[varelse]

So Google Earth bought a company called keyhole that was formed by the same people that had done the Mars demo (if you saw this in the '90s it was amazing and you could tell the demo alone had a future even if the company crashed) for SGI which then became the basis of that startup which then got acquired by Google. And all of that launched the political career of Brian McClendon, a former SGI manager. Another of its founders went on to be part of Roblox.

[sanguy]

Keyhole also had some money in them from In-Q-tel which was also a heavy Google investor at the time. They wanted the concept of a searchable globe for intelligence purposes.

Also the founder of Keyhole, John Hanke, came from the MUD world and now responsible for Niantic and the Pokemon game. A true visionary of blending the real and virtual worlds.

[DanielleMolloy]

According to the lawsuit, McClendon and Michael Jones had access to the code of Terravision: https://artcom.de/news/artcom-sues-google/

[marianov]

Google Earth traces back to the Mars demo? That was amazing when I was a kid