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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech and

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Speaker 1: today's episode is a classic episode. It's a Friday, so

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Speaker 1: it's time to look back at classics. This episode originally

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Speaker 1: published on February first, two thousand thirteen. It is called

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff navigates Google Maps and yeah, I'd be lost

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Speaker 1: without it, so it's good that we actually covered this.

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum and I dove into this topic and I

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Speaker 1: hope you enjoy this classic episode. It is the end

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Speaker 1: of a long day here at How Stuff Works Headquarters.

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Speaker 1: I don't know where I am anymore, which is good

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Speaker 1: because we're talking about Google Maps. So hopefully I will

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Speaker 1: be able to find some direction in my life by

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Speaker 1: the end of the show, because we live in the

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Speaker 1: incredible Sure. So you have a cell phone in your pocket? Right? Uh? Well,

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Speaker 1: technically my cellphones at my desk, but normally, yes, I

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Speaker 1: would in fact have it in my pocket. Okay, you

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Speaker 1: have hypothetical cell phone in your hypothetical pocket. I'll roll

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Speaker 1: with that and therefore you were connected to a network

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Speaker 1: of systems that knows exactly where you are. It's both

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Speaker 1: reassuring and yet terrifying, which I think should be the

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Speaker 1: slogan for Google Maps. I used to have that on

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Speaker 1: my business card, Jonathan Strickland. Reassuring and yet terrifying. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's let's talk a little bit about Google Maps now. Now, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: I know and your research because we alluded to it

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Speaker 1: earlier before we actually sat down at the microphones. You

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Speaker 1: said you had sort of a kind of a grand

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Speaker 1: scale timeline of the Google Maps experience, which is not

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Speaker 1: what I was looking up. So I would be fascinating

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Speaker 1: to hear a little bit more about this, of course. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and this is an extremely comple complex timeline that I

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Speaker 1: that I paged together from a single document that Google

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Speaker 1: has up on its website. So don't don't tell them

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Speaker 1: how the sausage is made, Laurena. We are brilliant. They

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Speaker 1: don't know that. I actually want to go a little

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Speaker 1: bit back before their timeline starts, which was when map

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Speaker 1: Quest launched. Oh yeah, now see, I remember the map

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Speaker 1: Quest days, folks. For those of you who have never

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Speaker 1: used the web, back in the mid nineties. That quest

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Speaker 1: was a revelation because it was this idea that, hey,

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Speaker 1: there's this place I want to go, but I don't

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Speaker 1: read maps very well. I don't like having to sit

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Speaker 1: there and stare at intersections, and I don't I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't understand how the folding works, or I have

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Speaker 1: purchased the right one for this area. I don't know

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Speaker 1: which streets are one way versus two way, and then

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Speaker 1: I end up making a plan that ends up wrecking

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Speaker 1: about a dozen cars, and I'm in a Michael Bay movie.

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Speaker 1: Suddenly these are all bad things in my personal experience. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Michael Bay, if you want me in your next movie,

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Speaker 1: call me anyway. I can't explode the But the important

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Speaker 1: thing here was that you could actually plot out a pathway. Now,

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Speaker 1: back then that was pre mobile web for most parts,

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Speaker 1: so you ended up having to physically print the document

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Speaker 1: that would give you the turn by turn directions and

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Speaker 1: then take that with you in the car, in the

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Speaker 1: place of a more traditional map, which the company that

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Speaker 1: created map Quest actually began by making traditional maps, and

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Speaker 1: they still do. I think right probably you couldn't You

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Speaker 1: could even have a voice turn by turn if you

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Speaker 1: had a passenger read out, Hey, you know that street

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Speaker 1: we just passed. We totally should have turned there. They

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Speaker 1: could do it in a robot voice if they if

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Speaker 1: you really want them to. Almost every single person who's

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Speaker 1: written with me eventually starts to talk like a robot.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting and all right for reassuring and terrifying. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure if that one's reassuring at all anyway. Um So,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, let's you know, map Quest enjoyed a good

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Speaker 1: several years on the web, pretty much unrivaled, and then

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Speaker 1: then in two thousand four, Google which at the time,

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Speaker 1: do you know what Google was doing in two thousand four,

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Speaker 1: L for sho jesus see when Google incorporates I would

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Speaker 1: have been discussing with Yahoo in two thousand No, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what happened in well neither do I. So

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Speaker 1: this is like, this is terrific. That's awesome. So that

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Speaker 1: was a question of true you really wanted to know

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Speaker 1: a lot of curiosity. I bet Google was looking around. Well, okay,

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Speaker 1: so at this time Google had already started to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to monetize search. Okay, so this part I

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Speaker 1: can talk about just off the top of my head,

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Speaker 1: Google had cracked the code on monetizing search. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: if you look at Google as a company, a lot

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Speaker 1: of analysts will tell you Google really is an ad company,

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Speaker 1: not a search company. They serve up ads. They happen

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Speaker 1: to do that primarily through search. Well, they also determined

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Speaker 1: that searching it goes beyond just searching for a term

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Speaker 1: and getting a web page back. It also could mean

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Speaker 1: finding ways to get to stuff. Now, Google did not

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Speaker 1: necessary really have the people in the house to develop

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Speaker 1: that sort of technology from the ground up, right, and

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Speaker 1: that is why they acquired two companies. They acquired where

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Speaker 1: to and also Keyhole UM. Now, where Too was a

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Speaker 1: Sydney based company UM Design run by two Danish brothers,

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Speaker 1: I believe, and yes, I can never say that, so

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Speaker 1: I'm glad that you did um and uh. And Keyhole

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Speaker 1: was the company UM that had the software that would

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Speaker 1: become Google Earth. Okay, all right, So yeah, so you've

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Speaker 1: got the foundations for mapping software and and Google Earth,

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Speaker 1: which Google Earth is a is a wonderful tool and

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Speaker 1: it's really super cool. We will not be talking a

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Speaker 1: lot about Google Earth in this podcast because it really

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Speaker 1: goes outside the realm of what we're chatting about We

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Speaker 1: might allude to it once or twice, but it's sort

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Speaker 1: of its own thing as opposed to you know, it's

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Speaker 1: like a separate product from Google Map. Sure, bits of

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Speaker 1: it have been integrated to Google Maps to make it

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Speaker 1: the rich experience that it is today, but for the

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Speaker 1: most part it is a separate issue. Yeah, but but

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Speaker 1: integral to to creating the Google Maps experience that that

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Speaker 1: we know of today. Sure. So that was That was

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Speaker 1: two thousand four, two thousand five, UM February is when

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Speaker 1: the project of Google Maps was announced on the Google blog.

