OpenStreetMap is invaluable for me, a college student in a third world country:
Google Maps: http://i.imgur.com/Sqtot.png
Open Street Maps: http://i.imgur.com/gZWGL.png
Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
61–70 of 77 posts
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#62Could anyone explain what the benefit might be to investing in an open source service like OpenStreetMap? This is a sincere question. [edit] I know that the concept is brilliant, it's a great service, and has great potential. Will investors potentially build chargeable products that use it? Why not just invest more into their product to enhance it?
It's not an equity investment, it's a grant from a non-profit foundation.
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bing has added a open street maps layer, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is in the next iteration of the Nokia 3d maps ( http://maps3d.svc.nokia.com/webgl/index.html ) which does not currently have street names or local listings. My question is, are they waiting for webgl to be on mobile?
Support from Bing / MS to OpenStreetMap goes even further - at least in London where I'm participating in the OSM mapping they also provide Satellite images for the editing processes.
Bing allow OSM users to trace from their aerial imagery all over the world. Yahoo used to let OSM do it. Google never have.
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#64Credit to Mapquest for opening their data to all and giving OSM a big push forward. Correct me if I'm wrong but Google Maps started with public data. Data you tradtionally could find in public and university libraries and from government sources, even before the web existed. And then what they found crawling the web. They saw the potential value and have just added to and improved it a great deal. But they did not st…
Are you sure about that? Outside the USA (which has a nice "lots of government work is public domain" rule, which lots of countries lack), there is very little 'freely available' map data from countries. One of the first non-USA countries on Google Maps, the UK, even now does not have freely available map data from the government (this is partially why it was people in the UK who set up OSM)
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bing has added a open street maps layer, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is in the next iteration of the Nokia 3d maps ( http://maps3d.svc.nokia.com/webgl/index.html ) which does not currently have street names or local listings. My question is, are they waiting for webgl to be on mobile?
I don't understand your chain of thoughts. Why would nokia be adding an openstreetmap overlay instead of a nokia maps one? > are they waiting for webgl to be on mobile? Are who waiting? You may not know that nokia not only sells cartography data to gps makers and online map services but also build and sells smartphones... Their current mobile maps, drive and city lens applications are really impressive.
>why use OSM instead of nokia maps?
would they use it if it's better than nokia in terms of local data?
> who are waiting?
This is what I was asking. Their webgl seems to be a big leap over google maps and I haven't seen it beyond the webgl demo. I wasn't sure if they were using this technology beyond this demonstration.
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#66Good timing and looking forward to seeing more developers use OSM
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#67Credit to Mapquest for opening their data to all and giving OSM a big push forward. Correct me if I'm wrong but Google Maps started with public data. Data you tradtionally could find in public and university libraries and from government sources, even before the web existed. And then what they found crawling the web. They saw the potential value and have just added to and improved it a great deal. But they did not st…
Are you sure about that? Outside the USA (which has a nice "lots of government work is public domain" rule, which lots of countries lack), there is very little 'freely available' map data from countries. One of the first non-USA countries on Google Maps, the UK, even now does not have freely available map data from the government (this is partially why it was people in the UK who set up OSM)
I am sure about what I said in my comment, not what you've said in yours. I said they started with free data. And indeed they started with data on the US, not the UK. Everyting begins at home. My point is Maps did not start from zero. Public data got the ball rolling.
I cannot say for sure but I would guess it is also what spurred the ideas to bring in a guy they knew who was doing related work at Stanford and also to acquire what became Google Earth. I believe it all began working with public data. They have obviously added lots of proprietary data since that time. They have a massive amount of cash to spend. Far more than the libraries and government agencies in the US who have the public data.
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#68OpenStreetMap is invaluable for me, a college student in a third world country: Google Maps: http://i.imgur.com/Sqtot.png Open Street Maps: http://i.imgur.com/gZWGL.png
Brazil is a third world country?
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#69It's all part of a master plan to build K.I.T.T.
Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
In some places it sure as hell would improve Google Maps if they would (be able to?) include OSM data. Compare for example Sarajevo on Google Maps at http://goo.gl/maps/kc3yP to its OSM counterpart at http://osm.org/go/xfYWiLv8-- .
Even in the UK I still find Google has gaps where OSM does not. In a recent trip to Bristol I was staying at a guest house on Exchange Avenue: Google: https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en... OSM: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.454096&lon=-2.59397... The truth lies somewhere between the various maps out there. In some places Google rules, in others OSM rules. Occasionally, neither rules and usual…
I find that even in heavily populated areas in the US, OSM tends to best Google in the case of trails and paths in parks, and biking routes.
I suspect this is a case that is particularly well suited for crowd-sourcing though, since these are the sort of places people who enjoy mapping are likely to enjoy exploring the most.