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This was originally created at UC Santa Barbara: https://tia.ucsb.edu/about-tia/success-stories/shadowmaps/ https://tia.ucsb.edu/about-tia/success-stories/shado

by drewda 8y ago

This was originally created at UC Santa Barbara: https://tia.ucsb.edu/about-tia/success-stories/shadowmaps/ https://tia.ucsb.edu/about-tia/success-stories/shadowmaps/ I've seen talks at academic conferences about the techniques over the years, but there's just been silence from Uber. Great to see they can talk about their work more publicly now.

niftich 8y ago
Some additional references: 'Demo: ShadowMaps, the urban phone tracking system', 2014 [1] 'ShadowMaps Takes Top Prizes in UCSB’s New Venture Competition', 2014 [2] 'How Uber moves the ‘blue dot’ to improve GPS accuracy in big cities', 2018 [3] [1] https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2641755 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2641755 [2] https://www.noozhawk.com/article/shadowmaps_takes_top_prizes_at_ucsb_new_venture_competition_20140522 https://www.noozhawk.com/article/shadowmaps_takes_top_prizes... [3] https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17252680/uber-gps-blind-spot-shadow-maps https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17252680/uber-gps-blind-s...
mikeyouse 8y ago
Apparently the research was led by Dr. Upamanyu Madhow. I wonder what he's up to these days: https://www.linkedin.com/in/upamanyu-madhow-7a124512/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/upamanyu-madhow-7a124512/ > On leave (2016-17) from UCSB at Uber Pretty cool when fairly technical research has immediate real-world applications.
- jburgess777 8y ago
  Yes but depending on what Uber do with the technology it might be of no use to anyone else. The technology also depends on contacting servers which have information about the local 3D topology which implies that it is unlikely to be useful globally without someone wanting to be paid for the service. As an alternative, phones might start using the dual frequency L1+L5 technology which Broadcom announced last year to detect the reflected signals without relying on an external service with knowledge of the local topology. https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/gnss-gps-socs/bcm47755 https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/gnss-gps-socs/bcm... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15308771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15308771
  - kridsdale1 8y ago
    Google and Apple have that urban topology info too. That’s 99% of phone mapping API users covered.

by drewda 8y ago

niftich 8y ago

Some additional references: 'Demo: ShadowMaps, the urban phone tracking system', 2014 [1] 'ShadowMaps Takes Top Prizes in UCSB’s New Venture Competition', 2014 [2] 'How Uber moves the ‘blue dot’ to improve GPS accuracy in big cities', 2018 [3] [1] https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2641755 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2641755 [2] https://www.noozhawk.com/article/shadowmaps_takes_top_prizes_at_ucsb_new_venture_competition_20140522 https://www.noozhawk.com/article/shadowmaps_takes_top_prizes... [3] https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17252680/uber-gps-blind-spot-shadow-maps https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17252680/uber-gps-blind-s...

mikeyouse 8y ago

Apparently the research was led by Dr. Upamanyu Madhow. I wonder what he's up to these days: https://www.linkedin.com/in/upamanyu-madhow-7a124512/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/upamanyu-madhow-7a124512/ > On leave (2016-17) from UCSB at Uber Pretty cool when fairly technical research has immediate real-world applications.

jburgess777 8y ago
Yes but depending on what Uber do with the technology it might be of no use to anyone else. The technology also depends on contacting servers which have information about the local 3D topology which implies that it is unlikely to be useful globally without someone wanting to be paid for the service. As an alternative, phones might start using the dual frequency L1+L5 technology which Broadcom announced last year to detect the reflected signals without relying on an external service with knowledge of the local topology. https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/gnss-gps-socs/bcm47755 https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/gnss-gps-socs/bcm... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15308771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15308771
- kridsdale1 8y ago
  Google and Apple have that urban topology info too. That’s 99% of phone mapping API users covered.