[Applause]
eight years ago I was entering the main
lobby of Google when I encountered this
scene on the left Tibetan monks were
handcrafting a sand mandala a
traditional spiritual map of the
universe on the right was Google Earth
one of the most technically ambitious
Maps ever created in this juxtaposition
that spans space-time and culture I saw
and felt how deep our need to make maps
really goes in the eight years since
I’ve been on a journey that first led me
here to Boulder and then to the head of
product for Google Earth along the way
I’ve had a lot of time to think about
the meaning of maps map making is a
practice at least as ancient as writing
and the reason I think is actually quite
simple maps make the unknown known every
time we step out into the wilderness to
chart new territory our understanding of
who we are and how we fit into the wider
world becomes a little bit clearer put
simply map shape us and then we shape
maps map makers throughout the ages have
been pioneering new techniques to render
the world more faithfully but they’ve
been doing something else too whether
they knew it or not they’ve been
infusing the maps with the attitudes and
beliefs of their day and in that way
studying the history of maps gives us a
fascinating window into our evolving
worldviews the first world map comes to
us from Mesopotamia 2600 years ago like
all early cultures Babylonians put
themselves at the center of the world
around them was a world ocean that none
of them had ever crossed yet curiously
the map doesn’t end there instead there
are these seven triangles which point to
the Uncharted worlds beyond the ocean in
the second century ptolemy was compiling
the extensive reports of Roman surveyors
spread out through the Empire he
pioneered ingenious
techniques at the intersection of math
astronomy and geometry and he was able
to plot a whopping eight thousand
locations on to a grid this grid is the
precursor to our modern day latitude and
longitude and Ptolemies Atlas was so
comprehensive that its authority went
during the Middle Ages
Christianity was spreading across Europe
people’s primary concern was no longer
geographical accuracy
it was salvation accordingly maps like
the AppStore map put Jerusalem at the
center of the world and instead of a
world ocean the world was surrounded by
the body of Christ during the so called
Age of Discovery maps became tools of
conquest monarchies were stretching
their empires new borders were being
drawn every day as the world map filled
in fast map makers like Girard Mercator
were inventing techniques that made it
easier to cross an ocean and say plunder
the new world Mercator x’ map was so
influential that for the next 400 years
it was still our canonical map but this
map has a glitch in order to make
seafaring easier Mercator had to stretch
the size of land masses closer to the
poles
this means that Europe was drawn the
same size of South America even though
it was only half the size Africa was
drawn the same size as Greenland even
though Africa was fourteen times larger
in 1974 historian our know Peters wanted
to correct this bias and introduced the
world to his now famous Peters
projection Peters was showing us how
maps are more than just maps how they
have the power to shape how we view the
world around the same time another
historic event was unfolding that would
reshape how we saw ourselves and how we
made maps it was Christmas Eve 1968 and
astronaut Bill Anders decided to take an
unscheduled photo from Apollo 8
for the entirety of human history up
until that point our view of our planet
was shaped by the mapmakers hand
Earthrise was the first time we had a
truly cosmic vantage point and it was
thrilling here we were the shimmering
jewel free of any borders earth rise
along with the equally iconic blue
marble a few years later changed how we
saw ourselves one astronaut described
this as the moment we developed a global
consciousness Google Earth is the
spiritual descendant of that ancient art
of mapmaking and this new kind of space
photography applications like Google
Maps use a more traditional cartographic
style but Google Earth asked the
question can you build a map with photos
so how is Google Earth made well put
simply it’s created from imagery
captured from three vantage points from
space from the air and from the ground
the secret sauce is the technology that
stitches these disparate images into one
seamless experience it starts in space
when you open up Google Earth you’re
greeted with imagery called pretty earth
it’s an homage to the blue marble but
while the blue marble was a single photo
the deceptively simple pretty earth is
actually composed by analyzing 700
trillion pixels from NASA’s Landsat
satellite just to put that into
perspective that’s more pixels than
there are stars in 5000 Milky Way’s the
best 8 billion pixels are then extracted
aligned color-corrected the result is an
image of the planet that’s cloud free
and springtime everywhere
I like to think of this as Mother
Earth’s best selfie as we start our
descent from space features start
popping up from the ground despite the
I’m the Google Earth guy hopefully I
didn’t offend any flat-earthers so
efforts to add 3d buildings to the map
actually started right here in Boulder
with a program called Sketchup fast
forward to today and with the advent of
a technique called photogrammetry we can
now render entire 3d cities in one fell
swoop the technology is getting so
advanced that we can actually model
complex natural landscapes in rich
detail our final stop is Street View
Street View allows you to feel what it’s
like to be there to say enter Mackay
Hall or to look up at the ceiling of the
Sagrada família or to hike down the
Grand Canyon or to chill with snow
photographers from every nation have
been adding 360-degree imagery to the
map and I like to think of these
intrepid explorers as our modern-day
Roman surveyors so now we have this map
