Satellite Video Maps Let Anyone Spy Like the CIA
"The idea of video from space is very new but the benefit of seeing movement and direction over many frames is amazing," Mapbox's Paul Goodman wrote on the company blog yesterday. "Seeing the aircraft headed to a specific terminal provided context to help identify it and watching cars move down a road shows directionality useful for better road classification. It's early—but the idea of more data is really exciting."
"Data" is the key word here. Space imagery companies aren't trying to encourage the connected citizenry to become DIY spies; they're offering business intelligence, marketing analytics based on surveillance data to the commercial sector. Integrating geospatial navigation just adds more information to the package.