Google's Eye in the Sky

Every time I fly in or out of National or Dulles airports, I play a little game: I plaster my face to the plane window and see how far away from home I can track my progress -- not intermittently, but continuously -- by spotting familiar landmarks on the ground. This is easy on a flight up to New York or Boston, but quickly gets difficult to the south and west of D.C.

With a hobby like that, I was predisposed to like Google Earth, the font-of-all-knowledge search portal's latest freebie release. But even looking at the fanciest map around can get old. What made the difference here was all the other data Google has packed into this program, from 3D building models (including my house, for some odd reason) to overlays of road and rail networks. And how Google has allowed other users to contribute to that data.