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Speaker 1: And at that time, Google Maps was available only through

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Speaker 1: two web browsers. Those web browsers were Bob's who lived

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Speaker 1: in No wait, no, I'm sorry, web browsers, not just

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Speaker 1: two people. One was an Internet Explorer, which was at

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Speaker 1: the time the dominant, overwhelmingly dominant browser. It's interesting to

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Speaker 1: see like the whole rise and fall of the various browsers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the other one was not Netscape. Netscape was already

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Speaker 1: off the charts at that point. It was Mozilla, which

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Speaker 1: we would eventually think of as Firefox because Firefox it

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Speaker 1: was not you know, Firefox is not Firefox is a

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Speaker 1: direct descendant of Mozilla, but it's kind of a branch

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Speaker 1: it split off. But anyway, at the time, those are

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Speaker 1: the two browsers that supported Google Maps right um. Also

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Speaker 1: in two thousand five, in June, Google Earth and Google

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Speaker 1: Maps API both launched. Right API that's an applications program

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Speaker 1: that allows developers to create stuff that works with whatever

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Speaker 1: it is the product is. So lots of different products

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Speaker 1: have this, not just in Google Application programming interfaces. Technically

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Speaker 1: what API stands for so this is an interface that

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Speaker 1: lets you build extra cool stuff that uses the technology

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Speaker 1: developed by someone else. So Facebook, for example, has an

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Speaker 1: API that allows people to build the various games and

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Speaker 1: other apps that run within the context of Facebook. So

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Speaker 1: the Google Maps API gave opportunities to other web pages

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Speaker 1: to have this stuff integrated into their page. So you

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Speaker 1: might see this was kind of a response to hackers

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Speaker 1: who hackers were sit there and they were kind of

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Speaker 1: reverse engineering Google Maps to figure out how it worked

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Speaker 1: and to try and give it new abilities based upon

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Speaker 1: their own experience, and Google eventually said, you know what,

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Speaker 1: let's just go ahead and create an API to make

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Speaker 1: this easier because there's some really cool stuff happening out there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and also once you once you give people the capacity

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Speaker 1: to use your product on their page, then you can

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Speaker 1: add your advertising into it. And yet again they are

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Speaker 1: an advertising company. A lot more people use your stuff

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Speaker 1: if you make it easier to use. Who would have

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Speaker 1: funked it? Absolutely insane? Um And in October of two five,

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Speaker 1: Maps for Mobile launched and uh and that was that

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Speaker 1: was back early enough in in cell phone service industry

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Speaker 1: that maybe not that many people were capable of using it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: two thousand five, you're talking about a time when uh uh,

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Speaker 1: you know smartphones. If you listen to our history of

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Speaker 1: Smartphones episodes and if you have it, it's okay, we'll wait.

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Speaker 1: But you know that that's pretty early on in the

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Speaker 1: history of smartphones. I mean, until we hit two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: when the iPhone comes out, smartphones did not really become

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Speaker 1: a big thing in the consumer market. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: had prosumers and executives who people in the business market,

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Speaker 1: people who needed to be connected to their email all

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Speaker 1: the time and bury all that kind of stuff above

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Speaker 1: our pay grade. You know, they were taking advantage of

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Speaker 1: this stuff. But yeah, it's kind of interesting that the

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Speaker 1: Google got into that. Now, granted it makes perfect sense, right,

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Speaker 1: because it's again, why why are you using these map

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Speaker 1: programs in the first place. It's usually because you have

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Speaker 1: to find your way to some other location, and so

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Speaker 1: it makes us to do that most often, possibly business

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Speaker 1: travelers have people who are going places. It turns out

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Speaker 1: that if you want to get from point A to

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Speaker 1: point B, it's not always convenient to carry a desktop

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Speaker 1: computer with you in the way. Yes, yes, um, okay, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then then two thousand and six was when um,

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Speaker 1: some of Google Earth's satellite images started to be integrated

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Speaker 1: into maps. Very cool, making everything shiny um. And then

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Speaker 1: in July, Live traffic on mobile launched also cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: traffic is very cool. Yeah, we'll talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: about how they do that later on. It's neat, Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's mostly neat. It knows where you are, but but

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Speaker 1: not you just you there. We go pretty much summed

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Speaker 1: it up, but we will repeat it later in the show.

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Speaker 1: Don't worry with a little bit more clarity and fewer pronouns.

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Speaker 1: Uh so yeah. Two thousand seven was when my Maps launched.

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Speaker 1: My Maps being um uh the capacity for individual users

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Speaker 1: to make customized, shareable maps without using that fancy API

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff and needing to have an actual developer

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Speaker 1: working in things cool. So this weird idea, like, uh,

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Speaker 1: if you want to create a map that showed off,

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Speaker 1: say a particular hiking route or jogging route or something,

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Speaker 1: and you could send it off to someone else saying

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Speaker 1: this is what I use because it's really well lit,

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Speaker 1: it's safe, neighborhoods. That kind of stuff very useful. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you're having a progressive dinner party and you want

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Speaker 1: to show people the route from one house to the next,

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Speaker 1: something like that progressive dinner party, it sounds like a

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Speaker 1: different thing than it is. I usually have aggressive dinner

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Speaker 1: parties where I just I just received further and further

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Speaker 1: into the background that everyone who's listening is like, that

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Speaker 1: is so not true. He just gets more and more boisterous,

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Speaker 1: he does. But I have I have no transitions for

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Speaker 1: any of these in in may view, it was a

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Speaker 1: thing that he um and and that was that was

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Speaker 1: when that was when they put some cameras on top

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Speaker 1: of some cars and sent them out into the world

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Speaker 1: and took a whole bunch of pictures of everything, upsetting

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Speaker 1: some people, which we will talk about again later on

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Speaker 1: in the podcast. Um, but but but giving you giving

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Speaker 1: you the capacity to visit a place that you have

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Speaker 1: never been and get an idea of what it's like

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Speaker 1: to walk around there. Very useful. I I used this

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Speaker 1: when I took a up to New York so I

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Speaker 1: could figure out where I needed to go to catch

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Speaker 1: the subway, and so I was looking for visual cues

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Speaker 1: because uh, I'm a Southerner and I was lost in

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Speaker 1: New York City and uh speaking speaking of which, a

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Speaker 1: Google Transit was then integrated into Maps in October. Yes,

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Speaker 1: very useful, so extremely useful, especially for people who do

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Speaker 1: not drive. Yes, this this is the product that lets

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Speaker 1: you look up things like public transportation schedules in various cities.

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Speaker 1: And you know they roll it out gradually. You know

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Speaker 1: they have to incorporate the data from various cities to

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Speaker 1: to get it back to you. But it it is

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Speaker 1: really really nifty. I use it all the time here

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Speaker 1: in Atlanta, where I'm going someplace where you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't regularly go there, and I want to know, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: if I need to get there by a certain time,

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Speaker 1: what time do I need to leave my house or

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Speaker 1: to to make that happen. So yeah, very useful tool. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In April of two tho then walking directions were added,

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Speaker 1: further furthering the capacity. I'm seeing capacity a lot. This

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Speaker 1: episode's okay, I often say the word pumpkin for no

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Speaker 1: apparent reason. Pump in technology podcasts. I can't explain it.

