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Terra Bella

terrabella.google.com

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Re: Terra Bella

#91

Post by gus_massa »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #68
Klathmon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't it? I mean low earth orbit is at least as much space as we have on the surface, which is already pretty damn big. Yeah, speeds and orbits and stuff change the game a bit, but i can't imagine even a few thousands of satellites cramping a space that large.

The problem is we want a lot of things to be in geostationary orbit, which is only possible at a specific altitude. That effectively transforms the "space" from three dimensions to two because the third relative coordinate for all of those things has to be the same. Which is when relative motion becomes a problem. The Empire State Building and the Trump Building are at approximately the same altitude (i.e. sea level)…

Actually, the useful part of the geostationary orbit is 1 dimensional, because the satellites have to be at the right height and over the equator. It's called the "Clarke Belt": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit

But anyway space is very big and the probability of collisions is still low. Two geostationary satellites out of control would probably not collide, they will pass a few hundred of meters away in any direction. The big distance between them is mostly to avoid interference between the radio signals.

Re: Terra Bella

#92

Post by JBReefer »

everfree wrote: post #66
vram22 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The worst part was trying to Back. Just scrolling actually adds a bunch of URLs to your back queue How does that happen?

One way is by using JS to change the address bar location using window.location or history.pushState(), instead of using history.relpaceState() which doesn't create an extra history entry each time.

I would vote for a president that ran a campaign _only_ based on quirky punishments for those who use history.pushState()

They should have to open a door repeatedly, only to have someone push them back when they try to walk through for a few weeks, for example!

Re: Terra Bella

#93

Post by mmanfrin »

hackuser wrote: post #71

While it will have some great uses, it also brings more surveillance and predictive analytics (if that's the term) to the world, and chillingly they don't address the social issues at all. Will Google use this, or allow others to use this, to surveil me from space? How about protesters at this summer's U.S. political conventions? Will they allow me to use this to watch Google's headquarters? It also concentrates more…

Such technology is already being used in this way, and has been compared chillingly to tracking 'precrime'; there is a terrifying Radiolab episode on it:

http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/

Re: Terra Bella

#94

Post by dnautics »

gus_massa wrote: post #91
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we want a lot of things to be in geostationary orbit, which is only possible at a specific altitude. That effectively transforms the "space" from three dimensions to two because the third relative coordinate for all of those things has to be the same. Which is when relative motion becomes a problem. The Empire State Building and the Trump Building are at approximately the same altitude (i.e. sea level)…

Actually, the useful part of the geostationary orbit is 1 dimensional, because the satellites have to be at the right height and over the equator. It's called the "Clarke Belt": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit But anyway space is very big and the probability of collisions is still low. Two geostationary satellites out of control would probably not collide, they will pass a few hundred of meters away…

There are geosynchronous (not = geostationary) orbits which trace an analemma in the sky, that are also very useful.

Re: Terra Bella

#95

Post by nostrademons »

tzakrajs wrote: post #73
trequartista wrote: post #11

Very ambitious. Will be interesting to see how it pans out. Interestingly, Google acquired Terra Bella in 2014. Even though the domain says google.com, is this an Alphabet subsidiary or part of Google itself?

Skybox rebranded to Terra Bella on Mar 8th 2016. They were acquired and placed in the Geo organization (Maps) so they aren't just floating about as a one-off: http://spacenews.com/googles-skybox-imaging-has-new-name-bus...

It's funny, they're named after the street that their office is on. Which is where their office was the whole time, but the new name is actually a better fit for what they do than the old one was.

Re: Terra Bella

#97

Post by knowaveragejoe »

jayhuang wrote: post #50
mcculley wrote: post #32

Interesting. I'm assuming there will be areas that we are prohibited from imaging. Will these be limited to areas defined by the US Government or every government that Google works with?

Having worked in this area, I can say you are on the right track. Not only the US, there are many countries/powers that will get very upset if certain people see certain areas. As for who gets to see what, there are extremely stringent rules set by many of these governments; even within government organizations themselves, there is huge variation in access constraints.

This seems strange to me, considering there is high resolution "birds eye"(taken from a plane) imagery of a variety of sensitive US installations available on Bing, not to mention what's on Google Maps/Earth. There are other sources as well.

Re: Terra Bella

#99

Post by cannam »

cpeterso wrote: post #80
dbcurtis wrote: post #43

Is there a readable version of the web site that doesn't have obnoxious scrolling? Someone needs to tell their designers about the Principle of Least Surprise. I'll look at this after they fix this so it doesn't give me a headache.

How does an unusable page like this even pass preliminary design review? Perhaps the page works well on the 16-core desktop computers with giant monitors common in the ivory tower.

I made the mistake of clicking on the link while my kids were playing Minecraft PvP in the next room. Cue anguished shouts of "I'm lagging!" for the 30 seconds or so I spent staring at the loading icon.

Re: Terra Bella

#100

Post by Variance »

zzleeper wrote: post #19
frisco wrote: post #15

Hold on hold on. This is a big swarm of satellites and (I assume) a forthcoming API and the comments are "the scrolling sucks"? They could have used tables and comic sans for all I care. This is awesome. Though Planet Labs will always be my first affection in this space. Talk about a hard and interesting problem. This data takes you to so many different places.

I still do not know how is this actionable. So, they have satellites that take cool pictures, ok. Are they selling the stuff? Sharing an API?

Very valuable data to finance - commodities and macro trading could use this data to understand supply and demand trends, like a robust version of "Helicopter Edge": http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-12-19/helicopter-...
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