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How is reliable Google Maps and Street View not improving the world? I'm using them daily and they're improving my life a lot.
by blfr 11y ago
How is reliable Google Maps and Street View not improving the world? I'm using them daily and they're improving my life a lot.
- tdkl 11y agoAt what cost?
- golergka 11y agoAt cost of solving the captcha problem?
- blub 11y agoThey are improving your life in exchange for information about you and the places you visit. Their product is closed, the proprietary data is not accessible outside their apps, or if they wish to license it. OpenStreetMap is improving the world.
- mrb 11y ago"the proprietary data is not accessible outside their apps" This is not true. Many APIs are available, specifically to allow building 3rd-party apps: Directions API, Distance Matrix API, Elevation API, Geocoding API, and so on. See https://developers.google.com/maps/pricing-and-plans/ https://developers.google.com/maps/pricing-and-plans/
- ching_wow_ka 11y agoI think you'll agree that there's a big jump from being able to access an API X times a day to having access to a data dump.
- baby 11y ago> They are improving your life in exchange for information about you and the places you visit So they are improving the world and for free. I'm glad we all agree
- glitchdout 11y agoinformation about you and the places you visit != free
- superuser2 11y agoNot exactly free, but the places you visit can be observed with the naked eye from public property, and a network of cameras feeding into ANPR and facial recognition would be a hell of a lot cheaper (and more reliable) than a mapping product. Not to mention that realtime traffic data and intelligent routing around congestion is only workable by tracking individual vehicles on the road and recording how long it takes them to get from A to B.
- kuschku 11y ago> Not to mention that realtime traffic data and intelligent routing around congestion is only workable by tracking individual vehicles on the road and recording how long it takes them to get from A to B. Wrong. There is a better solution, used for traffic lights that adapt to traffic: Use an inductive loop to count every vehicle and its speed at ever lane of every intersection and exit. Far lower cost yet, and provides far better data. (Also is totally anonymous)
- superuser2 11y ago>Far lower cost Um, what? Lower cost to dig up a street and install infrastructure inside it, than to use the cheap and ubiquitous internet and GPS connected computers that are already in every car?
- Spivak 11y ago
- ucaetano 11y agoSo by your logic, unless you're giving something absolutely for free you're not improving the world?
- javajosh 11y agoFeeding data into a proprietary system involves the risk that your access to that system may be revoked for any reason by the owner of that system at any point in the future. The threat of revocation, in turn, can be used as leverage to force you to accept damaged version of the system you like, with "damage" ranging from charging money to unwanted surveillance to unwanted advertising to software failure. Some people think that this risk is unbearable. Others weigh the economic realities and make a case-by-case judgement. The simple truth is that it costs money to host a good tool that's always on, doesn't lose people's data, that keeps up with changes in technology and requirements.
- omonra 11y agoYou still haven't demonstrated why they are not 'improving the world'. They may not be doing it to the extent of your liking, but they are certainly are improving it (if only for the people who choose to use their service).
- BogusIKnow 11y agoI try to use open street map over and over again, b/c it has the better data. But then their site and UX are so bad, I always cry when I use it for the lost effort of so many people.
- ForHackernews 11y agoCheck out http://maps.me/ http://maps.me/ It's a really nice mobile app interface that uses OSM data.
- BogusIKnow 11y agoThanks will take a look
- dublinben 11y agoThe main OpenStreetMap.org site is really intended mainly for those contributing to the map. They don't make it clear enough that end users should probably be using one of the many other sites based on their data.
- BogusIKnow 11y agoWhich is part of the problem. Suppose maps.google.com would only be to report errors and you need to find another site that works.
- dublinben 11y agoIt's only a problem if you think the OSM project is trying to build a replacement for maps.google.com. Since they're not, it's not a problem. Most users of their free location database are not using it directly on the OSM.org site, but through other apps and services. It is rightly the job of these 3rd parties to deliver excellent user interfaces for the data.
- cromwellian 11y agoCommercial proprietary products have positive and negative externalities. These can improve the world even if they're not free. We have am mixed capitalist system of free and publicly funded advancements as well as privately funded advancements. The internet as it exists today is a demonstrate of that fact, as is the mobile smartphone market. This has obviously improved the lives of billions of people and would not have existed without both private (proprietary) and public contributions.
