Facebook, Apple and Microsoft Are Contributing To OpenStreetMap (theodi.org) 70
At the recently concluded State of the Map conference in Milan, teams from Microsoft, Apple and Facebook presented their projects, describing how they are working with communities. From a report: The Microsoft Open Maps team has recently released open data on building footprints in the US. Microsoft was among the first to release satellite imagery for use by OpenStreetMap and the images are now integrated into the default editor. It also has a community of mappers directly contributing to OpenStreetMap in Australia. Apple has an internal volunteer programme that has around 5,000 staff contributing to Missing Maps, they've released building data for France and Denmark, and are engaged with data improvement projects around the world. Facebook is exploring how artificial intelligence-assisted tracing can help to improve the quality of OpenStreetMap data in Thailand.
DigitalGlobe has made its satellite imagery available under a licence that will allow it to be used by the OpenStreetMap community to improve their mapping efforts. Telenav launched OpenStreetCam to help collect openly-licensed street imagery and has now released open data and code to explore how machine learning can enable the images to be used to improve OpenStreetMap with stop signs and turn directions.
DigitalGlobe has made its satellite imagery available under a licence that will allow it to be used by the OpenStreetMap community to improve their mapping efforts. Telenav launched OpenStreetCam to help collect openly-licensed street imagery and has now released open data and code to explore how machine learning can enable the images to be used to improve OpenStreetMap with stop signs and turn directions.
Competition is good (Score:4, Insightful)
It's good that someone wants to compete with Google Maps. It will make both products stronger. With industry leaders like Microsoft OpenStreetMaps may one day be useful.
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OSM is already useful.
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IMO where both google and openstreetmap fall down as a street map is that you have to zoom in way too far to see all the street names. I believe this is a result of the tiles being auto-generated, rather than someone manually packing the information in.
It's tolerable when using the map interactively because you can zoom in to check the road names in your immediate vicinity and out to get the bigger picture, but it's a big problem if you are trying to print maps.
Re:Competition is good (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.
Three words:
Terrestrial virtual presence.
Knowing what a place actually looks like from the ground is often just as useful as knowing where it is on a map. Otherwise, regardless of what other mapping system a person is using, they are just going to go check on Google Maps for its Street View anyways... and at that point, one might as well just do everything right there.
Re:Competition is good (Score:4, Insightful)
"hmm, this hotel is cheap" *checks street view* "Oh... that's why it's cheap"
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Knowing where a carpark is, is one thing, knowing the best route to access the carpark entry is another, and knowing what it looks like. All they need to do is exactly what google did, drive around with a car with cameras mounted on top, focus on the money making bits first and don't be M$ because Windows anal probe 10 does not win friends and influence enemies and well Facebook is rapidly becoming that dumb fate kid that spies on everyone a dobs every one it, and says all sorts of rubbish behind everyone's
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All they need to do is exactly what google did, drive around with a car with cameras mounted on top, focus on the money making bits first and don't be M$
Except MS did and does do exactly like Google does and there are Bing cars mapping everywhere. But let's all play this game:
All they need to do is be like MS and contribute to Linux and don't be Google who are funding defence projects to kill people with AI.
All they need to do is be like Ford and produce good cars and don't be like Tesla who sell cars that get government subsidies.
See how stupid that sounds when you pick a good example and a bad example?
Who else can we do?
All they need to do is be like MS
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Three more words:
Always offline maps.
This gives apps like OSMAnd an advantage over Google, whose support for persistent offline maps I've found to be a bit lacking.
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Three more words:
Always offline maps.
This gives apps like OSMAnd an advantage over Google, whose support for persistent offline maps I've found to be a bit lacking.
I agree with that other than that I'd call say Google's support for offline maps sucks ass. Their assumption that you are always connected wherever you are is a fantasy that usually ends the moment you leave the city limits and/or the motorways. Also, if I had to choose between street view and being able to use the navigation app to locate goods and services I'd pick the later in a heartbeat.
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OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Terrestrial virtual presence.
I can get by without it. The first and most important functionality I require from an online map is navigation. I have every reason to believe that Open Street Map can give me what I need, and thus give me a way to escape Google's spying.
Nothing says that Open Street map can't get loaded up with street level photos in time, I just don't feel any urgency about it.
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OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor ... (Score:2)
OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.
Three words:
Terrestrial virtual presence.
Knowing what a place actually looks like from the ground is often just as useful as knowing where it is on a map. Otherwise, regardless of what other mapping system a person is using, they are just going to go check on Google Maps for its Street View anyways... and at that point, one might as well just do everything right there.
I used an open source based mobile app (maps.me) for navigation all summer long, it was a perfectly adequate substitute for Google maps and it had real offline navigation capability whereas Google's offline capability kind of sucks. Google street view is a nice feature but when push comes to shove, I want something that can guide me to whatever house number I want without requiring a me to be network connected all the time. If I have trouble finding what I'm looking for once I'm in the general vicinity of m
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OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.
Three words:
Terrestrial virtual presence.
