Imagine Having a Digital Sphere in Your Room

There was an article at nytimes.com yesterday about digital globes. I decided to check and found some very cool videos. The above globe is created by a private company and is apparently very popular in schools in China right now. The one below by the NOAA.

One cheap version of this could be a standard projection onto a dome. There are now projection technologies which can compensate and adjust for varying surface shapes. The spinning effects could easily be simulated with computer graphics. In other words you could at least mount a half-dome somewhere on a wall and use a projector to get something that would be very close but far less expensive and complex than an actual sphere.

While this is something that would be neat to stare at at night in a dark room, I question its use for education. There’s something to be said about being able to go to a reference section in a library and open a book with statistical information and actually be able to comprehend it. Its important that new technology doesn’t just make people stupid.

Also, what are (or are not) the philosophical implications of such a device? Even if there were one in every house in the world and everyone could see the environmental destruction humans are causing – “This is what you are doing dumbasses!” – would it make any difference? Or perhaps the existence of such technology itself posits environmental devastation, like some creature chasing its tail?