Gary Lawrence Murphy cynicizes:
> Hmmm, just as I thought.  In other words, it has no practical uses
> whatsoever ;)
Tourism is the world's largest industry. Using this
to preview your travels, or figure out where you are,
would be very valuable.
Online gaming continues to grow. Screw "Britannia",
real-life Britain would be a fun world to wander/
conquer/explore virtually, in role-playing or real-
time-strategy games.
And of course, as James Rogers points out, it's an
ideal display substrate for all sorts of other
overlaid data. Maps are great, photrealistic 3-D
maps of everywhere which can have many other static
and dynamic datasets overlaid are spectacular.
(Combining those last two thoughts: consider the
static world map, in faded colors, with patches
here-and-there covered by live webcams, stitched
over the static info in bright colors... it'd be
like the "fog of war" view in games like Warcraft,
over the real world.)
- Gordon

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>>>>> "J" == James Rogers <jamesr@best.com> writes:
J> ...  The part that makes the app killer is that you can map all
J> sorts of data layers on top of their core topological data.
J> Got it?
Ah, ok ... so some sample applications come to mind, although none of
them require wireless and would do with a DVD, but nonetheless ...
- Forestry: Maps of the terrain are essential in predicting the spread
of forest fires, esp if this is overlaid with the type of vegetation,
recent waterfall &c
- farming/conservation can use the high-resolution terrain to overlay
water tables or watershed info.
--
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@teledyn.com> TeleDynamics Communications Inc
Business Advantage through Community Software : http://www.teledyn.com
"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)