Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth • Hacker News Board

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#31

Post by rdouble » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 11:43 PM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #30

It's cool to see these images improve, but they just got this idea from MapBox, no? Just like they got the idea to move on vector and 3D from Apple. Is invention at Google Maps dead, and now we just watch as they ape their competitors to stay ahead? Reactivity is to be expected from the entrenched player, but aping competitors alone won't keep Google relevant forever.

Probably. The main guys who created Google Maps are long gone.

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#32

Post by mehmehshoe » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 11:43 PM UTC

A question for anybody that may work on the Earth project. Is Google actively trying to fill in past pictures, or only working forward? One of my favorite features was to do the time slide backwards on towns I lived in. Some go back to the 80's and others only a few years.

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#33

Post by vegardx » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 12:01 AM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #30

It's cool to see these images improve, but they just got this idea from MapBox, no? Just like they got the idea to move on vector and 3D from Apple. Is invention at Google Maps dead, and now we just watch as they ape their competitors to stay ahead? Reactivity is to be expected from the entrenched player, but aping competitors alone won't keep Google relevant forever.

I don't think you can credit Apple for the technology to make 3D photography, it has been a very well established technique for quite some time. Apple just happend to buy a company that did exactly this.

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#34

Post by IvyMike » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 12:03 AM UTC

markhelo wrote: post #21

Not sure why but not all clouds have disappeared. It could be Africa. I also see images that are stitched from different times of the year as you can see the difference in vegetation. -7.038329,36.246508

Maybe the data isn't rolling out to everyone simultaneously?

Here's what I see--no clouds at any zoom level: http://i.imgur.com/M6PuwgI.jpg

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#35

Post by nekojima » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 12:13 AM UTC

There is a fair amount of artificial cloud covering residential buildings in Singapore, plus some commercial, public and military sites. Some areas such as a diplomatic district might be understandable, though others like the odd HDB block less so. Having lived across the street from one HDB block now obscured by artificial clouds, I'm wondering who might live there that its a priority to block an aerial view.

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#36

Post by wavesum » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 12:27 AM UTC

At least my home town (Tampere, Finland, the home of Nokia) is so cloudy that the image data is useless. Misleading headline.

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#37

Post by ajtaylor » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 12:41 AM UTC

I wonder if the cloud removal was in response to Mapbox's recent announcements. It seems like an obvious improvement either way. I remember the first Mapquest product, and now we have Google Earth in high resolution glory. What will the next 10 years bring us?

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#38

Post by adventured » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 1:22 AM UTC

Google has contributed numerous great things to the Internet / Web / computing technology of the last 15 years, but among all of that, Google Maps might just be my favorite. It's a great product and they keep improving it / investing into it, and I'm not aware that it generates much revenue (it seems to be the grocery store version of milk). Most companies slack big time once they're out in front, Google doesn't seem to be doing that (granted they're being chased by a lot of good competition).

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#39

Post by mayanksinghal » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 1:30 AM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #30

It's cool to see these images improve, but they just got this idea from MapBox, no? Just like they got the idea to move on vector and 3D from Apple. Is invention at Google Maps dead, and now we just watch as they ape their competitors to stay ahead? Reactivity is to be expected from the entrenched player, but aping competitors alone won't keep Google relevant forever.

MapBox announcement seems to be not more than a couple of months old. If you think that someone can take inspiration, get data, process, QA test and launch such a feature in such a short duration, you should be impressed anyway.

Google Earth had 3D for a long time. Vector maps is again a huge undertaking and takes time to get right. Some companies didn't take their time, some did.

Re: Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth

#40

Post by vlasev » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 1:59 AM UTC

Oh my god! I didn't know that the the united states is literally crisscrossed by roads in a relatively square grid fashion, as in [1]. This kind of detail was invisible in the previous version. Here is a frightening image of China [2]. Each of these patches is a town!

This update of the maps is amazing!

[1]https://maps.google.com/?ll=47.115467,-97.306595&spn=0.29298... [2]https://maps.google.com/?ll=38.002656,115.434723&spn=0.67848...