[geeks] World Wide Telescope

[Mark]

I had to pinch myself twice when I realised it was from Microsoft and  
it was free product, but it look drop-dead amazing.

I've long been a keen amateur astronomer (I look up at the sky and  
squint, I don't have a telescope or anything fancy), and I'm  
fascinated by the vastness of space and what it contains. This sort of  
program inspires and excites me, not only form my own POV, but because  
I can see it being genuinely inspiring to everyone who uses it,  
imagine what a curious 12 year old kid will make of it?

Once in a while something pops up that makes everything else look like  
pith, I mean when you can make stuff like this who the hell wants to  
spend time trying to zombify their friends on Facebook or making  
crappy half-rate homepages on MySpace? I don't care about anything  
else that's happened in the world of computers this month, hell even  
this year. This is why I maintain a glimmer of hope in the world of  
technology, because occasionally people do something *truly* amazing  
with it. They aren't interested in money or advertising potential,  
they just want to share something incredible.

Anyway, here's a demo of the thing in action (props to Robert Scoble - http://www.scobleizer.com 
):

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/224

It's been slated as for 'Spring 2008' so I'm expecting a Beta in late  
April/May time. I am not holding my usual wand of cutting cynicism out  
for this Microsoft product, as I think they'll ship it whatever, and  
it'll be great even with bugs.

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
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"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."