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How Google Builds Its Maps

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#61

Post by taligent »

trips2 wrote: post #56
te_chris wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has not "nearly matched" google, not at all. Maybe in the US they have, but in New Zealand, where google is as good as any of the local street maps/directories, if not better normally, the new ios maps is atrocious. The places are now even worse too, because they're relying on Yelp, who don't have a presence here at all.

Maybe he works for Apple, they're his main client or owns lots of stock or something. The Apple worship is truly mind-boggling. OpenStreetMap is where the crucial data comes from. And if I'm not mistaken it's submitted by volunteers.

Yep. You don't like my opinion so clearly I must be working for Apple or own stock. In fact it is neither.

And at no point did I say that OSM wasn't responsible for the map data. Only that Apple added other pieces from other companies.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#62

Post by magicalist »

rprasad wrote: post #31
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.

> Google is merely processing massive data sets using manually crafted algorithims

That is what Watson is. There's not really any "true" artificial intelligence since the term is so poorly defined, but you could make a good argument that your description above fits humans pretty well, too.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#63

Post by taligent »

te_chris wrote: post #53
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).

Apple has not "nearly matched" google, not at all. Maybe in the US they have, but in New Zealand, where google is as good as any of the local street maps/directories, if not better normally, the new ios maps is atrocious. The places are now even worse too, because they're relying on Yelp, who don't have a presence here at all.

Actually Google should be the same as local street directories since that is where they get there data from. I live in Australia (hi, neighbour) and it is Sensis (Yellow/White Pages) who supply data to Google.

As for quality of maps it is about 80% as good as Google and has been getting noticeably better over time.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#64

Post by pbreit »

rogerchucker wrote: post #41
spaghetti wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 freaking hate the Google maps app on iPhone - I don't have any need for a map app on a mobile device unless it has turn-by-turn voice navigation along with re-routing capabilities. It's only good for looking up locations/directions when I am stuck somewhere for traveling. If I'm home, my macbook's google map is good enough to serve that purpose. So I have no clue why on earth Apple created such a neutered mapping a…

This is just a silly sentiment. The iPhone maps app may not be perfect but having no clue why it was created makes it sound like you are dumb or just being difficult.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#65

Post by milkbikis »

icefox wrote: post #57
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

A 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.

It is funny how much effort google is putting into their maps and yet their interface to the maps (maps.google.com) could still use basic improvements like how 99 out of 100 times I want directions it is to or from my house and yet I have to type in almost my entire address before it appears in the drop down. Considering I am logged into google, have confirmed my address and type in the same address over and over you…

You can do that by clicking on "My Places".

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#66

Post by twelvechairs »

taligent wrote: post #18
lachyg wrote: post #6

Earlier 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).

> far exceeded them in others (3D).

Actually Google and Apple have pretty similar systems for 3d maps. Apple are in beta with their new version for ios6, which will have slightly better resolution than (the current, been there for a while) Google Earth, but not hugely so. See for comparison http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/iphone-news/3d-maps-comparison-...

Nokia are producing similar 3d maps, although again slightly lower resolution than Google.

I think more importantly than resolution will be coverage. 3d maps of the centre of major cities are one thing, but the whole world is a very different challenge, and one we have no clear idea of a winner on.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#67

Post by rogerchucker »

pbreit wrote: post #64
rogerchucker wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I freaking hate the Google maps app on iPhone - I don't have any need for a map app on a mobile device unless it has turn-by-turn voice navigation along with re-routing capabilities. It's only good for looking up locations/directions when I am stuck somewhere for traveling. If I'm home, my macbook's google map is good enough to serve that purpose. So I have no clue why on earth Apple created such a neutered mapping a…

This is just a silly sentiment. The iPhone maps app may not be perfect but having no clue why it was created makes it sound like you are dumb or just being difficult.

A mapping service with directions on a device that is supposed to be with you all the time is supposed to be mostly handy for driving purposes (at least from my perspective). That's a fundamental requirement. Lack of voice turn-by-turn makes it incomplete, not "may not be perfect".

I questioned why it was neutered the way it is now - not why it was created. I buy Apple products for wholesome user experience and the Google maps ain't one of them (neither is the mail app and so on). If you think this is a silly sentiment, then you must be pretty dumb about user experience issues in mobile situations.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#68

Post by jilt »

Don't miss this part:

'Not to detour too much, but what you see above is just the beginning of how Google is going to use Street View imagery. Think of them as the early web crawlers (remember those?) going out in the world, looking for the words on pages. That's what Street View is doing. One of its first uses is finding street signs (and addresses) so that Google's maps can better understand the logic of human transportation systems. But as computer vision and OCR improve, any word that is visible from a road will become a part of Google's index of the physical world. Later in the day, Google Maps VP Brian McClendon put it like this: "We can actually organize the world's physical written information if we can OCR it and place it," McClendon said. "We use that to create our maps right now by extracting street names and addresses, but there is a lot more there." More like what? "We already have what we call 'view codes' for 6 million businesses and 20 million addresses, where we know exactly what we're looking at," McClendon continued. "We're able to use logo matching and find out where are the Kentucky Fried Chicken signs... We're able to identify and make a semantic understanding of all the pixels we've acquired. That's fundamental to what we do."'

That is scary. They could read license plates and tie them to addresses. They could read bumper stickers and determine your politics, whether your kid was an honor student at what school, etc.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#69

Post by ajtaylor »

cpeterso wrote: post #45

If you are a cartographile, I recommend watching The Beauty of Maps and Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession , two four-part BBC documentaries: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s2w83

Thanks for the link. I've added it to my watch list. IMHO, you can't get much better than BBC documentaries. Especially when it comes to my favorite - Sir David Attenborough.

Re: How Google Builds Its Maps

#70

Post by taligent »

twelvechairs wrote: post #66
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).

> far exceeded them in others (3D). Actually Google and Apple have pretty similar systems for 3d maps. Apple are in beta with their new version for ios6, which will have slightly better resolution than (the current, been there for a while) Google Earth, but not hugely so. See for comparison http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/iphone-news/3d-maps-comparison-... Nokia are producing similar 3d maps, although again slightly low…

Actually we do. Apple supports 26 cities. Google supports 13.
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