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How Google Builds Its Maps
21–30 of 113 posts
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#22A lot of people under estimate the investment Google has made in their maps product. That we've got two companies doing that (Apple and Google) is a bit mind boggling.
So, Nokia and Microsoft just do not exist in the mapping space?
And Nasa, Digital Globe, Astrium, CNES, Spot Image, to name a few.
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#23After reading this article, I realize now that Watson was this cute thing IBM was working on that they thought was novel, while Google was building machines that think, collaborate and formulate, period. They don't just answer questions: they take data and turn it into something we know how to breeze through. I am truly astounded by how quickly we are accelerating through this information era.
I didn't get that impression at all, I got the impression Google is using humans to do the thinking to make it easier for the computers to crank through the algorithms.
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#24A lot of people under estimate the investment Google has made in their maps product. That we've got two companies doing that (Apple and Google) is a bit mind boggling.
Google maps is possibly my favorite app that currently ships with iOS. I think I might give up email and texting on the device before I'd give up maps. I'm disappointed that Google maps isn't shipping with iOS 6.
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, Nokia and Microsoft just do not exist in the mapping space?
And Nasa, Digital Globe, Astrium, CNES, Spot Image, to name a few.
Hmm, in the interest of full disclosure here I was working at Google when the Ground Truth project went from a 20% project to a more serious effort. My impressions of its impressiveness may be clouded :-).
Yes, NASA, Digital Globe, Et Alia, have built geographic information services (GIS), there are constraints, both on the data and on what you can do with the data. Google bought Keyhole [1] (the satellite imaging company) discovered that even if you had a satellite image you don't necessarily get to do what ever you want with it, and went out and funded their own satellite [2]. And of course you drive around cars and take pictures of everything, that seemed a little bit crazy at the time but folks like Trimble wouldn't let you use data about streets for doing directions, and then of course different data sets were all slightly 'off' from one another which is really illustrated in the article.
So various folks have invested in one part of the problem, but few have invested in solving the bigger problem, and assembling that solution for disjoint offerings is problematic and expensive at best, and impossible at worst.
That is what I considered the mind boggling investment. And of course the recent tit for tat maps announcements by Apple and Google just reminded me that both companies are pouring in a lot of resources. And yes, Microsoft is right up there as well.
Its quite the barrier to entry if you want to a map based startup. (or at least a huge dependency on an external parties continued pricing model)
[1] http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2004/10/google-acquires-keyh...
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#26[deleted]
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#27> An exclusive look inside Ground Truth, the secretive program to build the world's best accurate maps.
Meanwhile, there is another program to build the world's best maps, which is quite the opposite of secretive, involves hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the world, offers public dumps under a free license, and has already outperformed Google for some areas and use cases: http://www.openstreetmap.org/
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#28> An exclusive look inside Ground Truth, the secretive program to build the world's best accurate maps. Meanwhile, there is another program to build the world's best maps, which is quite the opposite of secretive, involves hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the world, offers public dumps under a free license, and has already outperformed Google for some areas and use cases: http://www.openstreetmap.org/
If they built the same kind of tools as what GT uses, maybe they could make better use of the thousand of volunteers?
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not Apple doing it, it's http://www.openstreetmap.org/ .
Actually Apple does have a big part in it. They bring together all the data from Tom Tom, Waze, OSM etc as well as the two teams they purchased: C3 and Placebase into one coherent product. It's amazing that Apple has nearly matched Google in some parts (maps, directions) and far exceeded them in others (3D).
I thought OSM was copyleft similar to the GPL. Can you combine OSM with proprietary data and without the licence forcing you to open up everything?
Re: How Google Builds Its Maps
#30A lot of people under estimate the investment Google has made in their maps product. That we've got two companies doing that (Apple and Google) is a bit mind boggling.
Google maps is possibly my favorite app that currently ships with iOS. I think I might give up email and texting on the device before I'd give up maps. I'm disappointed that Google maps isn't shipping with iOS 6.
I though Google was committed to producing a Map app for iOS 6, no?