filled with so many photos you probably
couldn’t see the whole thing in a
lifetime and the question becomes what
do we do with it
well my question to you is what did you
do the first time you open up Google
Earth did you go home it’s ok we all did
it
and it’s actually endearing in a way
because every time I’ve seen someone
find home and I’ve witnessed this now
hundreds of times the next thing they do
is turn to me with a spark in their eye
to tell me about where they’re from and
I get to learn a little bit about who
they are and in this way photo maps have
the power to create empathy and connect
us one of the things I’m most proud of
in Google Earth is a feature called
Voyager Voyager is an interactive
storytelling platform with the aim of
making the world a smaller place one of
my favorite stories is called this is
home and it’s a twist on that idea
instead of our home we get invited into
the homes of people from around the
world and so imagine being a kid from a
city
and getting to step into a peruvian reed
hut or into a Mongolian yurt or into a
Sherpas home at the base of Mount
Everest these stories have a power to
show us how life differs across region
in place but more importantly how it’s
the same
so beyond empathy for people across
borders photo maps can actually give us
empathy for the planet itself pretty
earth was a single image but what if we
could see the world change over time
how would that shape our behavior and
what would we do differently using a
technology called Earth engine Earth
time-lapse reveals a rapidly changing
planet over the last 30 years we see how
Mother Earth is alive and breathing and
evolving and in some cases dying two
images are very powerful what words
could explain away these melting
glaciers or these vanishing Lakes or
these rainforests being clear-cut the
good news is if we use this technology
responsibly we can track things like
deforestation changing waterways air
quality overfishing and the spread of
disease we can monitor the vital signs
of the planet and together create a
healthier future returning to our
friends in the lobby of Google after
finishing their intricate sand mandala
they swept it away in a ceremony that
acknowledges the impermanence of the
world things change
Maps change Google Earth has changed and
Google Earth has helped reveal a little
bit about how the planet is changing and
while you might think that Google Earth
is an ambitious undertaking it’s
actually just a small step in the
evolution of map making and that’s the
thing about maps this is the deeper
secret that they reveal it’s not about
the places we’ve been it’s about the
places we have yet to go
it’s the blank spaces that provoke us to
keep exploring today those blank spaces
include all the planets beyond the
oceans of space
so with that in mind I’d like to leave
you with this
if maps have the power to shape us who
will we be when we finally step out to
map the universe thank you [Applause]
eight years ago I was entering the main
lobby of Google when I encountered this
scene on the left Tibetan monks were
handcrafting a sand mandala a
traditional spiritual map of the
universe on the right was Google Earth
one of the most technically ambitious
Maps ever created in this juxtaposition
that spans space-time and culture I saw
and felt how deep our need to make maps
really goes in the eight years since
I’ve been on a journey that first led me
here to Boulder and then to the head of
product for Google Earth along the way
I’ve had a lot of time to think about
the meaning of maps map making is a
practice at least as ancient as writing
and the reason I think is actually quite
simple maps make the unknown known every
time we step out into the wilderness to
chart new territory our understanding of
who we are and how we fit into the wider
world becomes a little bit clearer put
simply map shape us and then we shape
maps map makers throughout the ages have
been pioneering new techniques to render
the world more faithfully but they’ve
been doing something else too whether
they knew it or not they’ve been
infusing the maps with the attitudes and
beliefs of their day and in that way
studying the history of maps gives us a
fascinating window into our evolving
worldviews the first world map comes to
us from Mesopotamia 2600 years ago like
all early cultures Babylonians put
themselves at the center of the world
around them was a world ocean that none
of them had ever crossed yet curiously
the map doesn’t end there instead there
are these seven triangles which point to
the Uncharted worlds beyond the ocean in
the second century ptolemy was compiling
the extensive reports of Roman surveyors
spread out through the Empire he
pioneered ingenious
techniques at the intersection of math
astronomy and geometry and he was able
to plot a whopping eight thousand
locations on to a grid this grid is the
precursor to our modern day latitude and
longitude and Ptolemies Atlas was so
comprehensive that its authority went
during the Middle Ages
Christianity was spreading across Europe
people’s primary concern was no longer
geographical accuracy
it was salvation accordingly maps like
the AppStore map put Jerusalem at the
center of the world and instead of a
world ocean the world was surrounded by
the body of Christ during the so called
Age of Discovery maps became tools of
conquest monarchies were stretching
their empires new borders were being
drawn every day as the world map filled
in fast map makers like Girard Mercator
were inventing techniques that made it
easier to cross an ocean and say plunder
the new world Mercator x’ map was so
influential that for the next 400 years
it was still our canonical map but this
map has a glitch in order to make
seafaring easier Mercator had to stretch
the size of land masses closer to the
poles
this means that Europe was drawn the
same size of South America even though
it was only half the size Africa was
