While digging around for some nice sound clips of car crashes (you know you want to generate some for me), I found FreeSound, which aims to release sound clips under the Creative Commons licenses (specifically the Attribute-NoDerivatives version – very appealing, especially for commercial applications).

I was incredibly suprised, but delighted, to see a link for FreeSound Geotagged Sounds. The page is a googlemap of environmental sounds (LeMans speedway, city scape, waterfall) with geotags placed on a world map.

They even support KML files for importing and displaying on GoogleEarth. Imagine whipping around the world to hear the wind blow across the sahara, or the Amazon flow through the jungle, or the sounds of kids playing in the street in Sydney.

I hadn’t thought about geolocating sounds, but it makes perfect sense. Pictures have been done ad infinitum, now it’s cool to see the technique pervading other mediums. Sound, and hopefully soon video, and smells?