Apparently airplanes travel a little too fast for the satellites that provide photos for Google Maps. It happened to capture this plane shooting across the sky over Hyde Park in Chicago, but separated the plane into a phantom plane and three RGB shadows. Anyone have an explanation for what caused this phenomenon?
Frank Taylor, the guy behind the unofficial Google Earth Blog, is currently on a 5 years sailing trip around the world called The Tahina Expedition. Google is actually a partner in the expedition, and is acquiring content generated by the trip for use in their products. One thing Taylor has been doing is taking aerial photographs of locations using a kite, resulting in imagery that’s much clearer than the photos Google gets from their satellites up in space. Google has already begun incorporating some of these images into their products, as you can see from this Google Maps satellite view of Manihi in French Polynesia.
Check out this Picasa album to see behind-the-scenes photos of Frank setting up his kite and shooting photos.
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This has got to be one of the saddest uses of imagery ever. The Daily Mail is reporting that iPhone owners in the UK are using satellite photos and GPS to cheat at getting out of corn mazes. By seeing their current location in a birds-eye view of the maze, visitors can quickly solve even the most challenging corn mazes.
Adventure seekers usually spend anything up to 90 minutes getting lost in the Hedge Maze at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, before finding the exit.
But staff at the attraction have noticed people are working their way round the labyrinth of two miles of pathways and 16,000 yew trees in just a matter of minutes.
The idea is clever, but super lame. Can you think of anything else that satellite imagery can help you cheat at?
iPhone cheats crack Britain’s biggest hedge maze in minutes (via Wired)
Image credit: Cheating in the maze by Andrew*
Typical sized white balance cards may be of (literally) little assistance in color calibrating global imaging satellites, but scientists have figured a clever workaround. Lake Tuz, Turkey’s third largest lake, dries out annually and turns into a giant salt bed. Because of its vast size and unique salty white color, scientists worldwide can use the lake to standardize their satellite measurements.
From August 14-25, scientists will be comparing ground-based measurements and comparing them with satellite results.
Apparently satellites don’t come with preset white balance for “sunny.”
(via PopSci)
Image credit: Satellite image via Google Maps
