Today, the fastest standard flight from Paris to Sydney requires one quick stop and takes about 22 hours. The SpaceLiner project by the German Aerospace Center hopes to cut that time considerably by launching a rocket with up to 50 passengers into the upper atmosphere and gliding down to the destination at 24 times the speed of sound. If successful, the total travel time would be 90 minutes. If it sounds ambitious, it is. The target launch for commercial use of the concept is 2050. That doesn’t diminish the potential that such technology could bring to a world that is still desperately separated…

Just about everyone who is familiar with Google Maps has explored a distant land at one point or another. Big cities like Moscow, Sydney, and Jerusalem are accessible in ways that we could have hardly imagined a decade ago. As Google continues to expand their catalog of cities on Google Maps Street View, they are finding ways to reach the most remote communities. In the video below, they went to Cambridge Bay, a tiny community with a distinct culture and people that most would never have known about without this promo piece. For better or for worse, Google is opening our eyes to people and places that…