Robot Pirate Ninja

Google maps give close-up view of U.N. refugee camps – Yahoo! News

Rebecca Moore, head of Earth Outreach for Google, said the browsable, high-definition pictures of humanitarian crisis zones stood to captivate a mass audience that may not otherwise see them.

Many of the 350 million people who have downloaded Google Earth use it to scan for holiday destinations or to see what other corners of the world look like from above. The sharp satellite images are updated about every month, though in some places they are older and in others no public shots exist.

Moore told a packed audience of aid experts at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) headquarters that they could add video interviews of refugees, photographs of displacement crises and educational text to the satellite backdrop to educate even casual users about unfolding crises.

“Use Google Earth to tell your story,” she urged.

We are moving slowly, inexorably, towards a globally available view of the globe.  Now we just need to get something close to real-time info, get rid of tribal mentalities, and eat the rich and everything will be fine an dandy…until the aliens come.