Global Logistics: Global 4D Education

Today I want to share something amazing. The video below is about a new type of earth globe called Global4D.  It uses simple materials and very clever programming to show the planet Earth in three dimensions as well as an additional dimension...time.  Of the dimensions, time is critical. It allows both historical perspective and education. 

Want to see what the Earth looked like 2 million years ago?  How about 5 million years ago?    What if you want to look at weather or seismic events back in history?   Globe4D can do this.   

The software isn't restricted to Earth only.  You can check out other planets and the Sun as well.  In an era when many high school students can't find China on a map, this learning tool is amazing for education.

The developers used extremely simple hardware to make this work. Hopefully this will be picked up and professionally manufactured for schools and industry in the future.

I saw this and immediately wanted to look at a few things. Can technology development be shown through a time line that literally shows globalization and cultural shrinkage?   Also can real time streaming supply chain visibility be shown on this tool?   What if the Chief Supply Chain Officer of a major conglomerate could spin a globe and check his network in real time?  This isn't much different from  some of the cool add ons for Google Earth that have been developed.  What if it could be used to highlight strategic bottlenecks? Now overlay global sales on the map by market.  How do the supply chains and the markets align? 

My imagination lights up looking at this.

(Note: Some corporate proxy servers ban video from youtube.com. If you see white space below...you may be on such a network.  Please revisit from home or a connection that does not go through your company VPN.)

Eric

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Comments

[Rick Companje]

Hi Eric,

Very nice article, thank you! I'm one of the developers of Globe4D and can inform you that currently professional models are being produced and sold to museums in Europe and the US.
We're always looking for nice datasets so if you walk into something please let us know.

Kind regards,
Rick Companje

[Eric]

Thanks Rick for stopping by! You guys have discovered a really interesting tool for looking at data and historical models. It reminds me of a giant mouse device for looking at and manipulating data.

Great for teaching and museums but I think somehow there is a really interesting business use here. Of course the military and NASA/ESA will come up with some great use.

Congratulations. Please do send me email on further iterations as you have them.

Eric