The most important effect, in the eyes of the average individual, was that light took a long time to pass through a sheet of slow glass. A new piece was always jet black because nothing had yet come through, but one could stand the glass beside, say, a woodland lake until the scene emerged, perhaps a year later. If the glass was then removed and installed in a dismal city flat, the flat would—for that year—appear to overlook the woodland lake. During the year it wouldn't be merely a very realistic but still picture—the water would ripple in sunlight, silent animals would come to drink, birds would cross the sky, night would follow day, season would follow season. Until one day, a year later, the beauty held in the subatomic pipelines would be exhausted and the familiar gray cityscape would reappear.
-- Light of Other Days, by Bob Shaw, 1966
That short sci-fi story by Bob Shaw was the first thing I thought of when I read about Cornelius Van Der Vies, his dog Boo Boo, and Google Streetview. Cornelius was a homeless man who could often be found in downtown San Jose. He is pictured in Google Streetview, just around the corner from where my wife works. He was killed in May in a fight to protect his dog.
Google Streetview is a snapshot of a city. But unlike Google Earth, it isn't taken all at once. The snapshot embodies an extended moment in time. And it is at a human level. We are able to walk down a street and see what is going on at a space and time in our past. Try it - find something or someone of interest, travel down the street a little, and look again.
Bob Shaw's short story inspired a more recent take by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter called The Light of Other Days. As a novel, it is ok, but it raises a lot of interesting concepts that we're starting to encounter with services like Streetview and Twitter. The plot involves devices that enable anyone to see anyone else in the present or past. The technology is immediately disruptive and transformative. Societies are stripped of privacy and governments are stripped of secrecy. History comes clearly into focus. Later, the devices are adopted by the young to serve as a means of instantaneous "telepathy" with their friends, enabling a sort of group mind.
In a post I wrote nearly 2 years ago, I said "what happens in a world where we can record, search, and play back every single moment of our lives?" And share it? And blend it with the content of others? What if every one of us (or even very few of us) became our very own Streetview Van?
