As Google continues to document every crevice of our world with a camera so armchair world travelers can sit at home in their underwear and globe-trot, they’re realizing that a car with a first-gen Imperial Probe Droid mounted on its roof can’t go quite anywhere.
Google decided to ‘street view’ the Arabian desert of Liwa.
Since cars can’t tread sand, they strapped their all-seeing-eye to the back of a camel and let some poor schmuck wander the desert so we could all virtually enjoy the experience of being stranded in a desert without all those little inconveniences like thirst, dehydration, delirium and…you know dying alone in the desert.
For blind California resident Steve Mahan, he absolutely needed to get a taco. But how to get there? He could walk, call a cab or get picked up from a friend.
He relied on a trusty friend from Mountain View named Google.
And so Steve headed to the Bell, driven by one of Google’s new self-driving cars. Science and technology had finally advanced it’s most challenging rubric, getting a blind man to a chalupa as fast and easy as possible.
According to the Google’s own Google+ page, since Mahan doesn’t have a driver’s license he had to get special permission from local law enforcement to sit in the front seat. A police official even sat in on the ride. But we’re pretty sure it was just so he could get one of the new Dorito shell hard tacos.
The University of Oxford’s Internet Institute has analyzed Google search patterns and discovered that there are places in the United States where there are more people searching for zombies and satan than for Santa Claus.
“a few pockets including just outside the San Francisco Bay and Seattle and the cities Houston, Dallas and Austin in Texas have a lot of zombie angst. Hmmm…it might be the only things these places are in agreement on. But one of the more interesting clusters runs from Tampa to Orlando Florida….home of Disney World. Sort of makes sense in a way. Also of interest is a thin band of zombies stretched out along the Eastern seaboard, west of most of the major metropolitan areas.”
Check out the Satan cluster around Tampa Bay; I am going to have to start watching my neighbors a little more closely. You can download the data here and find your own patterns.
As of now NASA’s historic Hangar One will be destroyed. Victim of a budget cut. One of the largest free standing structures in the world and historic landmark in the aviation history of this country will be completely demolished and lost to the sands of times.
Unless Google’s Larry Paige, Sergy Brin and Eric Schmitt are allowed to foot the full bill for refurbishment, roughly $33 million. In exchange they ask for rights to house their private jet fleet, eight in total. The government will retain the ability to lease out the rest of Hangar One for whatever they please.
As of now, NASA’s response is: maybe.
Bob Jacobs, a NASA spokesman, said in an email Saturday that “it would be premature to discuss the merits of the proposal until we have had time to review the details.
“It has not yet been completely vetted,” he added. “We understand the interest and historic nature of the facility and we have to weigh that against the reality of constrained resources and use. We are giving all options thoughtful consideration as we prepare our funding proposal for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.”
Hangar One was built in 1933 and occupies roughly six football fields worth of land spanning eight acres. The Navy is currently in the process of removing contaminated skin from the structure, which means reapplication would have to take place in 2012.
Page, Brin and Schmidt first submitted their proposal in September.
Below, check out a more recent use of Hangar One. The Mythbusters attempt to fold a football field sized piece of paper more than seven times. SAVE OUR BASIC CABLE HISTORY!
