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‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

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Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#71

Post by atoav »

avibarzeev wrote: post #66
atoav wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but they they did all use different indexing schemes than the patented one for Terravision.

ART+COM's patent was invalidated in 2017 due to prior art from another app called TerraVision from SRI shown in 1994.

If you trust the guys involved (and I do because they have a great track record within the German hacking community) the story goes as follows: This invalidation was carried out by a jury who had no clue what they were doing, after the first judge (coincidentally married to a google lobbyist) pulled back frommthe case which was running rather well for them.

I just spent 3 hours on listening to a (German) podcast on the matter with one of the people who developed the algorithm that was copied (addressing scheme for storing and adressing the different LOD tiles in memory, coincidentally the exact scheme Google uses till today, because the guys spent a lot of time optimizing).

The prior art TerraVision had the same name but was a completely different software (military simulation if I understood correctly) and didn't make use of that algorithm.

They still convinced the jury : )

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#72

Post by mgliwka »

atoav wrote: post #71
avibarzeev wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ART+COM's patent was invalidated in 2017 due to prior art from another app called TerraVision from SRI shown in 1994.

If you trust the guys involved (and I do because they have a great track record within the German hacking community) the story goes as follows: This invalidation was carried out by a jury who had no clue what they were doing, after the first judge (coincidentally married to a google lobbyist) pulled back frommthe case which was running rather well for them. I just spent 3 hours on listening to a (German) podcast on t…

The referenced podcast episode:

https://cre.fm/cre222-terravision

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#73

Post by tagmaduut »

ryanlol wrote: post #59

I largely skimmed through the series, but the way this portrays the german hacker scene while simultaneously appearing to advocate for software patents feels very strange. The series portrays these guys as the heroes, but in reality they just seem to be patent trolls who fortunately lost. A lot of really cool retro tech stuff to spot though, they certainly weren’t lazy with this even if the politics of it seem weird.

"patent trolls who fortunately lost"

It's of course okay to express this opinion. But given all the facts on the table dismissing them as mere patent trolls seems quite unfair. I encourage you to read up a bit on these people, who are/were i. a. accomplished art professors and programmers.

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#74

Post by BrianMcCl »

amayne wrote: post #24

Here is SRI’s project from 1994 that showed similar capabilities (and the same name) and was one of the reasons the court decided against the claimants in their lawsuit against Google: https://www.sri.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/778.pdf

I wonder why the footer said it is dated to January 26, 1995 (after ITU in Kyoto 19 September, 1994) while the first page said April 22, 1994?

This PDF file is encoded PDF format version 1.3 witch was released in 2000. It is coherent with the informations stored in the PDF heather fields telling us this file was created 02.02.2000, 10:20 and last changed 02.02.2000, 18:20 by Acrobat Distiller 4.0 .

So at lest we can say this PDF file here is not an authentic one from 1995, witch of cause not necessarily means there could not be another PDF file somewhere else(?).

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#75

Post by BrianMcCl »

BrianMcCl wrote: post #74
amayne wrote: post #24

Here is SRI’s project from 1994 that showed similar capabilities (and the same name) and was one of the reasons the court decided against the claimants in their lawsuit against Google: https://www.sri.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/778.pdf

I wonder why the footer said it is dated to January 26, 1995 (after ITU in Kyoto 19 September, 1994) while the first page said April 22, 1994? This PDF file is encoded PDF format version 1.3 witch was released in 2000. It is coherent with the informations stored in the PDF heather fields telling us this file was created 02.02.2000, 10:20 and last changed 02.02.2000, 18:20 by Acrobat Distiller 4.0 . So at lest we can…

Well I found in internet archive an older version of the same document in PS format that was captured at May 16, 1997 : https://web.archive.org/web/19970516152226/http://www.ai.sri...

This PS still contains same dates. On footer dates January 26, 1995 while the first page says April 22, 1994.

I also found the old SRI TerraVision homepage captured at May 16, 1997: https://web.archive.org/web/19970516142933/http://www.ai.sri...

As well as the old datacenter page referring to SRI Terravision captured at June 5, 1997: https://web.archive.org/web/19970605180747/http://www-itg.lb...

And here is the newer homepage of the later program version SRI TerraVision II captured at December 02, 2000 still containing some short promo videos of the software: https://web.archive.org/web/20001202100300/http://www.tvgeo....

I need to check this site more deep but on first impression the SRI TerraVision I in 1997 and SRI TerraVision II in 2000 as shown in the linked videos are kind of inferior in sense of performance and capability compared to Art+Com TerraVision in 1994. Especially the videos from 1997(running on SGI) looked really bad and more like an early prototype. Just the 2000(on PC) videos SGI TV looked a bit better. All the TerraVisions programs may share the same name for whatever reason(?), but I would assume they do not use the same Algorithms. If Keyhole/Google "borrowed" ideas for Google Earth I would guess they did not copy them from SRI TerraVision, but from Art+Com TerraVision. But how knows?

If Brian from SGI was the connection to Keyhole/Google he could be also the connection to the MAGIC project from SRI since they use the same SGI Onyx at the beginning as Art+Com.

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#76

Post by BrianMcCl »

unixhero wrote: post #68
amayne wrote: post #24

Here is SRI’s project from 1994 that showed similar capabilities (and the same name) and was one of the reasons the court decided against the claimants in their lawsuit against Google: https://www.sri.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/778.pdf

Who were SRI? Why did it have the same name as the original Terra Vision?

Stanford Research Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International

The same name is a really good question. But since SRI TerraVision and the Art+Com TerraVision both seems to be started at the same time around 1993 and both use the same SGI hardware (an Onyx) I could image that Brian from SGI was in contact with both teams.

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#77

Post by amayne »

BrianMcCl wrote: post #76
unixhero wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who were SRI? Why did it have the same name as the original Terra Vision?

Stanford Research Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International The same name is a really good question. But since SRI TerraVision and the Art+Com TerraVision both seems to be started at the same time around 1993 and both use the same SGI hardware (an Onyx) I could image that Brian from SGI was in contact with both teams.

This SRI document is based on research funded by a ARPA grant:

"This work was supported in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency under Contract F19628-92-C-0071."

Which implies that it was in development long before the date on the PDF.

Earth mapping was a very hot field in the 1980s with most of it being funded by intelligence agencies and classified.

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#79

Post by atoav »

mgliwka wrote: post #72
atoav wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you trust the guys involved (and I do because they have a great track record within the German hacking community) the story goes as follows: This invalidation was carried out by a jury who had no clue what they were doing, after the first judge (coincidentally married to a google lobbyist) pulled back frommthe case which was running rather well for them. I just spent 3 hours on listening to a (German) podcast on t…

The referenced podcast episode: https://cre.fm/cre222-terravision

A thanks for adding that, I somehow forgot to add it myself.

Re: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm

#80

Post by lalaandlife »

Entertaining and seriously demonstrates to us all how tiny we really are on this planet and without push, shove and money and judges in cahoots with others against you what chance does anyone have in court? That’s why I became an arbitrator and make judgements on natural justice as opposed to the law.
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