
How Google Builds Its Maps–and What It Means for the Future of Everything (2012) - bschne
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-google-builds-its-maps-and-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-everything/261913/?single_page=true
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jonp888
This article is somewhat misleading about the exceptional nature of Google
Map's road network data, particularly the claim that "I came away convinced
that the geographic data Google has assembled is not likely to be matched by
any other company."

In reality, though it seems the journalist didn't bother to try and find out,
all the leading electronic mapping companies(the ones that have been building
electronic maps for decades, long before Google got interested) have this
level of data too.

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paganel
Google StreetView is unparalleled by any other map-maker that I know of.
Yandex is doing something very similar for Russia and some other parts of the
world (like Istanbul), I think Microsoft has been doing (is it still doing
it?) the same for the Unites States, and probably some Chinese company has
been doing the same for China.

But Google's effort is the only one that is truly at a global scale. I'm
biased because I really do love everything about maps and what they represent,
but I think in retrospect Google StreetView will be seen as having the same
cultural significance as the Library of Alexandria had back in the day. It has
literally made almost the whole physical world accessible from the devices
that we carry in our pockets.

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tuukkah
Mapillary is global and they keep pushing the boundaries of applications of
street-level imagery - including building a semantic model of the world for
applications such as robotic cars.

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mistermann
Google should poach some engineers from Bing (and others) to teach them how to
write maps that run _fast_.

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GoToRO
Making this little website [1] was so eye opening. It's not just the fact that
the 3 libraries that I used were different because they came from 3 different
companies. You could actually feel the difference in philosophy while using
them.

[1] comparemaps.drona.ro

~~~
mistermann
VERY COOL!

Questions/comments:

"Make Firefox get along with Google Maps (check this if you experience lag
while dragging Google Map or OSM)" \- what does this do?

Running this, Google maps seems reasonably comparable to the others, yet when
I just load Google maps on its own to look something up, it can easily take 5+
seconds to load.....any idea what might cause this discrepancy?

Overlaying a more prominent brand label on each would be an improvement.

Well done, I really like it!

~~~
GoToRO
This is how Chrome pushes out other browsers: first you make a browser that is
fast in some aspect. Then you build an app that takes advantage of that
aspect.

In this case Chrome can handle a lot of events and Google Maps generate a lot
of events. So in Chrome it is smooth. In other browsers (I use Firefox) the
browser will choke on events and the map will lag. Maybe is just a matter of
compiling Firefox with better defaults (more memory allocated, smaller tick
rate for events, I don't know, I'm just making suppositions, I have no clue
how a browser works) but it feels slower.

To prevent this I throttle the events (checkbox checked): I kill the event if
it arrived too fast or the change in mouse position is too small. This will
make the map more responsive.

Please note that I don't say that Chrome does this intentionally. But it
happens.

I've put more information here at the time:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16645766/google-maps-
api...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16645766/google-maps-api-v3-no-
smooth-dragging/22030838#22030838)

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rokhayakebe
_Or as my friend and sci-fi novelist Robin Sloan put it to me, "I maintain
that this is Google's core asset. In 50 years, Google will be the self-driving
car company (powered by this deep map of the world) and, oh, P.S. they still
have a search engine somewhere."_

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finnn
The Atlantics appears to be blocking Firefox private browsing mode.

This is a new level of anti-user website. Blocking all JS appears to make it
work though.

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brudgers
I just opened the link in a new private window using Firefox and did not
experience an issue reading the content.

