a demo of the thing in action (props to Robert Scoble):
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/224
It's been slated as for 'Spring 2008' so I'm expecting a Beta in late April/May time. I am not holding my usual wand of cutting cynicism out for this Microsoft product, as I think they'll ship it whatever, and it'll be great even with bugs.