and dynamics of celestial objects, thus providing key insights into their nature and why they look the way they do. Menu tabs allow serious researchers to access professional database archives of studies on the objects of their choice. Users can also find the current locations of planets, observe stunning panoramas taken by rovers from the surface of Mars, and zoom in on rotational views of the Moon, Venus, Earth, and Jupiter and its moons Io, Ganymede, and Callisto.
The basic layer of the northern sky in both the WWT and Google Sky is comprised of sky surveys conducted over the years at Palomar Observatory in California, while the southern sky is derived from surveys at the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australia. A digital version of the photographic plates of the Palomar survey, called the Digital Sky Survey, was produced as a collaborative project between the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, and the California Institute of Technology. The project’s principal investigator, S. George Djorgovski, is excited that the general public can now easily view the science data set that is available in both programs. “I think Google Sky and WWT are great public outreach venues. I really feel positive about them,” says Djorgovski. “It is probably too early to gauge any social impact of these [programs], and it will be tricky to measure in any case. But it’s got to be good, for obvious reasons.”
The WWT has its origins in the pioneering work of Jim Gray, whose many computer science-related accomplishments include developing the SkyServer program for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which is considered the most ambitious astronomical survey of the sky ever undertaken. (For more about Gray’s astronomical contributions, see the November 2008 Communications article, “Jim Gray, Astronomer,” by Alexander S. Szalay.) SkyServer is the forerunner of an information software architecture known as contextual narrative, which seeks to integrate data and stories with interactive contextual exploration in a one-stop shopping environment.
As an integral part of the WWT, contextual narrative both enhances and facilitates the learning experience, giving it new dimensions, says Curtis Wong,
principal researcher of the Microsoft Next Media Research group. “It’s enabling a new generation of kids who learn through interaction to be inspired to explore the universe in context, guided by astronomers and seamless links to the world’s information,” Wong says. “I think learning in context has been the original goal for WWT since the beginning, and that has the biggest potential impact for the users.”
In August 2007, Google launched its universal Sky browser by making it available as a free download at Google Earth. Like the WWT, it also provides a seamless view of the night sky using images from the Digital Sky Survey, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other professional observatories. Google Sky also uses multiple information layers that can be selected under its sky database, including constellation figures, the current positions of the planets, and a backyard astronomy layer that labels stars, constellations, and celestial objects. When the “education center” and “current sky events” options are selected, users can click for Hubble-cast videos, virtual tours of stars and galaxies, and detailed descriptions of celestial objects provided by other sources, such as NASA’s Hubble site and Wikipedia. When all layers are selected, though, the screen can become crowded, but the numerous choices make Google Sky undeniably information rich.
Google Earth was created to project imagery onto the surface of a sphere. For Google Sky, that perspective is reversed by using the same infrastructure to project images of the sky onto the inside of a sphere, creating a re-
Wallet phones may still be
viewed in most nations as a
futuristic hopeful, but in Japan
more than 50 million cellphone
users are already carrying
mobile money models. reuters
reports Japan has pioneered not
just the technology for wallet
phones, but also the business
models that will pave the way
for the devices to become a
standard payment method in
the future. Some 700 million
people worldwide are expected
to own wallet phones by 2013.
today more than half of all
cellphone users in Japan are
carrying phones capable of
serving as wallets. Success in
Japan and in trials abroad have
shown that the technology is
ready for cellphones to replace
credit cards, cash, as well as
serve as transportation and
movie tickets and electronic keys
for homes and offices. Indeed,
the world’s biggest payment
card company, Mastercard,
announced last fall it was in
negotiations about commercial
launches of wallet phones with
several banks, and during the
next two years it expects to see
substantial activity from retail-
focused banks.
But there are still hurdles
to overcome before success is
a given, particularly in terms of
breaking the psychological barrier
for consumers skeptical about
using cellphones as credit cards.
there is also the major obstacle
of working out new business
models as the lines blur between
banks, financial institutions, and
cellphone companies.
despite Japan’s relative
success with wallet phones,
still only one-third of wallet-
phone holders use their cells
for purchase. consumers
in their 20s and 30s are the
main users of wallet-phone
services. research shows that
once they start using, they
tend to use frequently and
repeatedly, making it a useful
tool for companies to track their
customers and shopping habits.
Mcdonald’s Japan and 7-eleven are testing mobile discount coupons, and a joint Sony-docoMo venture has launched a mobile platform for retailers to offer such services.
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