Liquid Galaxy project is Google’s glass elevator
Andrew Ramadge
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 11:09amGOOGLE has unveiled one of the greatest toys ever – a virtual glass elevator that lets you fly around the world.
Made by a few of the engineers in their spare time, the Liquid Galaxy project is an interactive booth with wraparound LCD screens.
The screens show synchronised views from Google Earth and you can use a six-axis mouse to move your way through air and water.
The effect is stunning. Take a look below:
The video was taken by Mashable staff at a live demo by creator Jason Holt at TED.
Mr Holt, a software engineer at Google, first announced the project last year.
“It was amazing to all of us how much more impressive Google Earth felt when we were surrounded by screens and able to turn our heads to look around (and even walk around),” he said.
“It felt more like a ride than a computer program, something between an observation-deck and a glass-walled spaceship.”
Liquid Galaxy is the product of Google’s “20 per cent time” initiative which sees its engineers encouraged to pursue their own projects on company time.
More reading:
“With the Liquid Galaxy, we could fly through the Grand Canyon, leap into low-Earth orbit, and come back down to perch on the Great Pyramid of Giza without even breaking a sweat.” – Jason Holt on the Google Lat Long Blog
Have Your Say
Profile
Andrew Ramadge
Andy writes stuff about technology and pop music.
Latest Articles
Recently Popular
| Article |  |
|---|
View Entries by Date
Monthly Archives
- November 2010
- October 2010
- June 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- November 2007
Tools
News.com.au Blogs
|
||||||||||||
From around the News Blog Network
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Just like the elevator in Willy Wonka. Awesome!!
Fri 12 Feb 10 (11:51am)
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:07pm)
I was just thinking that exact same thing
Next step for Google would be to 3D the trees, cars and people, then incorporate wind, rain, sunlight for the holodeck effect. I can’t wait. =)
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:08pm)
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:33pm)
Star Trek anyone? Knew it would only be matter of time before someone figured out how to make the holodeck work.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:56pm)
or we could just go outside.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (01:34pm)
But watch out for when the holodeck malfunctions!
They should turn it steroscopic and every should get 3D glasses.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:40pm)
This is old news. I used to Astral travel until I was about 15.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:40pm)
Honestly, anyone who says Americans are dumb, is friggen dumb.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:41pm)
Fri 12 Feb 10 (02:44pm)
Google Maps and Earth came out of their Sydney office, with little American dumbness involved.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (04:23pm)
@Barnyard
Sure there are dumb people in America, but as per population percentage, there are likely just as many dumb people in Australia if not more.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (04:27pm)
Actually Barnyard, Google Maps was created initially by Keyhole, which is a company in Mountain View, CA that Google bought. While Aussies did most definitely contribute, the majority of the development was and is occurring in Mountain View, with a lot of American “dumbness” involved.
It’s like being in a UFO! Cool
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:44pm)
Holodeck! mesh the 3D viewing from Avatar into a version of this and you really do have the first beginings of a holodeck!
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:50pm)
People, turn of the computer, get off your ass, walk outside and have a look for yourself in REAL LIFE! and yes ironicaly i did write this from my computer
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:52pm)
Fri 12 Feb 10 (01:54pm)
I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to go country hopping every weekend, or even have a look at several countries in the one afternoon.
I also take it, that you don’t watch TV, read books, etc?
Maybe while you are outside you could get off your high horse?
Sat 13 Feb 10 (02:55am)
You sound like one of those sad people who get all peeved when people have fun playing Rock Band. “Get a real guitar! Guys? Guys? STOP HAVING FUN!”
Sat 13 Feb 10 (02:43pm)
That’s an automatic win for Shadowself for quoting an xkcd comic.
Good on Google for ever creating wonderful things like this.
And good on news.com.au for this awesome new comment system
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:52pm)
what is the point of this?? its not real and anybody with a friend or job would get bored after 10 minutes, tops! I got to about 4:10 and the taj mahal is a just a computer generated image. Silly waste of time project!
Fri 12 Feb 10 (12:59pm)
Fri 12 Feb 10 (01:23pm)
mate cool it it’s a pretty amazing thing I mean thing how much geology lessons in school and such could be helped by programs like this in the future when more advanced versions are made one of the problems with todays society is that you want everything to be better now well it takes time to improve and change things look at computers for example they’ve gone from a simple thing that took up a whole floor on a building and only just did the work faster than a person to becomeing something we need in morden day life
What an amazing device! For people with mobility issues this is an opportunity to travel the world. Nice work Google.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (01:18pm)
Tough to enjoy anything for yourself these days. Going on a holiday - most people have Google Earthed or Google Street Viewed it and “lived” it before they even leave. Only leaves disappointment for the holiday.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (01:44pm)
I like the under sea part and it would be a lot more trippy if the was fish too
Fri 12 Feb 10 (01:50pm)
Wow!!!! Can I have one for Christmas please?
To the naysayers who tell us to get outside into the country: for some people that is not possible, same goes for going underwater. Not everyone is free to do these things or afford to travel overseas. This would be a wonderful gift to the internet world for just such persons and I’m sure many others. Well done to the engineers I say, may you have many more such innovations and ideas the world needs them!
Fri 12 Feb 10 (02:06pm)
Sure thing real of WA, why do it from my computer when I could just walk outside fly all over the world for real? You are an idiot.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (02:14pm)
surprise this demo didn’t go down to street view level, google got all the data already.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (02:23pm)
What a trip can they make mine Pandora cool, I love fantasy.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (02:34pm)
These guys did it in ther ‘spare time.’ Good to see google as big as they are, still give their employees ‘spare time’. lol.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (02:47pm)
THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING I’VE EVER SEEN THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED OMG
Fri 12 Feb 10 (02:51pm)
I want GOOGLE TITANIC, so we can use a robot camera to traverse the mighty unsinkable ship!
Fri 12 Feb 10 (03:01pm)