Google Earth to make history playable from every angle

The first thing you think watching Georgia Institute of Technology combine security video feeds with Google Earth maps is cool. Then, like Gizmodo, your brain clicks to freaky, worrying a real-time view of the entire planet may give Big Brother the perfect tool for spying on people.

But play it all the way forward and you see a future where Google, if it builds on this experiment, can record all of history from every angle -- soccer games, airplane crashes, presidential movements -- for any of our descendants. This requires a little patience, people, but if we can fit video cameras into iPod Nanos, surely it won't be long before we can combine all visual feeds into one kick-ass model. And then, as the centuries roll by, history will no longer be words on paper written by the victors, but instead real views. Imagine seeing Gandhi or Jesus Christ or Moses in action. We can't today, of course, but a thousand years from now our descendants may look back and see us, and the inspirational leaders or demonic tyrants among us who write tomorrow's future.

Gaming history

In the near term, say, the next 100 years, the impact will be greatest on media conglomerates. Today only a handful of huge communication firms rule the entertainment world -- Bertelsmann, Disney, NewsCorp, TimeWarner, Viacom, and Vivendi Universal. But these giants and the advertisers who ride next to them may lose audiences, if entertainment becomes seeing anything from anywhere in the past with Google Earth zoomability. Movie night circa 2030: "What do you want to watch, honey?" "I don't know -- say, let's boot up Mount Rainier exploding in 2019 and watch the people flee Seattle!"

When the world's history is one gripping video game, entertainment will get real. Perhaps this is science fiction. But then, so is flying through the air in steel tubes and having a global communicator device in your pocket.