Satellite Maps
Last summer, my family and I went to San Francisco for vacation. We planned to meet my sister and her family to enjoy the time together. To save money, we decided to try to rent a vacation home rather than use a hotel. This gave us extra room at a better cost and we could all be together in one building. While I was setting up the deal, I decided I needed to make sure the house was there and would meet our needs without traveling to San Francisco from the Midwest to perform this check.
Like most of us do for difficult assignments like this, I turned to Google. I used Google maps and using the address of the property I was going to rent, I found the house in a residential area of Berkeley, a suburb of San Francisco. But then Google let me take my verification process to the next level. Clicking on a button on the mapping web page, I was able to actually see the street where the house was. Using my mouse, I was able to turn to the west, the east, completely around and back to my original orientation. I was even able to "wander around" to see other parts of the street. This was no cartoon or fabrication. These were actual images of that street in Berkeley.
The technology that gave me that ability is called satellite mapping and it is nothing short of a breakthrough in mapping technology. Our satellite technology has become so sophisticated that we can look directly at homes and streets from thousands of miles above. Using Google maps another time, I was able to see my home and even recognize my car in the driveway. This is as much phenomenal as it is a little spooky. But as in the case of my example, it was a wonderful extension of the Google mapping ability. And it will be a revolution in mapping that we will all quickly get used to where we will see any other option as positively barbaric.
Satellite mapping technology has given us a second huge breakthrough that has enabled people on the go to find their way around a stange town without folding out clumsy maps. This, of course, is GPS. Even if you are used to GPS, it is amazing how that little device, communicating with satellites, knows exactly where you are and can guide you down to the feet ahead of where you need to turn and what you need to do.
We can only expect satellite mapping technology to get smarter and more able to help our lives in ways that we probably cannot even imagine. But we can imagine that the future will be exciting because of what satellite map technology will be able to do for us in the not too distant future.