Zooming in on your reality

The July Issue of Wired magazine had an interesting feature on Google Maps and the way it is democratizing the skills of mapmaking, which have always been a powerful tool for those trying to define reality (see the article Google Maps Is Changing the Way We See the World). By allowing users to share their maps annotated with descriptions of the places that make up their world, Google is spreading the information wealth that had been the reserve of the political elites of eras past.

One of the interesting sidebars to the piece includes a tidbit about a new technology that allows cell phone users to call up information on buildings they pass on the street. Here's an excerpt:

What if you could walk down an unfamiliar street, use your camera phone to take a picture of a building, and instantly know everything about it, from the architect to the list of tenants. The technology to make common objects clickable, like hyperlinked words on a Web site, is available today in the form of 2-D barcodes. These digital tags look like empty crossword puzzles. Users create them online, print them out, and paste them around the city. Then anyone with a phonecam can "click" on them.

As with all technological innovations, this one has the potential for mischief as well as enlightenment. I don't know how the information is being vetted, but it's pretty easy to imagine pranksters creating bogus entries about a place they don't like. Spammers could create faux barcodes that call up unsolicited ads, or law enforcement could encode personal information that jeopardizes tenants' privacy.

I can also imagine the technology getting spread out to other objects in our environment, leading to a chattering world of smart buildings, buses, cars, and trains beaming their various messages to passersby ... much as the information swarm depicted in the film Minority Report.

At some point we may also see barcodes on people, either stitched into apparel or tattooed on skin. You could share your bio, blog address, email and cell number with anyone wanting to network, socialize or hookup. The creatively vengeful might even take the opportunity to spread some sensitive insider scoop about an ex-partner by surreptitiously hanging a strategic link on their back like a virtual kick-me sign.

As always, those who control the information technology will determine its uses, so master it as soon as you can.

Google Maps of Katrina Damage: Back to the Future

I read with particular interest a news item that Google Maps has replaced its images of areas hit by Hurricane Katrina with earlier satellite photos taken pre-storm. In two weeks I'm heading down to volunteer with Emergency Communities in Buras, LA, where Katrina first made landfall, and all the reports I've read indicate the damaged areas still have a long way to go before recovery.

I don't know if this is some grand conspiracy, but Google is doing all concerned a disservice if they in anyway convey the misinformation that these areas are back to normal. See an excerpt from an AP story below the following, current Google satellite image of Buras. I'll be giving a full report of what I see down there in a couple weeks.

On Google map, everything's back to normal after Katrina
Satellite imagery of devastated coast as it once was fuels talk of conspiracy
By CAIN BURDEAU
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Google's popular map portal has replaced post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery with pictures taken before the storm, leaving locals feeling like they're in a time loop and even fueling suspicions of a conspiracy.

Scroll across the city and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and everything is back to normal: Marinas are filled with boats, bridges are intact and parks are filled with healthy trees.

"Come on," said an incredulous Ruston Henry, president of the economic development association in New Orleans' devastated Lower 9th Ward. "Just put in big bold this: 'Google, don't pull the wool over the world's eyes. Let the truth shine.' "

Read the full article