

Skybox Imaging + Google - uptown
http://www.skyboximaging.com/blog/skybox-imaging-google

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andrewljohnson
SkyBox was going to bring democracy to the monopolistic wholesale satellite
imagery market. SkyBox was disruptive, attacking issues of cost and recency
with a novel, inexpensive satellite constellation. The only other real
provider is DigitalGlobe.

With Google buying SkyBox, it's going to be one huge, closed monster vs.
another, both of which are hostile to free maps.

SkyBox was meaningful to the OpenStreetMap movement, in being a source for
recent, traceable imagery. Their existence alone put pressure on DigitalGlobe
continue to evolve and innovate. The capital markets see it as Google eating
up some of DG's market, but it has bigger consequences to the free maps I care
about: [http://seekingalpha.com/news/1665313-digitalglobe-sells-
off-...](http://seekingalpha.com/news/1665313-digitalglobe-sells-off-
following-google-skybox-report)

I know it's cliched on HN to boo acquisitions, but BOOOOOOO.

~~~
Vik1ng
> SkyBox was meaningful to the OpenStreetMap movement, in being a source for
> recent, traceable imagery.

I really don't feel like it is that important. Right now OpenStreetMap is
still lacking active contributors more than anything.

In the long run OSM will offer better data under a less restrictive license
which google simply does not offer. That alone will create demand for
satellite imagery by mapping providers like MapBox as their customers want
that.

~~~
jfoster
How many contributors does OpenStreetMap need?

From what I've been able to discern, OSM's road data is reasonably complete.
Place data perhaps not as much. Is that the gap that you foresee additional
contributors filling?

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Road data is largely complete in Western Europe and getting there in Eastern
Europe. In much of the US, it's still raw USGS TIGER data, which is very low
quality and needs fixing. Asia, South America etc. are much patchier.

Address coverage is almost universally poor.

POI coverage is patchy: landmarks are often well surveyed, businesses less so.

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dalek2point3
I wonder what the implications are for OpenStreetMap. Skybox was playing nice
with OSM and Mapbox -- [https://www.mapbox.com/blog/skybox-mapbox-
integration/](https://www.mapbox.com/blog/skybox-mapbox-integration/)

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
The MapBox Satellite layer available for tracing into OSM is sourced from
DigitalGlobe[1], not Skybox, so it shouldn't affect OSM.

[1] [https://www.mapbox.com/help/mapbox-satellite-
sources/](https://www.mapbox.com/help/mapbox-satellite-sources/)

~~~
mikecb
I think he's talking about mapbox's custom tasking that's still kinda being
worked on. You'll be able to request fresh imagery through mapbox, that will
be tasked to skybox (among others) through their apis.

[1] [https://www.mapbox.com/blog/interfaces-for-visualizing-
rapid...](https://www.mapbox.com/blog/interfaces-for-visualizing-rapid-
satellite-imagery-collection/)

[2] [https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-satellite-live-
firstlook/](https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-satellite-live-firstlook/)

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uptown
This was always one of those "not if, but when" acquisitions in my opinion.
Seems like a perfect fit for the trajectory Google's been headed, and the
company was already based out of Mountain View.

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platonichvn
A great acquisition of a group of really smart people doing interesting work.
This is the kind of company Apple should have been looking at acquiring if it
wants to ever truly compete with Google in mapping and online services in
general.

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etrautmann
Does anyone know why you have to purchase a 2.4m dish antenna and two FULL
RACKS of equipment to schedule image acquisitions and download images? Why
does each customer need to be able to communicate with the satellites directly
instead of via a web interface?

~~~
jonah
Maybe they're distributed ground stations and all clients are contributing to
the network of receivers?

~~~
7952
Yes, low orbit satellites need lots of ground stations, lots of storage, or
lots of bandwidth.

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jakozaur
If Apple cares about maps maybe it should acquire Planet Labs
([http://www.planet.com/](http://www.planet.com/)) to compete with Google?

~~~
mikecb
Close, but Planet says their Dove sats are limited to 3-5 meters, whereas
Skybox's sats are submeter resolution. Planet seems to have more of a change
detection mission over a quality mission. Skybox also does video, which I'm
not sure about with Planet.

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shekhar101
Every other great startup that's building something cool, something innovative
is being acquired by Google, Facebook, Amazon and so on. Aren't we going to
see the next Google or Facebook, because they are all being acquired by, well,
Google or Facebook :|

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babo
Congratulations! The cofounders were invited to a Stanford Ecorner lecture a
year ago, worth to check:
[http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3053](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3053)

~~~
dalek2point3
Any idea or links on what the background of the founders is? How do you get
trained in the kind of technology that a startup of this kind needs?

~~~
maxerickson
Their company page has bios of a bunch of the key people:

[http://www.skyboximaging.com/company](http://www.skyboximaging.com/company)

Lots of engineering degrees and experience at aerospace companies.

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brianorwhatever
Why do they capture the horizontal scrolling so that they can vertically
scroll?

~~~
retroencabulato
Because they are more concerned with satellites.

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higherpurpose
I assume they could use these to help self-driving cars, too? Could spot
obstacles or accidents that are about to happen way before they happen.

