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A website which combines Google Earth with a simple
ratings system allows users to find the most beautiful or unusual places
on our planet.
Stratocam, designed by ex-Dreamworks and Google employee Paul Rademacher,
takes the outstanding aerial photography employed by the search engine's
mapping service and allows visitors to his site to up-vote or down-vote
user-submitted 'finds'.
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Plane graveyard: Scrapped jets line the dry and
dusty ground in Arizona |
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The photographs are randomly selected from 'snapshots' taken by users,
and after a few clicks it becomes apparent just how varied, pretty, and
colourful our little blue-green marble is.
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Caves in Faro, Portugal: A rocky beach sets the
scene for a peaceful and tranquil area |
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The addictive site promises a different image, at different zoom-levels,
with every click of the left or right arrows, the more votes an image
gets, the more likely it is to be appear.
The images can be from anywhere in the world - from the snowy ice-caps
of Iceland, to dusty airplane graveyards in Arizona.
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Frond of that view: Palm Island in Dubai makes for
a startling image from up above |
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Sometimes we see desolate images of rugged terrains, sometime you found
yourself in a dense urban jungle of shops, roads and businesses, and
appreciate the impact Man has had on our planet.
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Hawaii, USA: The volcanic island gets plenty of
upvotes on new website Stratocam |
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Creator Rademacher is credited with creating the first Google mash-up,
when he overlaid Google Maps with house-listings 'scraped' from popular
listings website Craigslist.
He worked at Google from 2005 to 2010 before leaving to found a social
software company called Tasty Labs.
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A river runs through it: An aerial view of the
landscape surrounding Los Angeles shows houses and farms clustered
around the water |
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More than an Eiffel: Paris gets the skyline
treatment |
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