Two words:
Mapillary [mapillary.com]
OpenStreetCam [openstreetcam.org]
Anyone with a smartphone can be a Google competitor. The numbers are on our side.
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Both of which have vast swaths of roadways even in major cities that are entirely uncovered.
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Not in my experience. All of the cities that I have in my Google offline maps are practically a hundred percent covered today. I can't remember the last time I tried to look up an address and not been able to see a street view of a place unless it was very far removed from any actually populated areas.
I can agree that being 3 years out of date for what is evidently a new community such as what you are describing would be annoying, but for estab
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Both of which have vast swaths of roadways even in major cities that are entirely uncovered.
Absolutely. The same could be said of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] four years after it started. The rest is history...
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Note in particular that the verb "is" would be a *PRESENT TENSE* conjugative form. I did not suggest that OpenStreetMap could never become a competitor, only that Google *HAS* no real competition on account of the significant advantage of a terrestrial virtual presence facility that has excellent coverage of every major city around the world.
Plus, I'm not entirely convinced that OpenStreetMa
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Let me remind you what I said:
One does not have to be a perfect replacement for a service right now to be a serious competitor. Just like cars were initially not a perfect replacement for carts, and yet were serious competition.
Plus, I'm not entirely convinced that OpenStreetMap would ever really get thorough terrestrial virtual presence even in major cities anyways... lacking the commercial incentive to go out of the way and take photographs exhaustively through every side street in major cities like Google does.
The lack of a commercial incentive is a double-edged sword. There are lots of places where people complain about the lack of Google StreetView coverage [digitaltrends.com] precisely because there's no commercial incentive. But with crowdsourced services like Mapillary and OpenStreetCam anyone interested in adding coverage can do so.
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Of course, but knowing what a destination looks like from the ground can often be just as important as knowing where it is on a map, and the coverage in that respect using OpenStreetMap is vastly below any usable level. For the couple of alternatives mentioned above, large residential communities within even very major cities in North America are completely uncovered, unless one is interested in an address righ
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None of the alternatives to Google maps have their own alternative to Street View that is anywhere even close to being as complete, and of the ones that I've tried,
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None of the alternatives to Google maps have their own alternative to Street View that is anywhere even close to being as complete, and of the ones that I've tried, they are so incomplete as to be only very modestly more useful than an overhead map in the first place.
What I am trying to say is that OSM in 2010 also was no alternative to Google Maps. And see where it is now. Mapillary is also in the upstart period. Mapillary received 4.7 million images from the Arizona DOT just recently. https://www.facebook.com/mapil... [facebook.com]
Sure, it may not be an alternative now, but as fgouget says: the numbers are on our side. In a few years time it will be an alternative and might even serve more purposes than Google Streetview.
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Sure.... *MAYBE* it will, but I said that there *ARE* no real alternatives to Google Maps, primarily on account of Google Map's ground-level views that are linked directly to the overhead map. That's a present tense assertion. The fact that there are some projects that are making headway which *MIGHT* eventually get there at some point in the future is entirely independent of that.
That said, I'm not holding my breath.... Exhaustive ground level views sides of virtually every road in every major city a
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OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.
Three words:
Terrestrial virtual presence.
Knowing what a place actually looks like from the ground is often just as useful as knowing where it is on a map. Otherwise, regardless of what other mapping system a person is using, they are just going to go check on Google Maps for its Street View anyways... and at that point, one might as well just do everything right there.
Yeah, that's fine and dandy - when it is even available and not completely out of date.
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While it's not a live satellite feed, obviously, it's usually good enough for getting a feel for your actual destination.
So-called alternatives to Street View are sorely lacking... sometimes even completely missing out on large sections of roads in even very major cities, especially the side roads, but sometimes even many blocks of a so-called main road in that area as well.
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While it's not a live satellite feed, obviously, it's usually good enough for getting a feel for your actual destination.
So-called alternatives to Street View are sorely lacking... sometimes even completely missing out on large sections of roads in even very major cities, especially the side roads, but sometimes even many blocks of a so-called main road in that area as well.
So what you are saying is that satellite view - when from Google - is good enough as a replacement for Street View - but not when it it comes from another Map service.
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No, satellite view is not a replacement for Street View. Since I was saying Street View is the most distinctive feature of Google Maps that sets it apart from any alternatives that are alleged to be competitors. I was suggesting that if one is already using Street View, then there is no reason why they wouldn't just get the map data from Google as well since it's right there anyways.
I know that Street View itself isn't perfect, but it has close to 100% coverage of practically every street in thousands
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Streetview is amazing. But...
Waymo autonomous vehicles is a Google\Alphabet company. High resolution maps are somewhere between helpful and essential to self driving car efforts. None of the other self driving companies want to become reliant on Google their competitors to keep that map data affordable.
Tesla for instance is already starting to rely on OpenStreetMap data. As soon as the other autonomous vehicles start driving around they'll be crowd sourcing way more street level data every day than Googl
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But then you don't actually point out anything that would diminish the usefulness of such a facility, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.
