First, there is this new camera:

http://www.lytro.com/

Then, there is this new mapping tech that Apple has bought and may use to compete with Google Maps:

VERY interesting... thanks for sharing.

It just keeps getting better and better. Coming from a time where the only "cell phone" was the communicator Captain Kirk had, the capabilities of devices you can hold in your hand today is downright magical.

This video of the Hoover dam gives some great views of how we can use these maps to view terrain:



And this video just cracks me up and kind of nails what you said about this stuff being magical....

Funny video and so true. In the ham radio world, we have something called the "block of wood" syndrome. It's where people take amazing electronic things....cell phones, cameras, radios, etc. and treat them like a chunk of wood. No thought whatsoever about what intricacies lay inside or what completely impossible things the gizmo does. It's a brick and owes the owner perfect service. Makes me cringe.
But then...I actually enjoyed the simpler times and in some ways wish we were back there. No computers, cell phones, gps (had to read a map!), and we didn't know to miss it.

Did a little snooping around regarding the 3D mapping. It seems that this technology isn't available quite yet. Is that your understanding?

Yes, that's correct, it's not available yet, and you never know about Apple, or what they'll do with it.

I suspect that Apple is gearing up to compete with both Google and Facebook with apps that run on their platform, and perhaps others, like iTunes does on Windows now.

The demos of that mapping software is a remarkable leap past Google's maps and "Earth" apps. Apple invented digital movies (Quicktime) and virtual reality images (Quicktime VR) and they hold a lot of patents on that technology, so it makes sense they would apply it to compete with one of Googles most popular products running on their hardware.

It's the advertising revenue they want, but for us, it might lead to some great new apps.

there is a fractal method of encoding visual data so that you have the same resolution at any magnification. This has been employed by spy satelites since the 80s. Like many "new" technologies, digital phones only came to the public when the military was ready to share them. Many things are reinvented.

Jim