BigShinyThing

Maps are one thing. A zoomable satellite globe showing pretty much everything on the planet down to a small few metres in size is something else. Once the toys of CIA cold warriors and Bond supervillians, the average punter now has a choice of not just one, but at least two such systems.

Nasa’s WorldWind is the educator’s choice, showing all kinds of cool true- and false-colour images, weather systems and much more, but suffers slow load times due to high demand. For instant gratification and amazement (‘is that really my beautiful house? Whose car is that outside?’) download Google Earth, which like most other Google toys is snappy and responsive. A 30 second ‘flight’ from New York to a few hundred metres above Canary wharf is both spectacular and smooth.

With both systems, the detail of images depends largely on how many satellites cover an area, and how much interest there is in what they show — detail in London is down to a few metres, whilst images from Tokyo seem razor sharp down to a couple of feet. The Siberian Steppes are, unsurprisingly, shown in less detail.

Both systems require newish PCs and fast broadband, but if you want a God’s eye-view of the world, are worth the download and some play time.