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How Google Builds Its Maps

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#31

Post by rprasad »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #17

After 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.

Watson is a research product that aims to create artificial intelligence from the ground up, i.e., true artificial intelligence.

Google is merely processing massive data sets using manually crafted algorithims. This is a complete different project, which has little or nothing to do with artificial intelligence.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#32

Post by nradov »

swalsh wrote: post #14

I work for a company in the telecommunications space. We've talked to several car companies about integrating 4g into their on board computers. I'm really excited for this update. I suppose I haven't really noticed how much better navigation has improved until a few weeks ago. Recently I purchased an 09 infiniti with full tech package. The thing that took me back, was how terrible the navigation system has been insid…

What I'd love to see is for car manufacturers to throw away integrated navigation systems and replace them with standardized mounting points for smartphones / tablets. I'd like to be able to upgrade my car electronics every 2 years without having to rip apart the dashboard.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#33

Post by 7952 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #25
7952 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

Giving people access to that data was a monumentally important step I agree. I just don't know where we go from here, and I find it hard to believe that Google has the answer given the quality of some of their data (no offence intended). They have some capability themselves, but will it be enough? There is so much more to mapping than road lines and point clouds.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#35

Post by molmalo »

7952 wrote: post #22
jimbobimbo wrote: post #13

Earlier 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.

And Navteq, Tele Atlas, TomTom, and a few more... They don't have the marketing skills of Apple and Google, but they don't need it because they are not consumer-focused companies.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#36

Post by defen »

lkbm wrote: post #34

> Google is locked in a battle with the world's largest company, Apple Wait, what? By what measure?

Market capitalization. Saudi Aramco is worth more, but they're 100% owned by the Saudi Arabian government and not for sale.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#37

Post by vidarh »

tonfa wrote: post #29
taligent wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Their license used to be horrible for commercial use, but mostly because it was an extremely bad fit for a data collection, leading to lots of confusion over what was ok and not.

A better comparison for their current license would be the LGPL - as long as you keep your proprietary data separate from the OSM data, you don't need to release it but you still need to release any changes to the OSM data itself.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#38

Post by molmalo »

tonfa wrote: post #28
a3_nm wrote: post #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/

If they built the same kind of tools as what GT uses, maybe they could make better use of the thousand of volunteers?

Or... Google could open source their software, leverage the thousands of volunteers and let a giant leap be made by both, their own projects and OSM-related ones.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#39

Post by sebastianavina »

basically, they don't care to show their technology, because there is no way another company can develop their technology in the short time, and if some company adventures on it, when they reach google technology, google will be far, far beyond them.

now, that's what i call competitive advantage.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#40

Post by molmalo »

n0rb3rt wrote: post #4

NAVTEQ has been doing this for 15 years. Google learned it from being their customer for much of that time. But of course they get the credit.

Yup, Navteq is truly a pioneer and has lots of experience doing this, even when they are not a well know company for people outside this sector. But they deserve some credit.
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