Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Happened to Google Maps?

justinobeirne.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 201 posts

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#191

Post by iBzOtaku »

lucb1e wrote: post #142
nud wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenSteetMap is very difficult to compare to Google Maps as it uses pre-rendered raster map images at fixed resolutions, rather than a dynamic vector-based approach. For me at least, this makes it far slower to load in non-cached areas, and the lack of precise zooming is super annoying.

For me Google Maps is slower than OpenStreetMap anywhere in the world, cache or no cache. Might have something to do with not using Chrome, where Google makes their websites work the best of course. What do you mean by "the lack of precise zooming is super annoying"? In my experience, zooming in Bing Maps and OpenStreetMap are very fast, and only in Google Maps you're waiting ten seconds for the region to load and br…

Google Maps is ridiculously slow even in Google Chrome.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#193

Post by scbd »

It's way too slow and its missing some stuff buts it's moving in the right direction. Task based (someone mentioned this) is correct. Tasks are easy targets for Google's user-centered design and machine learning. It's not as simple as reproducing a road map from the 1950's, adding pan and zoom and calling it a day. You design for the device (hint: mobile) and the tasks that are used MOST. Do you really think Google doesn't keep track? People don't use Google Maps the same way as a 20in folded road map or a school atlas. If you wonder what tasks are they are designing for just look at the UI of the App. It's dominated by a big SEARCH bar and a big "get DIRECTIONS" button. That's what people do and that's what it's designed for. They are trying to make it glanceable in a car and make room to see search results or to add stuff based on interaction (like traffic, alternative routes, etc.) and not waste time and bandwidth on loading all the extra crap.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#194

Post by vintermann »

mbrock wrote: post #189
vintermann wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify, hire musicologists Strongly disagree with that. For one thing, Spotify already has an army of tastemakers spending all day assembling curated playlists. For another, they have the Echonest data which relies heavily on manual labeling. But the major innovation in Discover Weekly was to use machine learning directly on mel spectrograms to figure out meaningful features for human taste. They still want to rely…

I don't imagine the musicologists charged with personally recommending music. A more important task would be to restructure the "information architecture," for example to improve the experience of looking for classical music or jazz. There's a lot to do that isn't just based on opinions. The dream of AI doing music history seems kind of bizarre to me... as well as the whole idea that human knowledge is bad because it…

Information architecture of music is what Echonest was all about, and I'm pretty sure they keep doing what they were doing when Spotify bought them.

To the degree that judging good jazz or classical is different from judging other types of music, I think that yes, it's based a lot on opinion. In particular the opinion of authorities - critics and other performers.

It's not that this is entirely unreasonable. With music as a social phenomenon, you might prefer to not be "into" the wrong kind of music, even if you would like it for the music itself. Spotify and Echonest have actually talked a bit about how listening patterns can reveal "shameful" tastes, different from the tastes we would like to project.

The job of a recommendation system then, if we should look cynically at it, is to show you the "right" kinds of music that you would like to like, but actually like too - and to not tempt you with "wrong" kinds of music that you would like despite yourself.

And yes, I'd bet you'd need musicologists (or human analysts) for that. It would by definition be very hard to figure out from listening patterns or acoustic features. But isn't this a bit cynical as I said? Shouldn't we try to not be ashamed of what we actually like?

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#195

Post by fma »

pgrote wrote: post #181
fma wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are taking notes from Waze. Waze by default is so crowded your entire map is just icons of random stuff you don't care about. Then every once in a while half your screen is filled by an add that you need to dismiss, while driving, to see where you are going.

Which platform for you use for Waze? I use Android and have never seen an ad while moving. Sometimes, the ads show if I am stopped at a stoplight, but they disappear when the car begins moving.

iOS. The funny thing is, is I'm moving 5mph out of my driveway and trying to put my destination it asks if I'm a passenger...

If they want to prevent accidents stop popping up ads that take up half my map while I'm driving down the highway.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#196

Post by fma »

DonHopkins wrote: post #133
fma wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are taking notes from Waze. Waze by default is so crowded your entire map is just icons of random stuff you don't care about. Then every once in a while half your screen is filled by an add that you need to dismiss, while driving, to see where you are going.

That could cause accidents! I hope they're at least relevant ads for auto and life insurance, tow trucks, chiropractors, tombstones, etc.

It's ads like, there's a KFC en route to my destination.

Touch here to dismiss, touch there to set as destination. It takes like 30 seconds for it to automatically disappear. If I'm on a route I'm familiar with I just let it disappear...but times where I'm going somewhere new I frantically lean forward to my dashboard to dismiss their ad.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#197

Post by pvinis »

wtbob wrote: post #98
kibwen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Google Maps, tapping on the compass icon in the upper right will toggle between north-is-up and forward-is-up views.

I really wish someone would add an east-is-up mode, since that's the traditional orientation for maps — and the root of the word 'orientation' to begin with.

I've never seen a map with east-is-up. Why is/was that preferred?

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#198

Post by ddimitrov »

From my experience, using the Google maps within the city, it tends to ne pretty sparse with labels by default.

This is a good thing because in a place like tokyo there is just too much stuff - if I care for aometgubd I either search for it, or drop a pub and check what is around.

On the other hand, Maps always shows the labels of things I have searched for in the past, yielding a customized legend of landmarks+things that matter to me.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#199

Post by ddimitrov »

From my experience, using the Google maps within the city, it tends to ne pretty sparse with labels by default.

This is a good thing because in a place like tokyo there is just too much stuff - if I care for aometgubd I either search for it, or drop a pub and check what is around.

On the other hand, Maps always shows the labels of things I have searched for in the past, yielding a customized legend of landmarks+things that matter to me.

Re: What Happened to Google Maps?

#200

Post by mbrock »

vintermann wrote: post #194
mbrock wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't imagine the musicologists charged with personally recommending music. A more important task would be to restructure the "information architecture," for example to improve the experience of looking for classical music or jazz. There's a lot to do that isn't just based on opinions. The dream of AI doing music history seems kind of bizarre to me... as well as the whole idea that human knowledge is bad because it…

Information architecture of music is what Echonest was all about, and I'm pretty sure they keep doing what they were doing when Spotify bought them. To the degree that judging good jazz or classical is different from judging other types of music, I think that yes, it's based a lot on opinion. In particular the opinion of authorities - critics and other performers. It's not that this is entirely unreasonable. With mus…

I'm basically not interested in automated music recommendations, and it's simply not what I'm talking about.

Categorizing, labelling, organizing, displaying music information is not about judging quality.

That aside, I also don't believe it's possible to separate a "pure taste" from a "cultural taste," philosophically.

Post reply on HN