drawn the same size as Greenland even
though Africa was fourteen times larger
in 1974 historian our know Peters wanted
to correct this bias and introduced the
world to his now famous Peters
projection Peters was showing us how
maps are more than just maps how they
have the power to shape how we view the
world around the same time another
historic event was unfolding that would
reshape how we saw ourselves and how we
made maps it was Christmas Eve 1968 and
astronaut Bill Anders decided to take an
unscheduled photo from Apollo 8
for the entirety of human history up
until that point our view of our planet
was shaped by the mapmakers hand
Earthrise was the first time we had a
truly cosmic vantage point and it was
thrilling here we were the shimmering
jewel free of any borders earth rise
along with the equally iconic blue
marble a few years later changed how we
saw ourselves one astronaut described
this as the moment we developed a global
consciousness Google Earth is the
spiritual descendant of that ancient art
of mapmaking and this new kind of space
photography applications like Google
Maps use a more traditional cartographic
style but Google Earth asked the
question can you build a map with photos
so how is Google Earth made well put
simply it’s created from imagery
captured from three vantage points from
space from the air and from the ground
the secret sauce is the technology that
stitches these disparate images into one
seamless experience it starts in space
when you open up Google Earth you’re
greeted with imagery called pretty earth
it’s an homage to the blue marble but
while the blue marble was a single photo
the deceptively simple pretty earth is
actually composed by analyzing 700
trillion pixels from NASA’s Landsat
satellite just to put that into
perspective that’s more pixels than
there are stars in 5000 Milky Way’s the
best 8 billion pixels are then extracted
aligned color-corrected the result is an
image of the planet that’s cloud free
and springtime everywhere
I like to think of this as Mother
Earth’s best selfie as we start our
descent from space features start
popping up from the ground despite the
I’m the Google Earth guy hopefully I
didn’t offend any flat-earthers so
efforts to add 3d buildings to the map
actually started right here in Boulder
with a program called Sketchup fast
forward to today and with the advent of
a technique called photogrammetry we can
now render entire 3d cities in one fell
swoop the technology is getting so
advanced that we can actually model
complex natural landscapes in rich
detail our final stop is Street View
Street View allows you to feel what it’s
like to be there to say enter Mackay
Hall or to look up at the ceiling of the
Sagrada família or to hike down the
Grand Canyon or to chill with snow
photographers from every nation have
been adding 360-degree imagery to the
map and I like to think of these
intrepid explorers as our modern-day
Roman surveyors so now we have this map
filled with so many photos you probably
couldn’t see the whole thing in a
lifetime and the question becomes what
do we do with it
well my question to you is what did you
do the first time you open up Google
Earth did you go home it’s ok we all did
it
and it’s actually endearing in a way
because every time I’ve seen someone
find home and I’ve witnessed this now
hundreds of times the next thing they do
is turn to me with a spark in their eye
to tell me about where they’re from and
I get to learn a little bit about who
they are and in this way photo maps have
the power to create empathy and connect
us one of the things I’m most proud of
in Google Earth is a feature called
Voyager Voyager is an interactive
storytelling platform with the aim of
making the world a smaller place one of
my favorite stories is called this is
home and it’s a twist on that idea
instead of our home we get invited into
the homes of people from around the
world and so imagine being a kid from a
city
and getting to step into a peruvian reed
hut or into a Mongolian yurt or into a
Sherpas home at the base of Mount
Everest these stories have a power to
show us how life differs across region
in place but more importantly how it’s
the same
so beyond empathy for people across
borders photo maps can actually give us
empathy for the planet itself pretty
earth was a single image but what if we
could see the world change over time
how would that shape our behavior and
what would we do differently using a
technology called Earth engine Earth
time-lapse reveals a rapidly changing
planet over the last 30 years we see how
Mother Earth is alive and breathing and
evolving and in some cases dying two
images are very powerful what words
could explain away these melting
glaciers or these vanishing Lakes or
these rainforests being clear-cut the
good news is if we use this technology
responsibly we can track things like
deforestation changing waterways air
quality overfishing and the spread of
disease we can monitor the vital signs
of the planet and together create a
healthier future returning to our
friends in the lobby of Google after
finishing their intricate sand mandala
they swept it away in a ceremony that
acknowledges the impermanence of the
world things change
Maps change Google Earth has changed and
Google Earth has helped reveal a little
bit about how the planet is changing and
while you might think that Google Earth
is an ambitious undertaking it’s
actually just a small step in the
evolution of map making and that’s the
thing about maps this is the deeper
secret that they reveal it’s not about
the places we’ve been it’s about the
places we have yet to go
it’s the blank spaces that provoke us to
keep exploring today those blank spaces
include all the planets beyond the
oceans of space
so with that in mind I’d like to leave
you with this
if maps have the power to shape us who
will we be when we finally step out to
map the universe thank you [Applause]
Please follow and like us: