How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything - Alexis C. Madrigal. An exclusive look inside Ground Truth, the secretive program to build the world's best accurate maps. Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view.
The deep map contains the logic of places: their no-left-turns and freeway on-ramps, speed limits and traffic conditions. This is the data that you're drawing from when you ask Google to navigate you from point A to point B -- and last week, Google showed me the internal map and demonstrated how it was built. It's the first time the company has let anyone watch how the project it calls GT, or "Ground Truth," actually works. Google opened up at a key moment in its evolution. And for good reason. "If you look at the offline world, the real world in which we live, that information is not entirely online," Manik Gupta, the senior product manager for Google Maps, told me. This is not just a theoretical concern. But that would entail actually building a better map. Google Maps. Obama: Osama bin Laden is Dead - All Things Tagxedo. Tagxedo - Word Cloud with Styles.
A Brief History of GPS. Hikers do it. Ambulance drivers do it. Even fighter pilots do it. Around the world, millions of people use the global positioning system, or GPS, to know where they are and where they're headed. The satellite-based navigation system has become an indispensable tool for everyone from cell-phone manufacturers to oil drillers, which explains why a government report on GPS released this month prompted a tide of concern. The Government Accountability Office warned of "significant challenges" to maintaining the system at full strength beginning as soon as next year, due to technical problems and delays in a $5.8 billion plan to... Subscribe Now Get TIME the way you want it One Week Digital Pass — $4.99 Monthly Pay-As-You-Go DIGITAL ACCESS — $2.99 One Year ALL ACCESS — Just $30! Geocaching. Blog about Mobile Apps. Unleash Your Creativity for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad on the iTunes App Store.