This is pretty cool.  A getting together of Google Earth and Second Life to make ‘Second Earth’, located on (above?) the SciLands virtual continent, which I stumbled across while checking out a SciLands event this weekend.

Essentially it’s  a way to represent 3D data in Second Life, with the vertical scale exaggerated.  Explanatory video here plus a couple of my own InWorld pics.

Presumably it’s therefore possible to map the entire Google Earth contour data set into Second Life or a similar virtual world.  And, it follows that,  when our avatars are sufficiently programmed up with our personalities and such like, we can just set the thing running and jump into a hole in the ground with some sleeping tablets.  Matrix here we come – yeh!

I’m getting cynical.  Must be February.