I’ve read the announcement about new interesting feature of the Google Earth, which is called NukeMap3D. The plug-in allows you to model a nuclear bomb (its weight, power etc.) and then drop the bomb on any city! This is quite realistic feature, as NukeMap3D takes into account wind power, height of dropping and also show you so called mashroom cloud. As well as “hand-made’ (made by users) bombs there is opportunity to choose real bombs, for instance, the Tsar Bomb (made in USSR and never used) or “Davy Crockett” (a small projectile). What may seem really fantastic for people loving destruction, a visual performance of how a city turns into ruins.
However, such soft may become useful tool for terrorist. Do you think so? I personally believe that there is a little chance that terrorists may plan their acts, using the NukeMap3D. It goes into much detail really, showing all the consequences afterwards.
In my opinion, there is no much sense in this tool except just wasting time on kind of fancy. Certainly for Google it is one more platform providing advertising space and audience! But what is it for users? What is it for you?
Sources:
[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57595094-1/nukemap3d-brings-nuclear-apocalypse-to-google-earth/
[2] http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap3d/
[3] http://naked-science.ru/article/hi-tech/29-07-2013-292
I think this is a really weird feature on Google Earth. What’s the sense of virtually throwing a nuclear bomb on a city? Kids have easy access to Google Earth and they can easily start ‘playing’ with this feature which is not really good for young kids. The question whether terrorists will use this feature… They could use it, but I think terrorist have their own programmes or calculations on the impact of bombs. I think this new feature will not be a succes and maybe even the US government bans this feature. Finally this feature is not contributing to the good image of Google, since I find it a little controversial.
Thank you for your comment!
I agree with your position about children upbringing in virtual space, it must be safe and very close to normal model of behaviour – without weapons and wars!
However, I guess the US government doesn’t count the plug-in as something really dangerous!
What remains? Just hope that nobody will use it for bad purposes