Microsoft’s Plan to Map the World in Real Time
Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact
Microsoft’s Plan to Map the World in Real Time
Researchers are working on a system that allows sensors to track information and create up-to-date, searchable online maps.
By Kate Greene

A screenshot of the SenseWeb sensor mapping application. The user highlighted a geographic region (red lines and dots) and typed “Seattle Sensors” to view a variety of real-time data in the area. (Image courtesy of Suman Nath, Microsoft Research.)
Researchers at Microsoft are working on technology that they hope will someday enable people to browse online maps for up-to-the-minute information about local gas prices, traffic flows, restaurant wait times, and more. Eventually, says Suman Nath, a Microsoft researcher who works on the project, which is called SenseWeb, they would like to incorporate the technology into Windows Live Local (formerly Microsoft Virtual Earth), the company’s online mapping platform.
(Via ecal MID mailinglist.)
[tags]map, mapping, real time, information flow[/tags]