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Speaker 1: Excellent walking directions April two eight, and then uh Matt

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Speaker 1: Maker in August, which let people start to write in

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Speaker 1: with changes um corrections to Google Maps, which is one

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Speaker 1: of the really big important things we think about the software.

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Speaker 1: We'll definitely get into that too, Yes, um. October was

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Speaker 1: Maps for Android launched, something that I use frequently. I mean, seriously,

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Speaker 1: it's one of It's one of the reasons why I

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Speaker 1: don't think I could ever go back from having a smartphone.

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Speaker 1: Is the map feature. Absolutely, I mean they are integral

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Speaker 1: to my use. I do not remember what I did

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Speaker 1: before I had that information on my phone. I certainly

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Speaker 1: don't remember where I was. I spent a lot of

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Speaker 1: time printing out directions. October of two nine my next

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Speaker 1: plot point in this in this audio drama, and that

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Speaker 1: was turned by turn Navigation and Android, another thing I

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Speaker 1: use a lot, which, Yeah, back to that robot voice.

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Speaker 1: You don't have to have a friend speaking in a

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Speaker 1: robot voice. Anymore, your your phone. You can be friendless

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Speaker 1: and your phone will do that for you. I actually

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Speaker 1: count my phone as one of my closest friends, because

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Speaker 1: otherwise the list is really short. Two thousand and ten,

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Speaker 1: biking directions added. Yeah, yeah, that that's also pretty cool now,

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Speaker 1: and again this is one of those things that the

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Speaker 1: crowdsourcing comes in handy. We'll talk about that again, but yeah.

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Speaker 1: By by August of two thousand ten, google maps mobile

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Speaker 1: heads surpassed a hundred million monthly users. That's a bunch.

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Speaker 1: That's more than two um and uh making making google

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Speaker 1: Maps in fact so big um and so popular that

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Speaker 1: by November there was this really interes sting news item

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Speaker 1: where there was an international dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I read about this. So from what I understand,

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Speaker 1: you had the borders were established between Nicaragua and Costa Rican.

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Speaker 1: This is a border that's been it was. It was

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Speaker 1: a disputed border, which Google Maps, by the way, will

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Speaker 1: mark in red on international borders right are in dispute.

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Speaker 1: But but it had been settled in one way and uh,

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Speaker 1: and then Nicaragua started to dig dig out part of

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Speaker 1: the river that separates the two countries, like they were

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Speaker 1: dredging the river, and technically they were dredging the river

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Speaker 1: on the Costa Rica side of the border, because they

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Speaker 1: took some exceptions. Costa Rica was like, hey, dude, what

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Speaker 1: are you doing? Except by saying hey dude, they actually

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Speaker 1: sent an armed group of people to stand at the

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Speaker 1: border of the river and stare directly at the Nicaragua

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Speaker 1: side and then the over and on the Nicaragua side.

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Speaker 1: You had the government say wait, wait, wait, Google Maps

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Speaker 1: says the is on our side, whereas I think anyone

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Speaker 1: would tell you that was probably a disingenuous move that yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that might have been. That might have been a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a passing the buck. But anyway, multiply it was.

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Speaker 1: It was resolved that they were in fact on the

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Speaker 1: Costa Rica side, and they withdrew and uh and then

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Speaker 1: Google also amended the map. But that's not the only

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Speaker 1: time it's happened. There have been other cases where the

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Speaker 1: particularly around bodies of water, because it's it's hard to

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Speaker 1: see the dotted line underneath because it's always underneath all

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Speaker 1: that water, so it's really hard to tell where the

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Speaker 1: border is, and Google sometimes will uh you know, in

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Speaker 1: their maps they have it laid out one way and

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Speaker 1: in quote unquote reality, which your mileage may vary. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a different it's a different layout. So there

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Speaker 1: have been cases like that. Yeah, right right, But you know,

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Speaker 1: just just the fact that it was big enough that

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Speaker 1: that a government could sit there and say, well, Google

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Speaker 1: Map said, is impressive to me. I you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: also we can justify this war because Google said this.

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Speaker 1: I mean, gad, there was no war here. I don't

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Speaker 1: want to I'm obviously exaggerating for effect, but um, but yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: Two thousand and eleven, uh, Android had Indoor Maps premiere,

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Speaker 1: which is the fun thing where if you get lost,

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Speaker 1: for example, in a mall instead of in a neighborhood, um,

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Speaker 1: you can call up a map on your Android device

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Speaker 1: and have it tell you where to go. Um. And

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Speaker 1: then in two thousand and twelve, which which we are

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Speaker 1: just recently out of, Google Plus Local premiered um. And

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Speaker 1: towards the end of the year, Apple and Google Maps

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Speaker 1: had some exciting things happen in that Apple totally kicked

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Speaker 1: Google Maps at the App Store for the premiere about

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Speaker 1: three months about three months. Yeah, it wasn't until December

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Speaker 1: that it came back. So but we will also talk

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Speaker 1: about that a little bit later on in the episode. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: and and now I think I'm gonna take a little

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Speaker 1: bit of time here to talk about the nuts and

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Speaker 1: bolts that Google maps. Um, this is uh, this is

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Speaker 1: the technical part of our episode. And I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to get too deep into this because, for one thing,

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Speaker 1: it would be very difficult to really really dive into

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Speaker 1: it in an audio format. I kind of need visuals

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Speaker 1: to help we can gesticulate all we want. Again, it's

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Speaker 1: not really going to come from helping Lauren. But beyond that,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately it's lost. But but a couple of things I

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk about before I really get into the

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Speaker 1: nuts and bolts. First of all, with the satellite imagery,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting in that there have been cases.

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Speaker 1: You know, we talked about the border dispute, there have

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Speaker 1: also been cases where Google has been asked by various

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Speaker 1: entities to blur out some of their satellite imagery, which

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Speaker 1: we should also point out Google is partnering with other

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Speaker 1: companies to get the data and the images. It's not

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Speaker 1: that Google has satellites encircling the earth constantly taking photos. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So the satellite imagery is acquired through other other partners.

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Speaker 1: But there have been times where Google has blurred stuff out.

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Speaker 1: In some cases, it no longer does blur out a

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Speaker 1: few of those places like the White House, that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, right, but it used to be facilities. Um

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Speaker 1: some it's like like like like military basis would be

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Speaker 1: a big one, right, And and so there have been

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Speaker 1: ties where Google has blurred that stuff out a little

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Speaker 1: bit to make it less likely that someone might use

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Speaker 1: Google Maps in a military strike against a target, that

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. Also, Uh, if you ever wanted to

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Speaker 1: know what Area fifty one looks like, you can actually

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Speaker 1: see that on Google Maps. Yeah, you can see its

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Speaker 1: satellite you. Oh yeah, no, it's it's it's there now. Granted,

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Speaker 1: you know, we should also point out the Area fifty

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Speaker 1: one hasn't really been an active secret base for a while.

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Speaker 1: They moved that we would have to talk to the

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Speaker 1: conspiracy stuff guys. I'm pretty sure they're in Colorado now actually,

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Speaker 1: and that's not a joke. I think they're really. I

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Speaker 1: think the new base where a lot of the secret

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Speaker 1: Air Force stuff where they're doing test flights of secret

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Speaker 1: aircraft is out of Colorado and not area if if

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Speaker 1: do you want anymore, Um, that's just off the top

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Speaker 1: of my head. But anyway, it is on there if

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Speaker 1: you want to take a look at it. But getting

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Speaker 1: into the nuts and bolts, it all starts with a

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Speaker 1: project at Google that they call ground Truth. Now, if

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Speaker 1: you think about all the Google maps you've seen in

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Speaker 1: the various ways that you can customize it, where you

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Speaker 1: can put push pens in, you can put different routes in,

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Speaker 1: and you can view it in a million different ways,

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Speaker 1: ground Truth is kind of the focal point of all that.

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Speaker 1: Think of it as like the proto map. It has

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Speaker 1: all this data and we're talking terabytes of data here

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Speaker 1: that are going into making the maps what they are,

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Speaker 1: and that kind of terrifying amount of data that we

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Speaker 1: can't even really deal with on a mental level because

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Speaker 1: think about the stuff that's involved in a Google map.

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Speaker 1: You've got the actual graphical representation of the map up,

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Speaker 1: so you've got you know, streets, You've got you might

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Speaker 1: have you know, outlines of buildings, you have uh, the

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Speaker 1: names of landmarks, that kind of stuff. On top of that,

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Speaker 1: all of those those pieces of information are linked to

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Speaker 1: um coordinates right, physical coordinates right exactly, so latitude and

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Speaker 1: longitude you know that those are all identified, so that

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Speaker 1: when you look at a map, you're looking at it

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Speaker 1: the correct you know way. It's not just a bunch

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Speaker 1: of random places. Hey, Now Rushmore is right next to

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Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon, which is right next to Disney World.

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Speaker 1: And I mean that's not a little bit more precise

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Speaker 1: than it used to be. Is all we're saying. We

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Speaker 1: have we have precisely to scale right. And then on

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Speaker 1: top of that, you have things like business names included

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Speaker 1: in this information. It's it's lots of info all together,

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Speaker 1: and it's all there because you need to be able

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Speaker 1: to look at the map in one of a billion

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Speaker 1: different ways. So all this data is there, and then

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Speaker 1: Google's algorithms are what have to make sense of the

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Speaker 1: information and display the information that's relevant to you in

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Speaker 1: the context that you are using the maps in when

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Speaker 1: you when you go in and say, hey, I want traffic,

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Speaker 1: HAIR want satellite, Hey I want to know how to

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Speaker 1: get from point A to point B versus, Hey, I

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Speaker 1: want to know how many different pizza places are around

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Speaker 1: point B versus I want to know where the top

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Speaker 1: rated restaurant in San Francisco. Is these are all different

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Speaker 1: contexts you can use Google Maps in, and so it

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Speaker 1: has to be able to be very flexible. Now when

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Speaker 1: you're actually looking at Google Maps, what you're looking at

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Speaker 1: is uh that has a top side a top bar

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Speaker 1: in a sidebar, and those are just basic HTML. So

408
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Speaker 1: it's just like which hypertext markup language. It's the stuff

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Speaker 1: that the web is made of and dreams as it

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Speaker 1: turns out that parts of life and then the rest

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Speaker 1: of it it all well, originally it was all XML,

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Speaker 1: which is extensible markup language. Now, extensible markup language is

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Speaker 1: a way of telling a client, meaning a web browser

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Speaker 1: in this case, how to display the information. So it's

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Speaker 1: a set of instructions that says, here's all this data,

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Speaker 1: and here's how you show the data to the person

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Speaker 1: looking at it. Okay, So it's just a set of instructions, really,

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Speaker 1: is what it What it boils down to. These days,

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Speaker 1: didn't they switch to a to a JavaScript object. They've

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Speaker 1: got Java script. Yeah, it's all JavaScript and it's all

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Speaker 1: um it's JavaScript is what they program everything in. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's essentially Back when it first started, this was a

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Speaker 1: C plus plus program. That was back when the Dutch

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Speaker 1: brothers were working on it, and now it's uh, now

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Speaker 1: it's all JavaScript stuff, but yeah, it's uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: it was really heavily using x m L and UH

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Speaker 1: and something called x s t L which is extensible

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Speaker 1: style sheet language. You would apply that to the XML

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Speaker 1: to get h t m L. All of that is

430
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: just very technical, and it also ultimately doesn't really matter

431
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 1: because they kind of switched to something called maps g L,

432
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 1: which is a variant of the Web Graphics Library. That's

433
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: the Java script you're talking about, part of the JavaScript

434
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: Application Programming interface, and it renders interactive graphics, which is

435
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: what Google Maps are. It's an interactive graphic that you

436
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: can play with. It's actually really kind of cool the

437
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:20,640
Speaker 1: way that works. Um. I have to give a lot

438
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 1: of credit, uh to Joel Webber. Now, Joel Webber is

439
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: is a former graduate of Georgia Tech, but I don't

440
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:34,400
Speaker 1: hold that against him. Go Bulldogs, I'm a Gator. Oh

441
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 1: oh well, then Joel and I both hate you. You

442
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 1: learn things every day, right, so I mean, granted, I

443
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: never once went to a football game, and I was

444
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: not on the football team, so you weren't you don't

445
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: have to hate me that much. She moves like a

446
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: running back is all I'm saying. Um, anyway, what that means?

447
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 1: I think running back is in baseball. So anyway, steroid,

448
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:08,440
Speaker 1: Sorry back to but no no. Joel Webber had he

449
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,920
Speaker 1: took a lot of initiative early early on in Google Maps.

450
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: He thought it was a very interesting product, and then

451
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 1: he began to reverse engineer it and kind of learned

452
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 1: the way it worked. So it wasn't until fairly recently

453
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: the Google started talking about what makes Google Maps tick.

454
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: In fact, I would say I think it was like

455
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve when they started letting journalists come in

456
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 1: and they were essentially giving uh kind of a symposium

457
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: on an overview of how it works. But before that,

458
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: it took people who were actually to dig into it exactly,

459
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 1: and Joel Weber was one of those guys. And he

460
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:40,679
Speaker 1: still has quite a bit of information up on the

461
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,919
Speaker 1: web that explains what he did and and sort of

462
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 1: what he learned. And among those things, he learned that

463
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 1: the the center pain that the actual map that you're

464
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 1: looking at is made up of a grid of tiles,

465
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: and that grid is a hundred and twenty eight wide

466
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: and tall. Not all of those tiles are in view

467
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 1: of the map. So so I think of the think

468
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: of the map is kind of cutting off. It's it's

469
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 1: the center of this tiled puzzle and the border around it.

470
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: There are tiles that are outside of your your vision, okay,

471
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: and you know you can dragon and move the map around.

472
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: You know, you hold down the mouse button and you

473
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: pull the mouse across and then the map moves. I

474
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 1: believe the Google term for this, by the way, is

475
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: slippy map. Yes, which I love this And it turns

476
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 1: out the slippy map. The reason it works is that

477
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: every single image you're looking at is absolutely positioned, and

478
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: when you scroll, it is essentially picking up the tiles

479
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: that are off screen on one side and placing them

480
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 1: down on the other side. If you want to think

481
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: of like a different way of of imagining this, Joel

482
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: had a great example. Just imagine that you're on a

483
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: train and the way that you continue moving forward is

484
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: that you pick up the track you've just crossed over

485
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: and you put it down in front of you so

486
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: you can keep going. So as you're moving, your remove

487
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: moving the track behind you and putting it in front

488
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: of you, and that way, you just you don't have

489
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: to end up generating the entire map, which would be

490
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: a huge drain on resources. It's clipping it down to

491
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: just the integral, right, and exactly the stuff that you need.

492
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 1: It can cash stuff that happens to be around. And

493
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: again you've got you've got stuff that's two or three

494
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: or four fifty tiles off the border, right, so as

495
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: you're pulling your first seeing stuff that's already loaded up,

496
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: it's just wasn't in your view, right, and then the

497
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: tiles that are essentially moving to the other side are

498
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: starting to pull the data necessary in case you keep

499
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 1: going that way. So it gives you the sort of

500
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: infinite scroll ability um. And also it's it's very much

501
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 1: a client side application. And what we mean by that

502
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: is that while it's pulling data from servers, from Google servers,

503
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: which has you know, have all this information, the most

504
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,199
Speaker 1: of the work is being done within the client, so

505
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: on your computer, within the web browser, on your smartphone whatever,

506
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: that's what's doing most of the work. And the good

507
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 1: thing about that is it means that frees up the

508
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,880
Speaker 1: servers on Google side, because lots of people are using this, right,

509
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: and we talked about how more than two, and we

510
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: talked about how many different ways you can use it.

511
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 1: So with that in mind, with all the different ways

512
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: you can use it, all the data that Google is holding,

513
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: and the number of people, it's important that we that

514
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: Google had designed it, and I say we that Google

515
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: had designed the system in such a way that it

516
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: doesn't bog down the server side or else. Every time

517
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: we would try to use Google Maps, it would take forever.

518
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: And because a lot of that work is being done

519
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: by our devices, it means that you know, if there's

520
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: something slow to computer's fault. That's not exactly true, because

521
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: I mean there could be other issues obviously, but in general,

522
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: it means that the system works more smoothly than it

523
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: would if it was all server side. So I mean,

524
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: like I said, I could get further into the actual

525
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: nuts and bolts of what Google Maps is doing and

526
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: how it's doing it, but ultimately I think it would

527
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: be more confusing than helpful. And also, we're getting to

528
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: a point now where I have got to be completely

529
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: upfront and honest with you guys, Like all of this

530
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 1: I've got a pretty good handle on, but when I

531
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: started going further in, it's going into a level of

532
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: development and programming that's beyond my own personal experience. So

533
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: at that point, I'd just be like, well, according to this,

534
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: this word that I don't know affects this other word

535
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I'd rather just spare everybody that

536
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: thank you, You're welcome. Hey guys, it's Jonathan from nineteen

537
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: and I am so lost while I get my bearings.

538
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor, and

539
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: now back to the show. Alright, So, one of the

540
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: many top that we said that we were going to

541
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: come back to was Google street View. And the reason

542
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:05,719
Speaker 1: that we wanted to come back to this is that

543
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: it has been a little bit contentious because it's this

544
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: fabulous technology that, like we said, let's you visit a

545
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: place that you've never been to. Let's you walk around

546
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: an area that you are perhaps going to visit or

547
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: are just curious about, without having to get on a

548
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: plane and get out in the wet, in the rain

549
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: and the cold. You know, it lets you do more

550
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: once you get to a location. However, unlets you do

551
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: more when you get to a location by virtue of

552
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: the fact that it's taken detailed pictures of that location,

553
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: including for example, the cars and people and children and

554
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: dogs that were walking by when the photography was taken.

555
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: And some people had a problem with this. Some people said, hey,

556
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: maybe maybe my baby should not be on Google street View. Yeah,

557
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't have that picture of me coming out

558
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 1: of the adult entertainment establishment, uh in downtown Atlanta. So

559
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: that now whenever anyone looks at said adult entertainment establishment

560
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: on Google street View, they see that, by the way,

561
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: is a generic me, not me me. It's the royal me.

562
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess how that works. But but no,

563
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: that's exactly that's exactly right there. There were several communities

564
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: not and also individuals that objected to Google street View,

565
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: saying that, uh, it violated privacy, that they felt it

566
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: was kind of creepy. There were people who who said

567
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: that this is going to turn into a tool for

568
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 1: thieves to use so they can they can virtually case

569
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: a house without ever having to actually go into the neighborhood. Sure, sure,

570
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: for the kind of higher paranoia of this is going

571
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: to turn into a government tool for those countries that

572
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: do not have CCTV already. Sure, yeah, yeah, or or

573
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, maybe the day that Google street

574
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: View went through my neighborhood was after I had not

575
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: not taking care of my lawn yet. And so now

576
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: the later when you try to sell your house exactly

577
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: and people like, m, that's a dump. Yeah, it may

578
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: very well be any of those things. Now, the flip

579
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: side of that is that there were people who had

580
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: fun with Google street They would see that the Google

581
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: street View. They would either know that the car was

582
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: scheduled to go down the street at a certain time,

583
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: or they would see it and they would stage various

584
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: humorous things to happen so that it would be captured

585
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: by the Google street View car as it went by.

586
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: We've talked about some of these in previous episodes of

587
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff, where there were people who would create a

588
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: virtual parade on on a street and yeah, it's fantastic.

589
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: If you look at Google street View and you look

590
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: at you know, art projects or parade that kind of stuff,

591
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: it will pull these these images up and you can

592
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: actually see how creative people were. I saw one where

593
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: I was a group of larper's all in uh full foam,

594
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: gearing on each other. Wonderful. You're going through a suburban

595
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: neighborhood and like there's a melee happening. Um. I mean

596
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: if it were me, I know what I would want

597
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: to do. Like anytime I knew that there was gonna

598
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: be a Google street View car going through New York,

599
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: I would be like, Okay, guys, it's Warriors. Causplay time.

