The year was 1990. Detriot won back-to-back NBA titles and Dennis Rodman was still in the closet; un-pierced and un-inked. “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor was number 1 on the charts. In 1990, the International Space Station launched the Hubble Space Telescope. It was the first satellite of it’s kind… astronauts, taikonauts, and cosmonauts. Flying overhead quite regularly in fact, if only you knew when? It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s the new Satellite Flybys app for iphone 4 and iphone 4s.
“Satellite Flybys” turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into an indispensable, field-tested satellite watching tool. If you want to know when spacecraft, stormtroopers, ET, or Dad in the cessna are about to appear (on a countdown clock!) this is the app for you! The app features include directional aiming, night vision, and shut your Google Earth there’s thousands of spacecraft in your Earth orbit. “Satellite flybys” tells you only about whatever you want to know; only the newsworthy. Spice up your water cooler chat on a Friday when you explain to your colleague (maybe Dwight from The Office) there are several satellites flying overhead.
Satellite Flybys App iPhone 4s
Know when to shout! Look flying metal!
App Summary:
Look-ahead schedule of flybys, activate flyby alerts, flyby countdown clock, pictures and detailed information on each tracked object, and of course night vision (which also conserves iphone battery!) Get yours today only at the iTunes store.
Earth Satellite Maps has returned from a lunar hiatus to shed some light on a phone that is simply out of this world. I mean hello people, it is 2010 thus making it a year where everything sounds VERY futuristic.
All the buzz around the Apple iPhone will be a thing of the past once you lay your eyes on this gem of a phone. Google is attempting to takeover the mobile phone industry with a new phone: Google Nexus One. Backed by their massive marketing and corporate branding, Google will surely dive head first into the realm of telecommunications.
This is quite a shift from the company’s original stance as a neutral distributor of the Android mobile operating system, used by multiple carriers on multiple handsets. Now Google is competing with the very manufacturers that use its OS. As it may well tick off Google’s current and future Android partners, just what features were so important to Google that it would take a risk like that? Especially, when you check the tag and see the $530!
In staying ahead of the curve, Google considers this the next logical step in smartphones. Super Fast, super convenient, always-connected, expandable, and fully dependent on the internet. And while the Nexus One isn’t completely there yet, it’s about as close as anyone can get right now in 2010.
Google has done a good job here, laying out a phone that fits a future business model for many. In other words, Google thinks a phone should be your connection to the internet information cloud, which in turn hooks you to other humans, entertainment, the detritus of your professional life and, of course, any queries that can be answered by searching the vast Google indexes. Thumbs up from us here at Earth Satellite Maps.
PROS: Cool Design, Speed, Voice Recognition, Trackball Navigation, 5 mega-pixel Camera with GPS stamp, Synchronized with Google Products, Google Earth Maps / GPS Included Free, 4 GB SD Card.
CONS: Battery Life questionable, Multi-touch not supported, slow synching to computer.
PRICE: $530 unlocked. $180 with 2-year T-Mobile contract.
Move over Lance Armstrong, because Neil Armstrong is back in the limelight. As Lance Armstrong fights to win an unprecedented eigth Tour de France, Neil Armstrong’s moon walking footage is all over the press. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Google has launched a new feature: the Moon in Google Earth. You can now use Google Earth Maps to explore, fly around and search the Moon. Google was able to get several astronauts to participate in this new feature, and you can get tours of landing sites, narrated by Apollo astronauts, view 3D models of landed spacecraft, zoom into 360-degree photos to see astronauts’ footprints and watch rare TV footage of the Apollo missions.
The hi-resolution views of the Moon were developed in collaboration with NASA Ames Research and JAXA. It provides an historic perspective as well as a look to the future of lunar exploration. In years to come with the advanced technology of robotic cars and craft we’ll be plotting this galaxy faster than ever before. If you already have Google Earth 5.0 on your computer, then you’re already to rock and roll with a moon landing. Click the picture of Saturn and click on Moon. If you click on the Apollo 11 flag, you can zoom in on that location and take a tour of the first landing site on the Moon! Now we are only left to wonder where they will build the McDonalds… probably next to the Wal-Mart.
The LA Times spread news today of that NASA managers on Monday decided to move back the scheduled launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and moon mapping mission to no earlier than Thursday.
The combination orbiter probe and earth satellite comprises the beginning of a Nasa mission to get humans back to the moon by 2020. The orbiter will satellite map the moon in a detail oriented way that has ever been attempted. It does this by searching out the sites showing the most potential for a future lunar colony and similar earth from space idea. Basically the satellite map is looking for ice or other things humans can use if they were to move in. In doing this the earth satellite will aim an empty rocket toward a crater on the moon’s south pole. The crash will send debris into the lunar surface. Before actually hitting the moon, the satellite will fly through the small moon pieces, taking measurements in hopes of finding evidence of water. Water is deemed most valuable not only because it would save colonists from having to lug it from Earth, but also because it could be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen for use in respiration as well as rocket fuel.
When you think of it, living in space would certainly make all Americans at least feel lighter, so it’s ironicly fitting our ever enlarging overweight population. I just want to know which airline decides to fly to the moon, one return trip and you’d hold platnium status for the amount of miles you need to travel to get there!
The Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum and Google are marking the museum’s golden anniversary in an appropriate way by joining together on a global design competition inspired by the building’s master architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.
“Throughout the Guggenheim’s 50th anniversary year, one of our most important goals is to engage new and ever-broader global audiences to understand and appreciate art and architecture,” says Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenhiem Foundation and Museum. “Our collaboration with Google is certainly providing us with a technologically exciting means to do just that.”
Design-It: Shelter Competition invites the public to use Google SketchUp and Google Earth to create virtual 3-D shelters located anywhere on earth map. The competition recently started on June 8, Wright’s birthday. You can get started by downloading the Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google SketchUp programs on the competition website. Next you must pick a location for the structure via Google Earth Maps. Participants can then use SketchUp 3-D modeling software to design a 100-square-foot live/work shelter, submit their completed entries to the Google 3D Warehouse, and then to the competition’s website.
Once the competition ends, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture will select 10 student finalists, in addition to the public online voting from September 7 thru October 10 to find the Grand Prize winner. Simultaneously, an knowledgable jury featuring the likes of architect Neil Denari, Newsweek architecture critic Cathleen McGuigan, and Pentagram partner Lisa Strausfeld will choose the Juried Prize winner.
Two winners will be announced on October 21, the 50th anniversary of the museum’s opening. The champions receive airfare and 2-night accommodations for 2 in New York, where they’ll receive private tours of the Guggenheim and Google Earth Maps offices, and Google SketchUp Pro licenses. The Juried Prize winner also gets $1,000 to spend during their junket—or perhaps to save for a real project. Check out some of the images that are coming in, amazing!
