Monday, November 9. 2009

Google Maps Glitch: Non-existent Rochester Near Henderson, NV

- Las Vegas Sun

Why are these taking so long to find?

Thursday, November 5. 2009

Google and TomTom Execs Address Google Navigation for Android

I dug this up in The Boston Globe writer Hiawatha Bray's overview of the Droid (which he says is cool, but no iPhone killer) and its free navigation app:

During a visit to Cambridge yesterday, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was unapologetic. “Google is a disruptor,’’ Schmidt said. “We would argue that this disruption has a very strong consumer benefit. . . . As long as we’re on the side of making consumers empowered, we’ll be fine.’’

TomTom spokeswoman Kaitlin Ambrogio told me her company will be fine as well. “We believe there are opportunities for all of us,’’ Ambrogio said. Indeed, TomTom might launch a hugely successful Web search company, make billions of dollars, and start giving away their maps. Pretty far-fetched, I admit. But it’s been done.

- Boston Globe

AOL's Patch - Now with OSM (not MapQuest) Maps

AOL acquired hyperlocal news site Patch in the spring. This week it swapped out the previous mapping tool, Google Maps, for an OpenStreetMap-based solution. Business Insider suggests this is further evidence that AOL management is not that interested in the older properties like MapQuest.

- Business Insider

Wednesday, November 4. 2009

More on How Google Does 3D

Martin Daly (Lost in Spatial blog) summarizes Ed Parsons latest talk (at BCS) and I grabbed these tidbits about how the 3D building data is captured.

- Street View uses LIDAR to get the building shapes, for the fancy navigation, and bespoke cameras because the high number of images captured broke the shutters in consumer digital cameras. [I'm almost tempted to make an analogy with consumer slippy maps and bespoke GIS there, but I'll refrain.]
-Google use their own plane to capture the oblique images for Building Maker.

Aussie Ipernica/NearMap Challenge Google/Bing Maps

That's how the Ipernica, which acquired NearMap last year, is describing its launch as a new media property. The technology (proprietary) sounds a lot like Pictometry (the sensor pod attaches to small aircraft and takes oblique and ortho shots, with quick processing on the ground).

The NearMap portal is expected to launch before the end of the year and will include monthly coverage of Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane that has been built up over the past year.

The business model, per CEO Graham Griffith: "There are multiple revenue streams but the main one is licensing the service to local, state and Federal Governments, It will be free to consumers." He tosses around how great an NSDI would be. The future? Coverage of 700 cities worldwide; Australia is a just a pilot project.

I don't buy the competition with Google/Bing Maps since those (while the tech is licensable) drive ad revenue, not data licensing. And, while MS does own some of its data and uses and sells the UltraCam that collects it, neither company is yet focussed on a data licensing model. Further, many government entities use Google and Microsoft's public APIs for free.

- ITWire

Googled Author Talks Google Maps and Google's Way of Thinking

Credit our publisher, Jane, with finding this interview (mp3) by Terry Gross with Googled author Ken Auletta. He examines Google's initial goals, how it turned advertising into apps (with maps), and why the company is not Microsoft. Gross doesn't fully understand nav apps or GPS, but he straightens her out. It's a valuable listen, if only to help those of us wrapped up in maps, think about Google differently.