Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

Post by ifdefdebug » Mon, May 17, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

trainsplanes wrote: post #241

sequoia wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a single reference: https://www.middleeastobserver.org/2016/07/12/pcbs-reports-g... "Do you generally call things out as being untrustworthy for claiming that the top 5% is among the highest in a rank?" The reason I consider this claim "misleading" is that I never see the "one of the most densely populated..." phrase on stories about Paris, Kathmandu, Seoul or any of the hundreds of more densely populated are…

They’re referring to the fact Gaza/Palestine is one of the densest countries in the world. Gaza is also completely surrounded by sea and another country, so it’s an incredibly dense place with no room to grow. Seoul and Paris are also dense places, but you can keep walking and eventually you see it thin out without a clear border on city limits. Put a fence around Paris city core and fire a missile on the city center…

Post by TaylorAlexander » Mon, May 17, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

riffic wrote: post #189

Robotbeat wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. The Iridium phone constellation covers the entire planet (which means it has line of sight to the entire planet) and has for about two decades. Starlink will, soon, as well. They’ve already solved the choreography issue you mentioned. The entire globe has about 500 billion square meters. 24 bit uncompressed imagery is thus 1.5TB per global image. With some modest compression, you could get a video stream of…

are your examples geostationary?

Post by varenc » Mon, May 17, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #128

squeaky-clean wrote: post #97

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…

Have you checked out South Korea?

Post by seniorivn » Mon, May 17, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #213

freewizard wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> distributed to licensed companies in binary .dll/.so/.a , and not allowed to be redistributed or reverse-engineered Such irony in CCP using licensing to protect their IP

Post by Cd00d » Mon, May 17, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

jtsiskin wrote: post #233

ComputerGuru wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No; at least per the providers, actual low-orbit satellite imagery is available to the (paying) public at 50cm resolution.

That’s a little scary. If those covered the globe, you could see and track anyone anytime they left their house. This gets dystopian fast. Imagine the ad targeting. Or “sorry, we notice you haven’t been to the gym all month, we have raised your insurance premiums 10%”