600
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: Who wants to be the baseball furies? Who wants to

601
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: be the high hats? We are gonna go out there

602
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: and bangers. We are gonna make some noise. Can you

603
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: dig it? That's probably the whitest can you dig it?

604
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: I think it probably was. History is being made right here.

605
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: Come out and play a dear. That's a documentary for

606
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: you folks out there for Warriors. Late seventies look important,

607
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: important information. But yeah, so so it's gonne, you know,

608
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: both with the privacy issues and as well as like

609
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: people you know, taking advantage of it to have some fun.

610
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: I think I think for the most part, Google enjoys

611
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,239
Speaker 1: the whole let's have fun with it thing as long

612
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: as it's within the realms of you know, safety and

613
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: good taste. But the but as the privacy thing has

614
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: been a lot more complicated. I mean, you've had entire

615
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: community say we don't want this. We think we're a

616
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: gated community. You do not get this is private property.

617
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: You don't get to come in through here. Um. You know,

618
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 1: Google's whole motto is that they want to index the

619
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: information of the universe, and part of that is all

620
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: of the places you can go on the planet Earth.

621
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: So there is there has been this problem. Now. The

622
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: other thing about street View is that it's actually been

623
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,720
Speaker 1: very helpful with Google Maps in making them more accurate.

624
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about earlier. If you were just

625
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: looking at a map, a physical map, a paper map

626
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: in your hands, you might not be able to find

627
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: the best route from where you are to where you're

628
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: going because you might not be able to see which

629
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: which roads are no longer open, or which ones are

630
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: one way streets, what's under construction exactly. So one of

631
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: the things that Google street View would do is that

632
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: the routes that these cars would take would help validate

633
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: which routes are open to vehicles. So if if a

634
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: Google street New car could not go up a street

635
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,240
Speaker 1: it's because it might be a one way street or whatever,

636
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: then that information was part of the information that be

637
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: saved and would be integrated into that proto map I

638
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: was talking about, and you know, really when you think

639
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: about when you're getting directions from point A to point B,

640
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,799
Speaker 1: it's pretty complex. It has to take into account all

641
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: of those things and say, all right, this may not

642
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: seem like it's the fastest route, but this it is,

643
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's really complex. But Google street View helped

644
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: that out. So the Google street View provided two different

645
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: kinds of information. It provided that the images, which that

646
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,720
Speaker 1: was the obvious one, top level, but also the route

647
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: information by the actual route the cars had to go

648
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: through in order to capture all those images. So that's

649
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 1: it was sort of a validation method that Google used

650
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 1: as well. On top of that, we had the whole

651
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 1: idea of this crowd sourcing, which we had talked about

652
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier. But crowdsourcing. Google uses crowdsourcing in

653
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: two ways, or at least two ways one of Google Maps.

654
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: Google Maps. Google uses crowdsourcing in lots of ways, but

655
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: Google Maps in particular to two main ways. One of

656
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: them is traffic, and generally speaking, they're tracking, um, people

657
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: who happened to be using cell phones, particularly cell phones

658
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 1: using Google Maps and tracking their progress either through uh,

659
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: you know, little anonymous GPS tracking or anonymous uh cell

660
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,720
Speaker 1: phone tracking, you know, as you move from from another

661
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: and the idea is that, hey, you know, if if

662
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: the same user is able to make their way through

663
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,399
Speaker 1: this this particular street at this particular speed, that gives

664
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 1: me an idea of how how fast traffic is going

665
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: and whether or not, Yes, what color code? We need

666
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:49,399
Speaker 1: to break that up as yeah, exactly like if they're

667
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 1: if they're crawling, they're either not in a car or

668
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: traffic is bad. And this is aggregated, so it's not

669
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 1: just a single person. We're talking thousands upon thousands of people.

670
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: And the important thing to remember is that, assuming that

671
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: we're all on the up and up, here is anonymous data. Right.

672
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: So Google doesn't know it's a particular person. Right, It

673
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: knows that it's your phone, but it doesn't know that

674
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: you are Jane Smith and that you are going from

675
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: your home to your office pet smart to write. All

676
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: it knows is that this particular phone is moving at

677
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 1: this particular speed in this particular place. So beyond that,

678
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,799
Speaker 1: it doesn't know that that phone belongs to Jane or

679
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 1: that Jane is on her way to commit a hit

680
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: for the mob. Right, it does not it does not

681
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: record the starting and stopping points, which is another thing

682
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: that people were worried about with directions, right, right, of course,

683
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: if I put in I need to know how to

684
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: get to this point, is it going to be saved

685
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: somewhere so that Google knows that I went from here

686
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: to there? Obviously, depending upon what you're doing, that could

687
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,959
Speaker 1: be very sensitive information, very undesirable share like up hunting. Yeah,

688
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 1: let's say that, you know, my boss is like, hey,

689
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: you know, um, this weird thing popped up. It turns

690
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: out it looks like you've been going to every single

691
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: one of our rivals recently, and a lot of our

692
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 1: rifles are coming out with really similar products to ours.

693
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: That would be I mean, clearly, you know that's unethical

694
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 1: behavior on the part of the user, but that's just sure.

695
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: But for example, um, yeah, the other way that the

696
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: traffic data is garnered is via microwaves. Oh wow, so

697
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:32,919
Speaker 1: like when people are making popcorn? Yes, okay, but that's

698
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:34,760
Speaker 1: but that's another episode that is in fact an episode

699
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: that Jonathan and christ did previously. Oh yeah, that's right.

700
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:39,959
Speaker 1: I was like, this sounds really familiar, but I didn't

701
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 1: research this. We've already done this bit seventy something episodes,

702
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: kind of hard to keep track. He has no idea anymore. No,

703
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 1: I don't even know where I am. That's why I

704
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 1: need this podcast also ages getting to him. Thank you.

705
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: There has to be one in every episode, doesn't there?

706
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: There does? Okay, that's fair anyway. So that was one

707
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: form of crowdsource. The other one is you were talking

708
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: about the the the map maker. Where this idea about

709
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: in your personal experience using Google Maps, you might encounter

710
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: a situation where the map is not accurate, and it's

711
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 1: allowing people, um to be helpful. It's allowing you to

712
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 1: inform the map experience. Yo, dude, you totally turned me

713
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: down the wrong side of the street or the road

714
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 1: you wanted me to take as a private road and

715
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: I cannot actually drive on it. I encountered that actually yesterday.

716
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:35,760
Speaker 1: But it was because Google Maps can't counter user stupidity,

717
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: and in my case, it was that I wasn't really

718
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: thinking I was. I was going to a specific location

719
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: on the minds anywhere. It was I was going to

720
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Botanical Gardens so I could see some pretty lights.

