Microsoft’s Bill Gates is backing a start-up that will provide ‘live and unfiltered’ high definition footage of every inch of Earth. The startup, EarthNow, plans to launch 500 satellites to cover Earth’s atmosphere in ‘Big Brother’ real-time video surveillance.

As well as Gates, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and aerospace giant Airbus are also backing the project. […]

It plans to use an army of orbiting satellites will weigh around 500 pounds (225 kg) each that will have their cameras trained on Earth 24 hours a day.

It will onboard analysis of the imagery, though to what extent isn’t clear.

Source: DailyMail.co.uk (excerpt)