Say 'Cheese' to Google Satellite at 10AM

13.7BillionYears writes "Google's recent purchase of Keyhole and its jaw-dropping 3D earth-browsing software has apparently netted them ownership of an imaging satellite as well, now named 'gSat.' This Friday, April 1st, gSat will be capturing a new dataset (neighborhood of 1meter/pixel), passing over each time zone between 10 and 11AM. If you stand outside and wave you will supposedly show up as a blurry fleck. Even better news is that the dataset will be available within months not only to Keyhole but also to the equally jaw-dropping and open source NASA World Wind. It all seems aimed at answering a question that has plagued mankind for ages: What foolishness can we wreak upon the Earth on the Day of Fools with only 3 days' notice? I'm guessing the obscene stuff will be Photoshopped out. Thanks to the World Wind Forum for the tip and let's hope those April showers come late."

April Fools Day Sites

[Urgo]

Isn't April Fools Day just the best? =] For a 'full' list of sites pulling pranks today check out this list here [urgo.org]

Here is a sample:

kellyosbourne.org [kellyosbourne.org] - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net [nukefreezone.net] - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk [jolt.co.uk] - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz [telecom.co.nz] - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com [ytmnd.com] - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com [ampedhost.com] - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com [homestarrunner.com] - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au [whirlpool.net.au] - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com [thinkgeek.com] - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk [theregister.co.uk] - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org [creativebits.org] - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org [ocremix.org] - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com [spacedaily.com] - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org [gnome.org] - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org [kde.org] - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org [ietf.org] - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de [beejaysworld.de] - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com [nature.com] - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov [nasa.gov] - Water On Mars
smh.com.au [smh.com.au] - (Free Reg Req) SMEGmail offers 1 terabyte storage
smh.com.au [smh.com.au] - (Free Reg Req) Linux looks to Hilton for exposure
thetoque.com [thetoque.com] - Canada Builds Own Missile Defense Shield
onion.com [onion.com] - U.S. Dog Owners Fear Arrival of Africanized Fleas
chron.com [chron.com] - Bush Twins in Maxim
ask.com [ask.com] - Jeeves has been replaced by a robot
animenewsnetwork.com [animenewsnetwork.com] - Viz Unlicenses Naruto
uninventthewheel.co.uk [uninventthewheel.co.uk] - New BMW technology to get around the EU ban on right hand drive cars in Europe.
newgrounds.com [newgrounds.com] - changing to numagrounds.com
neopets.com [neopets.com] - neopets adds 50 new pets
www.firstloox.org [firstloox.org] - The Loox is being recalled
packages.gentoo.org [gentoo.org] - Adobe doesn't sell products for Linux
pc.ign.com [ign.com] - Microsoft World of Wordcraft (Extremely Obvious)
spamusement.com [spamusement.com] - Page full of spoof banner ads
gentooexperimental.org [gentooexperimental.org] - Gentoo using the NT kernel
moddb.com [moddb.com]

Open source?

[constantnormal]

I guess so, but an open source project that uses a proprietary framework (.NET) that targets a single platform via a closed video driver spec (DirectX) strikes me as missing the point somewhat. It's a bit like an open source project coded in PPC assembler.

Yes, it is true that there is the possibility that non-Windozers could port the source to Mono, and perhaps there exists a DirectX-to-OpenGL converter such that a sufficiently talented and determined band of coders could, in theory, create working versions of this impressive project that would run somewhere other than the indicated system requirements, but it seems like a long shot to me.

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System Requirements

* Windows 2000, XP Home, or XP Professional
* Intel Pentium 3, 1 GHz, or AMD Athlon or higher
* 256 MB of RAM
* 3D Graphics Card
o nVidia GeForce 2 Ultra
o ATI Radeon 7500
o Intel Extreme Graphics 2
* DSL / Cable connection or faster
* 2 GB of disk space

---

And yes, I am an envious OS X user -- pretty much a first for me, being envious of a Windows software project.

Re:Real news

[enosys]

Gmail was announced on April 1st 2004. A lot of people wondered if that was a joke. 1 gig seemed like such a huge amount for a free e-mail service and the press release used some language one might find in a joke. I think it just gave Google extra free publicity as people wondered if it is a joke before Google clarified it. Search for "gmail april.fools" [google.com] on Google for more info.