721
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:47,279
Speaker 1: Well that's a classy place to go down it is

722
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: I felt totally out of place. My wife, however, completely

723
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: at home. So trying to get to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

724
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:58,399
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Atlanta Botanical Gardens has a there's

725
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: a parking structure that's a a sent to Atlanta Botanical Gardens,

726
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: but it's run by a different company, right, So when

727
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 1: I put Atlanta Botanical Gardens into the Google Maps program,

728
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: it's telling me how to get to the gardens themselves,

729
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: which are off of little private roads that I cannot

730
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,399
Speaker 1: actually can act success. If I had put in the

731
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: parking garage from the very beginning, then it would have

732
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,359
Speaker 1: sent me the correct way to get to actually enter

733
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: the garden. I did not do that. So in that case,

734
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: I actually didn't counter a problem. Not granted, you know,

735
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: I just realized that I was on the other side

736
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: of the enormous park and I just had to go

737
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: around around and then I got there. So it wasn't

738
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: a big deal. But in other situations that could be.

739
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 1: So Matt Maker, lets you correct those sort of problems

740
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: and send send information to Google and say, hey, guys,

741
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: just f y I fix this. Yes, And we're pretty

742
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: sure that that's not based on a single users experience.

743
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 1: Because that would be very dangerous, and you can easily

744
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,879
Speaker 1: troll the system, you know, you I can. Here's here's

745
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 1: how I would use it. If that were the case.

746
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: Everywhere I would go, I would say that the closest,

747
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,919
Speaker 1: fastest route was not working, so that way I could

748
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: guarantee there never be any traffic because people would be

749
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,839
Speaker 1: routed around it. That would be insidious. That's that's how

750
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: I think. This is this is the way I think.

751
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 1: I think, How can I manipulate the system to benefit me?

752
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: That's terrifically evil. Thank thank goodness, Google is slightly less

753
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:25,799
Speaker 1: evil than you and have it counted for for such things,

754
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: you know. That's that's the thing. They really do anticipate

755
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:37,399
Speaker 1: people gaming the system, and so they're wants to bad Google. Right,

756
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: So anyway that both of those methods are really important

757
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: for Google Maps, uh, you know, just to just to

758
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:47,360
Speaker 1: give the best user experience possible. Because even though you know,

759
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: Google is in the business of selling ads essentially or

760
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: selling ads space, you know, they have to make products

761
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: that are are user friendly, and it's part of what

762
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: makes the product yours. It's part of part of what

763
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: makes it interactive, and it adds into that entire slippy

764
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: map concept of of being able to to go in

765
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: there and mess around with it and really dig your

766
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:10,439
Speaker 1: fingers in then. And of course also you can add

767
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: in your businesses information into a map. You can edit

768
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: business and businesses information, you can provide reviews of a business. Yeah,

769
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: it's it's it's literally mapping to other parts of the Internet.

770
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: So it's not just showing you the physical location of

771
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: a place that you're searching for. It's giving you access

772
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,880
Speaker 1: to other resources that gives you more information about the

773
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,240
Speaker 1: place you're looking for. It's kind of this whole idea

774
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 1: of marrying the physical world in the digital world so

775
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: that the two are integrated so tightly that we have

776
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: access to pretty much any kind of info you want

777
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: at any time you want, any place you want, which

778
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: has its benefits and its drawbacks. But I wanted to

779
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 1: also kind of touch back. We talked about this briefly,

780
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: but I wanted to talk a little bit about what

781
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:02,759
Speaker 1: happened with Apple. Right. So, Apple comes out with the

782
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: iPhone five as well as the release of the sixth

783
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 1: generation of iOS, the operating system for the iPhone and

784
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: iPad and iPod Touch, and for that it had developed

785
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 1: its own map system, Apple Maps, Apple Maps, and UH.

786
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 1: People began to notice that Google Maps was no longer

787
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: available within the Apple app Store, which I was struggling

788
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: to name earlier today, and then I got out, oh wait,

789
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,760
Speaker 1: yes they are the one that's called the app store,

790
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: but yes Google Maps. Google and Apple had had sort

791
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: of a a weird relationship, a love hate relationship. There

792
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: was a time when Eric Schmidt, who was at that

793
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 1: time the CEO of Google, he was also sitting on

794
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: the board of directors of Apple, and then eventually he

795
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: resigned his position as a member of the board of

796
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: directors UH, and he cited that it was because he

797
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: felt there was going to be an increasing conflict of

798
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:04,280
Speaker 1: interests between the two companies. And and in fact, there

799
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: were several reports that Steve Jobs was more than a

800
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 1: little put out when Android hit the market because he

801
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:17,320
Speaker 1: said that he felt that Android was copying Apple. Whether

802
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 1: or not you think that makes him somewhat hypocritical with

803
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: his sighting of Picasso saying that good artists borrow graad

804
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: are steele. Uh, that's beside the point. Anyway, the die

805
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 1: had been cast. There was this contentious relationship between Apple

806
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,280
Speaker 1: and Google, and then Apple released its Apple Maps app

807
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 1: that that introduced turn by turn navigation, which was a

808
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: huge deal. That was something that Apple users have been

809
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: asking for on the iPhone and had not gotten. They

810
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: have still not gotten. Yeah, well no, no, because Apple

811
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: Apple Maps does have it, but Apple Maps was buggy.

812
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 1: That was the problem. But that was the thing, was

813
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 1: that they were asking for it for ages U like,

814
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: and once Google Maps came out for Android and once

815
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,839
Speaker 1: it incorporated navigation. UH. I had a lot of friends

816
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 1: who had iPhones who were very much irritated by this

817
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:12,800
Speaker 1: because they said, well, you know, Apple leads the way

818
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 1: in the smartphone experience. They defined the smartphone experience for

819
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: the consumer in the United States at least several other

820
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: parts of the world as well. Why are they trailing

821
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: behind Google? And part of the reason was that, you know,

822
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: Google didn't really want to work with Apple so much,

823
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: and Apple didn't really want to work with Google so much.

824
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 1: There was enough tension there that UH that they were

825
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: they were increasingly becoming competitors in the market, and Google

826
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:38,280
Speaker 1: was like, I don't want to give you my toys.

827
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to keep those toys and that

828
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: way that differentiates my toys from your toys and the

829
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: way people will buy my toys and not your toys

830
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: and uh. And Apple was like, well, fine, we're gonna

831
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: make our own stuff and when which is a perfectly

832
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: valid response, I'm making it sound like they were being

833
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,840
Speaker 1: petulant children. That's not that's not the case. It's it

834
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 1: made perfect business. What what maybe he didn't make as

835
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:06,279
Speaker 1: much sense was that they released the maps app for iPhone,

836
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: possibly too early. Yes, there were a lot of people

837
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 1: who felt that the application was not as polished as

838
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:15,919
Speaker 1: it needed to be, and then it did, in fact

839
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: have lots of bugs in it. Now, Apple got its

840
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: map data from primarily from tom Tom, which has great data,

841
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:26,879
Speaker 1: which is pretty okay. Yeah they do, they do, all right, Yeah,

842
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: they they've they've got they know their stuff and you know,

843
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:32,359
Speaker 1: and we mentioned earlier Google gets their map data from

844
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: like sources and then has to merge it all together.

