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China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

thedrive.com

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Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#11

Post by rmc »

bkor wrote: post #2

The title implies a bit more than what the article says. Basically China doesn't like their country to be mapped. As a result supposedly it's pretty difficult to use most navigation software (e.g. Google Maps) within China. China is NOT blocking it because it is self-driving (which is what you might assume). China blocks pretty much any mapping. I haven't been to China btw; I'm curious if OpenStreetMap would work.

China is on OSM. There is only a measley 383MB of map data though, about the same level of detail as Sweden.

http://download.geofabrik.de/asia/china.html

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#12

Post by wavefunction »

SteveGregory wrote: post #6
gaius wrote: post #4

Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.

What kind of response would you like to see from the West?

Maybe something like the TPP without all the corporatist nonsense included.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#13

Post by mikeash »

bkor wrote: post #2

The title implies a bit more than what the article says. Basically China doesn't like their country to be mapped. As a result supposedly it's pretty difficult to use most navigation software (e.g. Google Maps) within China. China is NOT blocking it because it is self-driving (which is what you might assume). China blocks pretty much any mapping. I haven't been to China btw; I'm curious if OpenStreetMap would work.

I’ve used Maps.me (which uses OSM) with great success in China.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#14

Post by [deleted] »

greggman wrote: post #5
bkor wrote: post #2

The title implies a bit more than what the article says. Basically China doesn't like their country to be mapped. As a result supposedly it's pretty difficult to use most navigation software (e.g. Google Maps) within China. China is NOT blocking it because it is self-driving (which is what you might assume). China blocks pretty much any mapping. I haven't been to China btw; I'm curious if OpenStreetMap would work.

I don't think its that simple and I'm curious what's really up. I was just in Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou for a week. I purchased a Hong Kong sim for my phone. Google and Facebook were not blocked when using tbat sim but they were blocked on hotel WiFi. So then trying Google Maps the location was always wrong. So wrong as to be unusable. But, trying Apple Maps it was always correct. It seems like that could only happ…

[deleted]

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#15

Post by mistermann »

gaius wrote: post #4

Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.

Lots of people made a ton of money transferring Western manufacturing and technology to China.

Most educated Western adults were raised in an environment of well-intended anti-racism propaganda, so are unable to think clearly about any topic that involves race in any way.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#17

Post by gaius »

SteveGregory wrote: post #6
gaius wrote: post #4

Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.

What kind of response would you like to see from the West?

No mapping, no access to our markets for anything mapping related. Fair's fair!

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#18

Post by pixelpp »

mistermann wrote: post #15
gaius wrote: post #4

Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.

Lots of people made a ton of money transferring Western manufacturing and technology to China. Most educated Western adults were raised in an environment of well-intended anti-racism propaganda, so are unable to think clearly about any topic that involves race in any way.

This right here... I feel like American is really afraid about even thinking about this issues.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#20

Post by Eridrus »

gaius wrote: post #17
SteveGregory wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of response would you like to see from the West?

No mapping, no access to our markets for anything mapping related. Fair's fair!

Are there enough Chinese companies doing mapping related things for this to be relevant?

There are legitimate security reasons to restrict maps, so this seems unlikely to be something easy to mobilise a larger trade war over.

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