Google Earth Digitizes Genocide

Google Earth has teamed up with the Holocaust Museum to bring the realities of genocide to your MacBook. "Crisis in Darfur" employs Google Earth wizardry to help users visualize the scope of the atrocities currently unfolding in Sudan. Viewers can see over 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages up close.

Wired speculates that the Google initiative will become a model for NGOs and other humanitarian organizations looking to draw attention where traditional media outlets fear to tread. Instead of relying on the occasional Nick Kristof column, bloggers will be able to see the action on the ground themselves. (More Darfur stories.)