Shwaine - great info about Tesla! Thanks so much for sharing.

I suppose we can thank Tesla for the cell phone since he invented the radio. Now if only he hadn't been constrained towards the end of his life, we might have had things like wireless power by now. It's amazing to think that ideas he had partially developed over a century ago (but never wrote down or, if he did, the writings were seized by the government and hidden... depending on who you talk to) are still being worked on today. I suppose that's why scientific conspiracy theorists love to talk about how the government and/or big business buried his work. But the modern age was helped immensely by Tesla. We wouldn't have had radio and all its derivatives (like cell phones or wireless Internet) or AC electricity as soon (it can be argued others would have come up with it later) without him. And the Tesla Coil is cool, heh.

Nice thought, I'm still trying to understand cell phones...as we progress (think where we were 15 years ago) I think it is good to reflect on what it means, how far we've come and what it means.  Not so we can blast away like above, (although I suppose this could be a concern).  Something I tell my kids is to always be amazed, don't take things for granted and stay grounded. Although we have all these new things, as you pointed out, things really aren't that different from years ago (a cat, a car, and a person getting into a car, could have been 50 years ago).

I would imagine Galileo might be amazed....I love Google maps and Google Earth. But "my file" is an old one....lol.

I forgot to mention something everyone. The world is flat!!  : )

(Insert cynical laugh audio here)

Update: What happened to your comment vanityfair? You said I was posting conspiracy nonsense regarding google streets? Now that I proved you wrong, you have chosen to delete the comment you posted.

_______________________

How is it conspiracy none sense? The images were taken from a camera mounted on a car. Sigh....

here are a some links to check out:

 www.associatedcontent.com/article/286755/google_g ets_streetwise_using_immersive.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersive_Media

dvice.com/archives/2007/05/dodeca_2360_camera_on_ top_of_a.php

www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4232 286.html

So far none of you can refute the info I post. Just tons of lame comments. Try again.

It's not a satellite image.

From wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View#Developm ent

Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth that provides 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street level views and allows users to view parts of some regions of the world at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007, only five American cities were included. It has since expanded to thousands of locations in the United States, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and includes a variety of urban and rural areas.

Google Street View displays photos taken from a fleet of Chevrolet Cobalts in United States and Opel Astras in Europe, mounted with spherical cameras and placed in 'image orbs' within Google's maps, displayed against the backdrop of images previously taken from satellite that make up Google's maps. These 'image orbs' can be navigated using either the arrow keys on the keyboard or by using a mouse to click on arrows displayed on the screen. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles. Lines that are displayed along the street that is shown indicate the direction followed by that street view camera car.

• 1 Development
  • 1.1 By location
    • 1.1.1 United States
    • 1.1.2 Europe
    • 1.1.3 Asia
    • 1.1.4 Oceania
• 2 Areas included
  • 2.1 United States
  • 2.2 Oceania
  • 2.3 Europe
  • 2.4 Japan
• 3 Future
• 4 Privacy issues
• 5 See also
• 6 References
• 7 External links