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Mac app changes desktop to local satellite image

David Pescovitz at 8:40 am Fri, Jun 22, 2012

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Satellll

Satellite Eyes is a free OS X app that automatically updates your desktop wallpaper with satellite imagery of your current location.

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood

    Useless without Drone Camera View.

  • Saltine

    Requires Mac OS 10.7.

    • Saltine

      Anyone know a good place where a URL could suck these down? If so, I might be able to applescript something similar for people on older systems.

      • Bob Webb

        The chap who made this app seems to be based here: http://scraplab.net/ Might be worth sending him an email.

  • ComradeQuestions

    How does it figure out your location without GPS?  Surely IP whois info isn’t that accurate.

    • jahxman

      According to this: 
      http://www.iplocation.net/  if you’re getting the location right more than 50% of the time with whois data that’s considered pretty good.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        My IP (in Palm Springs) has geolocated from Michigan to Hawaii.

        • John Vance

          Soon: New Mac app changes desktop to random Google Maps satellite image!

          • http://profiles.google.com/westcarleton Ray Perkins

            Or just run: http://www.stratocam.com
            Or random StreetView: http://www.mapcrunch.com/

    • morcheeba

      Total guess: OSX supports getting your location via a number of ways. It’s probably by looking at what wifi networks are nearby and looking them up in a database.
      http://cocoawithlove.com/2009/09/whereismymac-snow-leopard-corelocation.html

    • hadlockk

      My blackberry didn’t have GPS, but Google Maps could approximate my position within 300 ft based on signal strength of nearby cell towers. This feature seems to be disabled on phones with built-in GPS for some reason. It’s good enough for getting  ”my location” to X directions though, which is all that really matters.

  • Angryjim

    dangit. It doesnt work in “snow leopard”. (i tried to install lion once and it slowed my computer down to the point of being impossible to work with). This is so far the first time an app I wanted required lion. booo hoo.

  • http://www.theblacklaser.net/ Joe The Wizard

    This is really cool.

  • That_Anonymous_Coward

    Cue someone working on their mac in an airport and having the misfortune of a crazed person flipping out over an aerial picture of the airport on the screen and reporting them as a terrorist….

    • John Vance

      I keep hoping something like that happens to me. I need my fifteen minutes of internet fame goddamnit!

  • Slowermo

    At first I thought this was cool but then I remembered I never go anywhere. Just seeing my house all the time would taunt me.

  • Michael Robinson

    Doesn’t work on dual screen either

    • http://twitter.com/zaren Jim Schmidt

      Works on my dual screen just fine. The only problem is the map it pulled up shows that I’m working in a hole in the ground. Bing’s sat photo is so old that my place of employ is just a construction site, and we’ve been moved in here almost two years now.

  • http://twitter.com/miguelnino miguelnino

    Would like to see continuous/1 per minute images from a satellite as it scrolls across the sky.   Your desktop would turn into a view out the space station (pinhole like) window.   Hell, a continuous view from the Space Station would be just as nice.

  • Thomas Thurston

    Nice. Now I can spy on myself.

  • Andrew Justice

    This needs to be an iPhone/iPad app!

    • jerwin

      My ipad is certainly more mobile than my mac’s desktop, though its home screen is also more cluttered with icons.

    • Tom Forest

      Android has maps as Live Wallpaper,

      shouldn’t be too hard to impliment on iOS?

      http://youtu.be/Etb36J2ikAs

  • Anthony Vila

    Job #1 – go outside, lay Macbook on the ground with screen facing up.  Wait for the satellite to take a picture. 

  • http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog

    Without looking… is that Heathrow?

  • pjcamp

    I’m sure it doesn’t use Google.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6JXFN7LJYMJGXBI4M3AITWYFEU nitko

    Is this something like live maps on android active background that everybody’s using for years now?
    Wouldnt it be far more useful on mobile then on desktop – looks like we have to wait few more years for apple to copy the idea properly, as usual.