google sky update - hubble images

Okay get this, they have put hubble photos IN THEIR CORRECT PLACE IN THE SKY. For instance to see the crab nebula in hi-res just find where it is (use the markers) and ZOOM IN. This is sublime. Google, we love you.

Google Stars

I've been waiting for this. Cool.

The space imagery includes over one million photographs from various sources, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Palomar Observatory at the California Institute of Technology and the Hubble Telescope.

I guess you can't fly out to the planets or stars yet though. But soon.

Announcing Fractalmapr

I had the idea for this last October. I tried to create it using a thing called OpenLayers, an opensource "Google Maps-like" system. At the time I didn't realise that it could be done with the actual Google Maps api itself. Long story short, check it out here. The domain name? Well back in 2006 it seemed cool...
What is it?
It's an online Mandelbrot set fractal viewer using the Google Maps API.

Hasn't that been done before?
Not that I'm aware of.

Things to try

• Double click zooming
• Mouse wheel
• Dragging the mini-map
• Dragging the blue square on the mini-map

TODO

• Implement "bookmark/link to this view...
• Better and deeper rendering. I'm using fractint (the finest fractal generator for the Intel 386 running DOS) and an antialias/size reduction method that I prefer not to mention. Hence the tiles are 256 colour gifs. I'm guessing 24 bit colour pngs would be a lot better but I can't find a free renderer that I can use in batch mode. Anyone want to help me with this? I suppose writing my own would be one solution.
• Different palettes
• Other fractals
• Show co-ordinates in some way. A layer?
• Make grey background in map into black somehow
• Start a blog?

Update 8/9/08
I'm letting the domain name expire. The new url is this http://randomibis.com/fractalmapr/.

Google Maps with Street View

Check this out. You can drag the photo left and right to spin around. Click the arrows to move up or down a street. Also try picking up the little yellow man and putting him somewhere else. Look how his legs flap around. I love it. (Via TechCrunch).

I like to think in terms of technology granting me god-like powers. Prior to Google Maps satellite view, only God could see the world from above from any position. Google Earth extends my powers to provide flyovers, terrain, looking towards the horizon etc. Now this street view gives me the following god-like powers:

• look around a city thousands of miles away
• float above traffic on a busy street without danger
• freeze time (Hiro style)
• telescopic vision (try zooming in on the photo view). I can read phone numbers and opening hours on shop doors.

I guess God (and probably Sauron? (and Sylar any day now :)) would be able to achieve these feats with sound and real-time imaging, ie in God's version of Google Earth you can see yourself through the window looking at your computer. That just proves that my Google granted powers are a little behind God's. And that's as it should be, don't you think? Any company that gives me god-like powers for free is okay with me. Their email is pretty good also.