Google Earth & Amazon Join Search For Steve Fossett
A lot of the main stream media are covering the fact that Google Earth & Amazon (via its Mechanical Turk project) are working to help the search for missing aviator Steve Fossett. Images from Google Earth are being fed through Mechanical Earth, a collaborative system, to allow anyone to join the hunt to try and find the missing pilot.
Unfortunately, as many of these articles are in newspapers, they are missing the links to the services themselves. So if you’d like to help, you can find Google Earth here, whilst the Mechanical Turk section devoted to the search is here. Here’s hoping that he found, safe & sound, soon.
Scanning satellite imagery is probably the most effective way of searching for Steve’s plane.
But if you press Ctrl+Alt+A (Ctrl+Windows+A for some), or Alt+Command+A on a Mac, you can virtually join the dozen or so other aircraft searching the area south east of Reno. By activating this “Easter egg”, you can fly over the terrain in Google Earth’s flight simulator looking for signs of Steve’s plane. The F16’s not well suited to search and rescue, so we recommend using the more sedate SR22 instead.
We’d suggest sticking around 2500ft, and flying as slowly as you can. It makes for a very peculiar gaming experience.
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