Hinutech

Facebook engineers, Jack Lindamond, Kevin Der and Dan Weathorford, have created Project Palantir -- named after the palantir of Orthanc from The Lord of the Rings. 

What is a palantir?  From Wikipedia:
"A palantír (sometimes translated as Seeing Stone but actually meaning "Farsighted" or "One that Sees from Afar") is a stone that functions somewhat like a crystal ball. When one looks in it, one can communicate with other Stones and anyone who might be looking into them; people of great power can manipulate the Stones to see virtually any part of the world."

This Facebook project is a video of the earth showing all Facebook activity geographically.  In one view, you can see connections between people around the globe as they occur in real time.  Another view shows activities as dots of light coming up from the earth.

You really should check it out.  It is a visually stunning way of seeing the power that social networking has to connect people from disparate places all around the world.