I said that Google Maps has no real competitors right now because any of the ones that might otherwise be don't have any sort of comprehensive terrestrial virtual pre
Ancient Proverb (Score:5, Interesting)
Google dominates with Google Maps and Waze. Their own offerings are languishing on their respective platforms while Google pulls away. They are now more concerned about the long term effect of their overall business if Google monopolizes the space. So they all decide to back OpenStreetMap in hopes it can mount a challenge. We'll see. It would take a lot to get me to switch from Waze but Google's shenanigans of late have me looking.
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The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. Nothing more.
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The 'real' ancient proverb is, "It's a trap!"
Tag: embraceextendextinguish
Just like Google kept their maps API up-to-date, allowed almost unlimited calls to their db... and then they started to axe access to certain parts of the API with request/data limits. At least that's the gist I get out of the deal from a friend that used to work for a map app company years back --get the developers to rely on your ever-richer data set and then hit em with access fees.
With the 'other side' knocking on the door, I wonde
Hopefully OSM can get it correct? (Score:3, Interesting)
Google (or some up-stream data provider) marked a forest track across our property as a "road" - it's literally a track only fit for walking for very experienced 4WD drivers. Yet a couple of times a week people are parked outside our house wondering where the road has gone. Occasionally they're quite upset, as if somehow it's my fault that google sent them 10km out of their way.
We've "told" google it's not a road, encourage everyone who ends up here to do so as well, yet nothing ever changes.
Is it even possible to get through to google without a lawsuit?
So I'd really like to see OSM maps used more for navigation, at least I feel like I can contribute to this.
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Google maps has a "Send feedback" >> "Wrong Information" page that lets you edit roads.
If you've done that and it hasn't worked, then you're probably at that lawsuit point.
Another option is to just not worry about it and ignore people that are dumb enough to park or get out of their car and look for a road that obviously isn't there. You're under no obligation to waste your time with them.
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Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct? (Score:2)
Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct? (Score:5, Informative)
The City placed a gate on the road, blocking it off. 18 years ago.
It is effectively rusted shut at this point. I reported this to both Google Maps and Waze through the app numerous times. After several years, I and all the delivery guys in my neighborhood still have to ignore the directions on the GPS until we are on city streets again. It's irritating as fuck but so is repeatedly submitting an edit request that is completely ignored.
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In Clearlake, CA, Google will happily route you through the Clearlake Highlands to get to places beyond them. Problem is, no road has EVER connected through there. It was planned, but not executed. Google doesn't bother to send street view vehicles onto dirt roads as a matter of policy, so they never verified the road information. The problem is that while there's room to turn around, driving in and out of there can get you accosted by a meth-head who will jump in his vehicle, thrash it down the hill at way
Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct? (Score:4, Informative)
And as someone who does map corrections from time to time, Google can be very erratic. I can submit a correction, get a nice email saying it's been accepted, and the map still reflects the un-corrected view.
Note that these emails didn't say they were considering the change, but that the change was made.
One change took me a number of tries until it finally updated (I tried for a year and a half to fix the error, getting the "your change is approved" email every time) and everyone else was happy the change finally occurs.
And yet, other times, I submit one change and it's updated instantly right then and there. Go figure.
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And then that fix goes into the Google silo. The end. Noone else can benefit.
Contribute to OSM and many people/communities/companies can access that fix.
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Well, have you edited OSM yourself to correct the problem? Or is it correct already there?
Apple Maps (Score:5, Funny)
I've used Apple Maps. I'm not sure OSM should want their help.
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APPLE why not get store employee's ? (Score:3)
why not encourage your apple store employee's to contribute in a meaningful way to openstreetmap ? its a nice way that store employee's would actually feel they are helping the community and not just serving the corporation...
Motivation for cooperation by commercial companies (Score:2)
Many comments refer to Openstreetmap as an alternative to Google Maps. I guess that this is the motivation behind the cooperation of commercial companies. Facebook, Apple have no interest in Openstreetmap itself. Openstreetmap has humanitarian goals as well. For Facebook and Google it is no more than a tool to limit their dependance on Google.
It is fine that companies contribute to Openstreetmap. But it is important to keep in mind that this support will stop as soon as it is deemed to be unnecessary.
Good free phone app? (Score:2)
The last time I checked, the only free phone app had limited functionality, and you had to pay to unlock most of the features of the app.
Has that changed? Anyone have a recommendation for a free map app for iOS and/or Android that uses OpenStreetMap?
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Anyone have a recommendation for a free map app for iOS and/or Android that uses OpenStreetMap?
https://osmand.net/
Some projects need commercial motivation (Score:2)
Google has a huge number of employees (around 10,000) working on Google Maps. They are highly motivated to make it as accurate as possible, because they want businesses to advertise on it, and this advertising is highly dependent on accuracy.
OSM may be getting better, but can you really see them locating businesses or homes so precisely that it shows pins centered in the area of the buildings they occupy? Then of course there's street view...
A counter-example is Wikipedia, which has achieved a very high lev