Nine Inch Nails, along with Radiohead, is one of a handful of popular music acts leading the way into the future of content distribution. Having both released albums for free (or whatever you felt it was worth) via only digital delivery, they are turning the heads of every aspect of the media delivery cycle.

While I definitely approve of all this awesomeness (BTW, Ghosts I-IV and The Slip are both ridicu-good), another interesting thing NIN has produced caught my eye today. Based on data gathered from TopSpin, who helps NIN distribute their digital content, they used the popular Google Earth application to create a 3D representation of downloads around Earth. (check it out here)

It's a pretty interesting way to represent data, possibly not entirely original, but it could have numerous applications outside of simply relaying the amount of file downloads over a large landmass or masses. What's cool about it is that it's not just numbers, but a physical representation, which the human brain typically has an easier time dealing with and putting into perspective. I could see it being used by all sorts of information processing centers in real-time (if it already isn't).

Real-time information processing is going to become standard in the future. It probably won't be that long either. The only things that are preventing it presently are a lack of equiped humans and that ever-present unwillingness of anything with a sentience level above sheep to let someone else have the ability to track them, passively or actively. Well, those probably aren't the only things, but they're large factors.