- mindcrime 11y agoThey're both "improving the world" by some standard, but not quite in the same way. There's nothing wrong with for-profit services, and plenty of "for profit stuff" absolutely makes the world better. BUT... as technologists / hackers and people with (presumably) a broader vision, I think the onus is on us to prefer and to advocate for services which are "open" or "free" / "libre" (without getting too deeply into the definitions of "open" and/or "free" here). I would say that it would be wrong to stay that Google Maps doesn't make the world a better place, but I'd also agree with your general sentiment and say let's do all we can to promote OpenStreetMap and the like.
- ekianjo 11y agoIt would be better to contribute to OpenStreetMaps instead of force-feeding their own proprietary platform.
- visarga 11y agoIn my country (Romania) it's hit or miss. Not all addresses can be located by Google Maps. Many of them yield just the street, which might be kilometers long. It's a shame that Google Maps is inferior to my iGo tablet running Windows Mobile from 10 years ago. And it didn't need to have continuous wireless data access. Even routes that have been looked up are not saved, so there is no way to recover the route if the app crashes or I need to interrupt it midway and I have no data signal. I am very frustrated with Google Maps as a car GPS. It's an inferior product in my country. How was iGo capable to deliver superior maps so many years ago?
- r3bl 11y agoA bit further on the west (in Bosnia & Herzegovina) Google's street view is still not available (not even in our capital). As for the names of the streets, OpenStreetMap is far more detailed (and precise). Even Bing's Maps are more usable.
- tanzam75 11y ago> It's a shame that Google Maps is inferior to my iGo tablet running Windows Mobile from 10 years ago. And it didn't need to have continuous wireless data access. ... How was iGo capable to deliver superior maps so many years ago? They purchased data from a mapping company. Ten years ago, the two largest mapping companies in the world were Navteq and Tele Atlas. Google used to buy data from these companies as well, but they stopped paying and decided to build up their own maps data from scratch. > Even Bing's Maps are more usable. If you zoom to Sarajevo and look at the bottom-right of the Bing Maps window, it says: "© 2015 HERE. © 2015 Microsoft Corporation." Navteq was bought by Nokia, got renamed HERE Maps, and has just been sold to a consortium of German automakers. Microsoft currently has a multi-year contract with HERE Maps as part of their deal with Nokia. Also, Helmut Panke is on the Microsoft Board of Directors. He used to be the Chairman of the Management Board of BMW.
- discardorama 11y ago> A bit further on the west (in Bosnia & Herzegovina) Google's street view is still not available Could it be because of the maze of laws that governs public photography? In the US, it's somewhat simple: what's visible from the street can be photographed. But in other countries, you have murky laws, and Google, with deep pockets, can get sued easily.
- kuschku 11y agoIn my region, their data is from 2005, with no MapMaker available, so people always end up in my suburb and ask where the freeway is. StreetView is only available in some areas, after Google put their cameras at a height of 3.5m, far above eye level, and needing written permission from everyone (cause people built hedges and fences with eyelevel in mind, so people might be in their frontyard, behind a hedge, naked, and now Google photographs that – big no-go). Just another thing where Google thought violating reasonable laws would be possible for them. In the end, their quality is hit and miss, and the cost is too high. No public transit data, not the ability to download larger areas, etc.
- lmm 11y agoIf I worked on making the big mac tastier would you call that improving the world? I mean, plenty of people eat them and improving the flavour improves their lives. Ultimately the specific terminology is unimportant. Do we agree that there's a distinction between digitizing books in a way that's accessible to everyone, and working to improve Google products that exist primarily to increase Google's revenue, and can you see why people would want to contribute to one and not the other?
- arihant 11y agoFirst, reCAPTCHA's purpose was to digitize books, not digitize them for public domain. If the work was copyrighted, it was returned to rightful owners. Second, if Big Mac got 2000% tastier every year, and while at that, 2 billion people got to eat dinner for free everyday, it sure will make the world better.