Firms are racing to create a real-time database of every object on Earth larger than a car. It would help investors and conservationists, but could it be abused? My piece for New Scientist is about Planet, which plans to create an interface through which users can ask questions about the entire planet. They call it “queryable Earth”. Think of it like a search engine not for the internet, but for the surface of our world.
Spot illegal fishing, logging, human rights abuses; monitor commodity movements, troops, activism