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"CIA-assisted technology probably most familiar to you is one many of us use on a regular basis: Google Earth. In February 2003, the CIA-funded venture-capitalist firm In-Q-Tel made a strategic investment in Keyhole, Inc., a pioneer of interactive 3-D earth visualization and creator of the groundbreaking rich-mapping EarthViewer 3D system. CIA worked closely with other Intelligence Community organizations to tailor Keyhole’s systems to meet their needs. The finished product transformed the way intelligence officers interacted with geographic information and earth imagery. Users could now easily combine complicated sets of data and imagery into clear, realistic visual representations. Users could “fly” from space to street level seamlessly while interactively exploring layers of information including roads, schools, businesses, and demographics. In the private sector, this flyover capability was so compelling that multiple TV networks used EarthViewer 3D to fly over Iraqi cities and landscapes in news broadcasts using publicly available satellite images. All of this acclaim eventually caught the attention of Google Inc., a multinational cyber-focused corporation, which acquired Keyhole in 2004, thereby laying the groundwork for the development of Google Earth.
So the next time you are exploring a new land from the comfort of your laptop or snapping pictures with your lithium-battery-powered digital camera, take a moment to think about some other ways CIA technology may have improved life outside its walls."
https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/cia-museum/experience-the-collection/text-version/stories/cias-impact-on-technology.html