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Geotagging + Kubrick Mashup = The Future

By crooky | August 25, 2008

Last night, I watched a fascinating documentary about the late, great filmmaker Stanley Kubrick [READ]. He was certainly a visionary filmmaker and what’s recently come to light is the fact that he was also a meticulous researcher in pursuit of the perfect film. It occurs to me that there are synergies between Kubrick’s obsession with cataloging public spaces and what many of us are trying to do today with every public space.

See the following video for a taste of his “boxes”:

What struck me when watching this was the fact that he was trying to single-handedly acheieve was Google Streetview [READ (and yes, I think the tour guide is "special")] is trying to do - show referenceable photos of every common place everywhere. Kubrick takes it a step further and looks inside private residences but the intent is the same - to catalog public spaces.

His boxes are like folders on a harddrive that one accesses when you want to know what pub doorways in Islington, London, UK look like.

Here we are today, nearly ten years after the death of Stanley Kubrick and we are immersed in a world that he would love - one where Google Streetview cars do the catalogging for you. Or, if you prefer to do your own catalogging, we have cameras with built-in GPS that can pinpoint the exact location where you took the photo.

Once you start to marry this kind of technologies with services like Microsoft Photosynth [see demo below], you can imagine how close to the world inside Kubrick’s head we get.

Why not take it a step further? Why not be able to link comprehensive photo catalogs of places with stories, reviews and other interfaces? I’d love to be able to plan a party by looking at the location and nearby services. Think of what this would do for wedding photographers.

The potential really boggles the mind. What do you think? What kinds of services would Kubrick meets geotagging meets Photosynth enable?

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Topics: Technology |

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