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Hold on to your asteroids...

Posted by Kirsten Bound at 9:56am on Thursday, 15th May 2008

Microsoft unveiled Worldwide Telescope this week. Its a 'telescope for the masses' -  letting anyone with the internet see images from the world's most powerful instruments. Some say it could be 'like the human genome project' in scope. It is exciting to see science opened up in new ways. Like most people, I don't know my black hole from my red dwarf, so it might seem unlikely that 'the masses' will be making any startling discoveries any time soon. But pro-am astronomers have made some striking contributions to the field in the past. And other open public platforms like Innocentive for solving science's challenges are becoming more common.

I would have downloaded it and taken a look if it hadn't required more memory than my dinky little computer could manage. So I looked at Google Sky instead. Apparently its less interactive but it still made me feel like Captain Kirk.

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Comments

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Interesting, very interesting.  Microsoft have been coming up with a lot of interesting stuff lately.  Presumably they're trying to get savvy in response to Google's ground breakingly open research projects.  I can't imagine them doing this in a pre-Google world.  To have these two giants competing in such a way can only be good for everyone.
Posted by Philip Conway  at 7:07pm on Friday, 16th May 2008

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