News
Look, Honey, I Can See Our Car!
TerraServer, the Microsoft project intended to show off the data processing
capabilities of SQL Server 7.0 had a quiet launch at
www.terraserver.microsoft.com. This joint
project with Compaq, StorageWorks Corp., The U.S. Geological Survey, and Spin-2 is being
touted as the world's largest online database with its 1.01-terabyte database holding
173.6 million database rows. (We expect the competition with IBM's U.S. Patent Server site
at
www.patents.ibm.com to be fun!) The idea is
for you to be able to look up any satellite-photographed spot on the globe-including your
own neighborhood. Right now, the database consists primarily of photos from the U.S. and
Europe, but according to the site, the collection is quickly expanding.