Say cheese, please

This past Australia Day, Sydney was the subject of intense rivalry between two technology giants: Microsoft and Google.

The two titans of the information superhighway (does anyone actually say that anymore?) chose the same day to stage a dogfight of sorts over the Emerald City with a view to – wait for it – taking its picture.

That’s right, smile and watch the birdie. Google and Microsoft, both of which run competing services offering aerial and satellite photography of the Earth, chartered aeroplanes to fly over Sydney at low altitude taking high-resolution photographs.

Within a few weeks, expect the photos to be available via Google Earth and Microsoft’s Live Search.

I have few objections to aerial photos being taken of my fair city (and I couldn’t help but notice that the Google plane’s flight path included no fewer than three of Sydney’s legal clothing-optional beaches, so there’s something to look forward to).

I have to admit I got a kick the first time I loaded up Google Earth and found the hopelessly out of date photo of my house (it doesn’t include the new fence out the back and still has the TV aerial on the roof that came down when we got cable). That stuff is cool. Spotting people in the process of going about their daily lives is, in its own way, extremely interesting.

What disappoints me is that both companies told us they were doing it. Google set up a special website where you could move a marker over various bits of the city and find out when the plane would be overhead.

Microsoft, from what I’m told, actually organised people to show up at various sites in costume and stand in formations such as a map of Australia and
a surf lifesaver’s cap.

The problem is that these photos aren’t just up for a day. They’re there for good – or until they’re updated, which could be quite some time.

So, for the foreseeable future, when people look up my home town on Google or Microsoft, they’ll find that we’re a people curiously prone to staring straight up in the air and waving flags, holding witty signs or arranging ourselves into complex formations. I shudder to think what the people on the beach might be doing.

I’m put in mind of watching my grandmother’s home movies. I recall, as a child, that whenever she would point the camera at me I would wave or pull a face or jump around like a monkey.

These were funny moments when spread out over the years of my childhood. Watching them all in a row in one afternoon, though, you would be forgiven for believing I grew up with some kind of syndrome.

That’s the nature of photography: at the time it’s just a moment, but after that it’s forever.

Bear this in mind when you’re looking up a Sydney location on Google Earth years from now. We weren’t always like that.

collaboration matthew powell microsoft google networking