Before clicking I assumed this was going to be some kind of fancy LLM API with a fun codename but nope it’s literally an api for pollen data.
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Announcing the Pollen API
61–70 of 88 posts
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or use an open-data approach from the millions of hobby/scientific weather stations. That would make it harder to sell the data though so why bother ?
I think crowdsourcing data's more of an open source thing. I don't think Google's ever been into that? Their approach is more "we're gonna scan all the books in the library/photograph every street in the world". (Interested to hear counterexamples).
They’ve crowdsourced a lot of their Maps data for information on specific businesses through the Local Guides program.
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah same here, a much more challenging project would be to aggregate data from the thousands of individual pollen services in various countries. I know of at least two here in Sweden. Isn't this what we should use AI for?
> Isn't this what we should use AI for? Nah, this is just data collection and statistics.
No I mean we should use the potential flexibility of AI to gather data from many varying APIs that might change at any moment without prior warning. Some of these national pollen sites may not even have an API, may require scraping.
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#64Any word on pricing? Would love to use it a personal app.
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar I sort of get since I don't think anyone does it the scale like Google Sunroof, but not sure what the added value is for Google to create the APIs for Air Quality and Pollen? There are service providers and models that do these already at global scale (e.g. https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/air-quality & https://silam.fmi.fi/ ).
If a company already uses Google APIs, integrating a new API from Google may be easier than integrating a new provider. So for Google, there's certainly a market, even if they have to source the raw data.
But if Google introduces something new, there's a strong likelihood that it will be killed off in 18 months. Going with a new provider that has been around longer than that would be a much more logical idea.
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or use an open-data approach from the millions of hobby/scientific weather stations. That would make it harder to sell the data though so why bother ?
I think crowdsourcing data's more of an open source thing. I don't think Google's ever been into that? Their approach is more "we're gonna scan all the books in the library/photograph every street in the world". (Interested to hear counterexamples).
crowdsourcing data is exactly what the Googs does. CAPTCHA to train it's models of data of dubious origins is the SEP (someone else's problem) nobody wants to talk about
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a company already uses Google APIs, integrating a new API from Google may be easier than integrating a new provider. So for Google, there's certainly a market, even if they have to source the raw data.
But if Google introduces something new, there's a strong likelihood that it will be killed off in 18 months. Going with a new provider that has been around longer than that would be a much more logical idea.
This is certainly true for consumer products, but it’s a lot less true for enterprise. Google Cloud had a few missteps with product shuttering (domains?), but largely google has a better track record serving enterprise customers.
Google has to slowly build better trust among customers, clearly. But “new provider” may sound like it’s logically obvious but the benefits of an established relationship goes deep into the complexities of businesses managing contracts and payment relationships. It’s a huge effort for random teams in big companies.
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm disappointed as i thought they'd use actual sensors instead of guessing using old data.
I feel like once upon a time, "blanket the world with a mesh of pollen sensors" would absolutely have been Google's approach.
Once upon a time, google was obsessed with aggregating the worlds data. Today, google is all about AI generated or sourced data. And building a complex model to estimate pollen levels is definitely what they’d do.
(Plus the cost of those sensors would not be justified for such a small product).
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#69The title mentions "Providing actionable info" but I don't see what's actually actionable here? The text also mentions "Actionable tips to minimize pollen exposure", what besides avoid going outside or wearing a mask could you actually do?
I don't know about their tips, but generally you should start medication some weeks/days before exposure.
Re: Announcing the Pollen API
#70OK, Pollen API, but maybe also add this to google maps so people can use it now, not wait for others to integrate it?