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It's usually called satellite imagery, but isn't most of the high-resolution, closest photos actually aerial imagery, not from satellites? In that case I would understand if there isn't that much coverage.
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I asked another question too. Why not answer that, then we can discuss surrealness. Ironically, my second question was right after my first question.
If the data exists for one place at a similar latitude, then it exists for every other place at a similar latitude, by the simple laws of orbital dynamics.
Not really related to the article at hand, but I've been on a bit of a Google Maps binge the past couple weeks. I learned a few interesting facts, blurry Israel being one of them. Another strange thing I found that might not be super well known (I didn't know about it) is that all GPS data in China is offset by a nonlinear psuedo-random amount. If you turn on the satellite view in Google Maps and look at various citi…
What I learned a few years back about this is the official (un)obfuscating implementation was distributed to licensed companies in binary .dll/.so/.a , and not allowed to be redistributed or reverse-engineered. Licenses are only given to local companies, and foreign companies may only buy service from them. That's why if you reverse engineer Google Map or Apple Map app, they all make real time API calls to do the con…
Such irony in CCP using licensing to protect their IP
Im kind of confused - they're saying its a problem for reporters and people trying to investigate, but also that other providers provide high resolution imagery. I feel like both those things can't be true. How can it be a problem if you can just get the needed images from non usa companies?
Up-to-date high resolution imagery is quite expensive. Most of Google maps imagery is generated from an older database of images. Businesses like Maxar (formerly Digital Globe) that provide Earth imagery will sell a database of old out-of-date imagery for much cheaper. But more recent imagery is much more expensive because it is much more valuable. These companies will often provide free images that are up to date to…
For example, I know through Google Earth's timelapse feature that Gaza has been consistently scanned by satellites over the last 3 or so decades. But the images on Google Earth's timelapse feature are of very very low quality. But viewing the timelapse is evidence enough that this information is out there.
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This is more or less the business model of Planet [0], which is imaging the whole Earth every day with around 200 satellites. (No affiliation, but I previously worked for a different smallsat company.) It would be possible to get a higher visitation than that with more satellites, but it may not be cost-effective (e.g. someone might be willing to pay $X for a subscription to daily images, but not $(48*X) for half-hou…
I can’t help but be excited by the possibilities of tech like Planet, so many interesting applications for their data.
The questions are: - Does Google deliberatly blurring Gaza strip? - Who benefits by artificially degraded quality of Gaza maps? - Does Google quietly taking political sides?
- Yes. - Israel. - Yes, see how they took a position on the heart of this issue — the occupied territories themselves. They literally erased Palestine from the map.
Is it possible to have real-time live-feed of the entire planet? If cost isn't an issue, would something like that be possible?
The questions are: - Does Google deliberatly blurring Gaza strip? - Who benefits by artificially degraded quality of Gaza maps? - Does Google quietly taking political sides?
Not sure about sides here but if you launch rockets into cities indiscriminately and then the building where you keep your weapons, communication center using human shields after warning residents well ahead of time that the building will be blown up, actually gets taken out who is at fault here? Why are people even defending Hamas???! Does Israel not have right to defend itself? Is Israel like South Korea who gets a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the data exists for one place at a similar latitude, then it exists for every other place at a similar latitude, by the simple laws of orbital dynamics.
You have a completely wrong idea of the laws of orbital dynamics. If satellites don't want to keep burning tons of fuel, they will orbit the center of the earth, not its axis. The only situation where your comment could apply is if the satellite is orbiting only above the equator. All of this, completely disregarding the economics of satellite mapping, their operational limits, etc.
A satellite at a given inclination will trace out a ground path oscillating back and forth between D degrees north and D degrees south, where D is its inclination, with latitude varying sinusoidally with time. So it will spend different amounts of time at different latitudes, hence choice of inclination depending heavily on observation/communication target.
However, for any given latitude it will spend an equal amount of time at each longitude (east-west location) as the Earth rotates under its orbit. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_track
So for example, any satellite that images Georgia (the US state) or Taiwan will spend an approximately equal amount of time over Lebanon and Israel.