Apple Campus Missing From MSN Earth 413
webguru4god writes "The Register has an article detailing a significant omission from Microsoft's new Virtual Earth application. Apparently the satellite image view of 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, CA shows a large empty lot, whereas Google Maps shows the sprawling Apple campus. Hmmm, I wonder if the Google campus is missing too?"
What's new? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, Microsoft's effort is still in development and what mattered to them was not the data per se, but the codebase behind the data as Microsoft is not interested (historically) in providing people with data or resources as much as they are interested in making money. Once the infrastructure is in place, Microsoft will wrap their map technology into other bits of software to sell GIS functionality in their handheld OS and other applications. It is an entirely different way of business than Google's model which wants to deliver information to people and make their product easy to use and informative even during development. They are smart enough to realize this approach builds a customer base much more effectively than if they were to get access to free, or almost free (and therefore less useful) data with which to populate their databases. It is an investment that has paid off along with their easy to use and intuitive interfaces deliver.
Grass (Score:2, Interesting)
Ignorance before Malisciousness (Score:5, Interesting)
As least, I hope so. Either way, it only erodes any kind of trust I'd have in a Microsoft solution for encyclopedias, maps, and so on. If they did it on purpose, then why should I trust them for anything? And if done in ignorance - then that means that their competitor has more accurate information.
Either way, it doesn't make Microsoft look good. Which, in a weird way, I almost feel bad about. I'd love to see Google with a real competitor if only because I like seeing competition, because it usually benefits me (the customer (but not consumer)) - but if Microsoft is only going to make a half-assed shot at it, then they may as well stay out of the game.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Google Campus == Former SGI Campus (Score:3, Interesting)
Google now occupies the SGI Shoreline campus. Not sure when that was built though.....
Google is there (Score:3, Interesting)
As kevcol [slashdot.org] pointed out, you can clearly see their campus [catatonic.org] - in fact, arguably it's more clear that Google's own version [catatonic.org] of the same spot.
After 3 Seconds of playing with MSN Virtual Earth (Score:3, Interesting)
ex:
Moving your cursor to the Tool bar in Mozilla/Firefox
Or to a different monitor if you are using IE...
When you return your cursor to the map, it will move without having to click your mouse...
Sweet.
Now for Area 51... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's just an old map (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it amusing that in the span of ten miles in a dense urban/suburban area they could both have such vastly different images. Google has current images for Apple's campus and Microsoft has old images. Google has old images for my neighborhood and Microsoft has current images. Makes me want to start searching for the seam between modern and 10 years old just to see if they try to blend them or just have a gross cut between them.
(and no, I'm not going to post my home address for people to compare images. I'm just too paranoid to do that
Re:I think that's just MS way (Score:2, Interesting)
I have read that M$' implementation is better than Google's in some ways:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050523-125
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05042/455971.stm [post-gazette.com]
IIRC M$ has been in the map business for a long time.
Google uses blending, Terraserver used cuts (Score:5, Interesting)
Terraserver, when they went from simply demonstrating the capabilities of SQL7 to actually maintaining it, they added new images. When they did this, they basically just plopped them in - there's obvious cuts in the map where the two sets line up. I haven't used the MSN images thing yet but when I used Terraserver back in '99 it was all black and white. They may have improved it since then.
The images look great in color on Google maps though, especially the summertime sets.
1998 or so (Score:5, Interesting)
Google indeed occupies the four funky looking fromer Silicon Graphics Inc buildings on Shoreline Drive. These were built in the late 1990s. Right across the street to the south is the former home of Adobe (and occupied by Sun at one time too). SGI's first funky looking building is right off of 101 and was built in 1995, it's now home of the Computer History Museum. At one time SGI had almost 20 buildings in that area, some built in the early 1980s. SGI now lives in three newer buildings a few blocks away on Crittenden Drive built in about 2002. The whole shoreline area is a mix of buildings ranging from 1 to 25 years old.
Re:Really cool! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's just an old map (Score:1, Interesting)
By the way, arial photos? Yeah, they're not exactly a daily ritual. In order to get the sort of detail you see, they have to photograph a relatively small area. And there's more than one game in town, so the most current photographs for a particular region might not be available to one company or the other. What probably happened is that the construction company paid to have your area photographed to tear down the strip mall and build the commercial complex/condos, and the company that took the pictures isn't in business with Google, but IS in working with Microsoft (through whatever intermediary company or companies).
Of course there are satellites that could provide the same or better resolution, but you'd have to pay top dollar for that sort of thing, or be the leader of a wealthy country, or both.
Disparity between two sites = unexpectedgood thing (Score:2, Interesting)
YMMV when comparing the photographs of the two sites, with some instances have better/newer photos on Google vs. Microsoft, while in other instances the opposite is true. However, I think the interesting thing here IS that age difference. The submitted article pointed out that the Twin Towers were still standing in NYC on the Microsoft site's photos, while Google's pics were of the bare site. I found this unintentional effect to be really interesting - comparing the same location at two different times.
Perhaps that could be the next level of development for Google (or Microsoft) could be just that - time shifting. Along with the satellite vs. map vs. hybrid options, you could also select a year that the pics were taken. Voila, you'd have a virtual wayback machine. You'd be able to see the Twin Towers, or in my case, your subdivision back when it was a dairy farm in 2003 (Gilbert, Arizona).
Terraserver is 7 years old to be precise (Score:3, Interesting)
Specifically, Terraserver came online all the way back in 1998. At that time, it was the world's largest online database (accessible to the public at least) and it offered over a terabyte worth of data-- which was a pretty big database in 1998.
This is the earliest entry in the wayback machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/19981111185028/http://
The site doesn't work of course, but you can see that it existed.
However, Terraserver (and MSN Virtual Earth) appears to be using the same satellite imagery as it did in 1998, for the most part. For some locations, terraserver lets you choose which satellite database to use, and I can compare my area between the early 80's and late 90's and see the effects of urban sprawl.
Re:TerraServer Data (Score:4, Interesting)
Not always Malicious (Score:4, Interesting)
Why? Your guess is as good as mine, but we do have loads of chemicals in the plant. And seeing as they used to partner with the company that did the imagery, I can see some reasons why.
You'll also notice that the syracuse airport and the Rochester airport are both missing as well. The buffalo airport is present, as well as JFK.
Conspiracy to protect our softer targets? You decide.