Google Liquid Galaxy virtual glass elevator unveiled

Google has come out with a new system, the Liquid Galaxy virtual glass elevator, that will allow users to fly around the earth and even underwater.
Google unveiled the virtual glass elevator at the TED 2010 (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference, in California.

The Google Liquid Galaxy virtual glass elevator has been created by software designer Jason Holt.

“With the Liquid Galaxy, we could fly through the Grand Canyon, leap into low-Earth orbit, and come back down to perch on the Great Pyramid of Giza without even breaking a sweat,” Jason Holt was quoted as saying on google-latlong blog.

The Google Liquid Galaxy virtual glass elevator is an interactive booth contraption that is composed of eight LCD panels, which is set up to make a wraparound chamber.

Photo: Google Liquid Galaxy virtual elevator with controller via mashable

A person can stand in the elevator and manipulate his/her perspective on the world through Google Earth and Street View with a simple controller, as shown in the photo above. There is six-axis mouse movement available for movement and synchronized screen which are projected through Google Earth.

This allows users to view everything from a vantage point – from above – a high-up satellite perspective and also to zoom into an intricate street-level view. Like Google Earth, it allows users to soar from place to place all over the world. (see photo)

Photo: high-up view of the earth from the Google Liquid Galaxy elevator via mashable

You can zoom in and out and even dive down underwater to inspect the sea floor.

Liquid Galaxy is a product of Google’s innovation time off which sees its engineers pursuing their own pet projects on company time. They are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them and some of Google’s newer services such as gmail, Google news, orkut and adsense originated from this off time.