“The project started as research at Stanford and then hopped into Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page’s car. These little things help implement more features into the already intricate mapping service, making your everyday life a little more easy. Using this information adds yet another dimension to the product, providing users with such things as real-time traffic updates and so on. Google Maps asks for access to the location data on your phone. For the sake of improving user experience. As the two products continue to converge, the differences between them are narrowing down to a blur, though they still form an important distinction. The key difference between Google Maps and Google Earth lies in the dimensions of the images rendered (2D/3D) and whether the images are rendered in real time. These images are then referenced with Street View and base map data, resulting in a single application that can provide you with a glimpse of the entire world with a tap on a screen. The satellite view available via Google Maps is created through collaboration with Google Earth, depending on images from third-party satellites to be stitched into the mainframe to provide high-resolution photographs of the world taken from above. Once again, private companies and third-party organizations remain a huge part of Google’s endeavor, supplying satellite imageries and map data to help construct the entire big picture. When combined with the vast amount of data available, there are huge new opportunities for improving experiences and operational efficiencies." - Chris Wiegand, CEO of Jibestream While there is no direct equivalent to a satellite GPS, we are now seeing scalable deployments of the required infrastructure for indoor positioning that can deliver accurate location to indoor maps in real-time.
If people are spending 17,600 minutes a year on the road, just think about the impact potential of indoor mapping, the next frontier for digital navigation. “A recent Deloitte study concluded that people spend more than 90% of their time indoors. Initiatives like Project Tango are taking map digitization inside our buildings and offices. And Google, along with a number of innovators, aren’t just stopping outdoors. The images thus obtained are then plotted on to the base map using GPS coordinates, leading to the end result that is Google Street View. The idea here is to run cars, motorboats, snowmobiles and other assorted vehicles through every possible road and alleyway, taking 360-degree images everywhere they go. Simply documenting the roads and highways, isn’t enough, which is why Google makes use of round-the-clock vehicles to patrol each and every street, neighborhood and residential complex, providing minutely detailed digital images of the same. For its basic geological map, Google depends on its Base Map Partner Program, which collects information from a range of credible organizations, such as the US Geological Survey, Forest Service, city and state councils and so forth, using them to construct everything from massive freeways to remote lanes and stitching them together into the comprehensive digital image that we call Google Maps. Of course, Google, a private corporation, cannot possibly expect to gather all this data on its own. But have you ever stopped to wonder how it all works? How Google manages to knit through such a massive collection of geospatial data and supply it in the form of a single digital application? And if you’re the average human being, you can’t get enough of it. It supplies us with everything from traffic highlights to road maps, from street signs to business names. With over a billion active users logging in and out of the system each year, Google Maps is a colossus in d igitalized navigation, a concept which has been implemented now to both indoor and outdoor environments. However, in order to navigate through this massive labyrinth of geography and traffic, we need nothing short of a guardian angel to guide us through. Clearly, we Americans love to travel, not that there is anything wrong with that. This ridiculous amount of time makes up for about 2.45 trillion miles a year, a marked 2.4% increase since 2014. Planet Earth: Image Courtesy of Google Google EarthĪccording to The American Driving Survey, the most recent comprehensive report on the driving habits of the average citizen, people in our country spend as many as 17,600 minutes a year on the road.