A lot of people love exploring with Google Maps/Earth but the problem is the data isn’t real-time. It would great to see cars driving the streets, planes taking off, the sea lapping the shoreline. The BBC have noted this and a new series called Britain From Above looks set to give us a glimsp of life in England from the air. There are some lovely looking visualisations of aircraft flight patterns, the movement of cars etc in this sample video which I really hope will be in HD.

Using satellite data they show the machine like nature of the country. Migrations of lorries, boats, planes are shown – they keep the nation running like blood being pumped around your body.

The visualisations bring to mind Aaron Koblin’s Flight Patterns as well as several other projects built using Processing. I’m hoping such ideas develop and filter down into search engines so instead of text listings on Google we’ll be able to see visual maps of the information, allowing us to explore and refine.

The first episode will be broadcast on Sunday 10 August at 21:00 on BBC One