If google and other services can provide such detailed satellite imagery, can you imagine what the government can do? I bet the NSA can read your newspaper at the breakfast table! From Google Maps you can see the transformer that blew out yesterday giving us a few hours of no electricity. That white line running over the road and over the blue car is the powerline. Yes! A satellite took a photograph that picked up a cable that must be no larger in diameter than a roll of film. That white dot in the trees just left of the blue car is one transformer (it’s blown out twice in 8 years) and if you continue to follow the line left (West) to the end of the street you can find the transformer that blew yesterday. Granted, it had the aid of a tree. What is remarkable is this photo has to be several years old because we have since had a new roof put on the house.
I wonder what kind of lists you get put on when the NSA sees your website in their referral logs.
UPDATE: I’ve had it explained to me that this level of photography is done by plane not satellite. Btw, apparently the link doesn’t bring you in at the maximum zoom level. So zoom in as much as you can.
I drive by that area all the time – someday I’m gonna swing by and honk and wave 🙂
Here’s me waving from my office:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Knoxville,+TN&t=k&ll=35.846737,-83.98958&spn=0.000924,0.002704&t=h
Aye! We drive past your office quite frequently!
The mapping data near my home in Minneapolis seems to be 2-3 years old based on the degree of completion of a few local developments. I haven’t hard of many cases of people spotting themselves on the site yet. Cars? Yes, but not people.