845
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 1: And Apple got it from more than just tom Tom,

846
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 1: but tom Tom was the primary source of the map

847
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 1: data for Apple. So something was going on between the

848
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 1: data that they were receiving and the implementation of the

849
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: application itself that made it less accurate. There's something wiggy

850
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 1: in that algorithm that we were talking about earlier, that

851
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: actually pulls the the important information out and presents it

852
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, so you might not notice that there

853
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 1: is a river in the way of your route because

854
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: Apple failed to pay attention to that. Or there was

855
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: a pretty well reported incident where the Government of Australia said,

856
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:19,839
Speaker 1: don't use Apple Maps because it's it's taking this one

857
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 1: route that should go a fairly simple way and putting

858
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: people through. Yeah, it was a desert. It was essentially

859
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: it was essentially routing people through a huge desert that

860
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 1: was a part of an enormous park in Australia. And

861
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: the fear was that people would be using the application

862
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:40,359
Speaker 1: to try and go someplace, they would get rerouted through

863
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 1: the desert, lose signal, lose signal and not have enough

864
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: gas to get out and they're stuck in the desk.

865
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 1: And then accidental walkabouts are not really Yeah, and in

866
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: Australia at the time of the story, it was just

867
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: starting to get into summer. You know here it's here

868
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 1: it's winter because we live on the upright side of

869
00:47:57,600 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 1: the world and they live on the upside downside of

870
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:04,399
Speaker 1: the world. I love you Australians also Kiwi's I Love

871
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: you too. It's Jonathan nineteen again. I totally know where

872
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 1: I am. I just don't know where I'm going anymore.

873
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take another quick break. So this was

874
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: this was a big issue, and so it was a

875
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: double whammy, right because they kicked Google out of the store,

876
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 1: the Apple app was not fully baked. In fact, famously,

877
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: the guy who was in charge of the whole iOS

878
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:41,800
Speaker 1: thing was asked to leave Apple, became a consultant and

879
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: then was kind of pushed out. Yeah, I mean it was.

880
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: It was a huge hubbub. I had so much of

881
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:52,319
Speaker 1: that hubbub coming through, coming through my internet perceptors that

882
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: I just did not even update my phone. I use

883
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: an iPhone and I did not upgrade. I didn't want

884
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: to mess with Apple Maps. I chow was to ignore

885
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: the entire situation, and and a lot of people did that.

886
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: And about three months later, so it was late December

887
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 1: of two thou mid to late December been mid December

888
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: when Google Maps reappeared in the App Store, complete with

889
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: turn by turn navigation and uh and Google took the

890
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:22,879
Speaker 1: opportunity to kind of twist the knife a little bit

891
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:26,800
Speaker 1: and talk about how great their map data was. Keeping

892
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: in mind again, the Apple data wasn't necessarily what was wrong.

893
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,760
Speaker 1: It was something else between the data and the implementation.

894
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:36,400
Speaker 1: But at anyway, Google definitely took a little bit of

895
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 1: time to kind of say, look, how awesome we are. Yeah,

896
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:41,879
Speaker 1: well they they also, I mean it became the most

897
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:45,319
Speaker 1: popular download within hours on the app Store. You know,

898
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:49,959
Speaker 1: clearly people had been clamoring for it, and and that

899
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: um also I might have I might have missed this

900
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: one on my timeline. But but in December of two

901
00:49:55,800 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, Google Maps hit one billion monthly active users.

902
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people trying to find their way

903
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,759
Speaker 1: to the same restaurants I'm going to. So why I

904
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 1: can never get in? I just need to be a

905
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 1: little more famous people, just a little more famous. I'm

906
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 1: not quite famous enough to get a good table at

907
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: a restaurant. So if you guys can help me with that,

908
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:20,759
Speaker 1: that'd be awesome. If you can clout me up in

909
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: good table and restaurant, I would really appreciate it. I

910
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 1: don't know that that's going to help, but you know,

911
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: I can't hurt you can. You can bring in your

912
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 1: phone and just say, like I have cluses, look at me.

913
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: Look how important I am. Yeah. Yeah, McDonald's does not

914
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 1: take that serious. Now do it and do what you can. Listeners,

915
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: keep us, keep us well fed. Yeah, so we wanted

916
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:45,839
Speaker 1: to kind of conclude this episode talking about what is

917
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: in store for Google Maps. What's the future, like, you

918
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: know what? What is Google working towards to make Google

919
00:50:53,120 --> 00:51:00,120
Speaker 1: Maps even more interesting and yet potentially worrisome? It's just

920
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 1: the way it is. Again, what was that? What was

921
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 1: there catchphrase from earlier? I have zero I'm looking goldfish

922
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 1: reassuring and yet terrifying. Something like that, re you sharing

923
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:11,920
Speaker 1: and yet terrified. I don't have my business cards, I

924
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 1: can't tell you for sure. Um. According to uh to

925
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,320
Speaker 1: Michael Jones, who is one of the employees at Google,

926
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: the chief technology Advocate, I think his is his title.

927
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 1: It is a great title. Google names things so well.

928
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: I'm jealous of their entire marketing department. But um, his

929
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:34,720
Speaker 1: his vision of the future. Um he was just talking

930
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 1: about the other day in interview, is that Google really

931
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:43,800
Speaker 1: wants to provide individualized information on the go, which means

932
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 1: that as you're as you're walking down a street with

933
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 1: your Google Maps app open, it might start telling you like,

934
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: oh hey, scene from your favorite movie was filmed in

935
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:54,279
Speaker 1: that lot over there, Maybe you want to go check

936
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: that out. Or oh hey, you really like Vietnamese food,

937
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: and the highest rated Vietnamese restaurant within a five mile

938
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:01,680
Speaker 1: radi is right over there on the other side of

939
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: the block, so you might want to go check that

940
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: that out. It's pretty cool, I mean, but the idea

941
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: here is that Google is not just using your previous

942
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 1: use of Google Maps to determine this. They're using everything

943
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: like your actual search history, your search history, your Google

944
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:21,920
Speaker 1: Plus account, all of that integrated information that starts getting

945
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 1: just a little bit stockery. Yeah, and you wonder to

946
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 1: what extent could this go to? And I made some

947
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 1: very goofy ridiculous examples to Lauren before the show, which

948
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: I'm not going to repeat because really it's just they

949
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:39,759
Speaker 1: got silly. But the point being that if if you like,

950
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 1: let's say that you have a job, and you you've

951
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:45,799
Speaker 1: logged into a job version of your Gmail um and

952
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 1: your job is with the CDC. Sure, so you might

953
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:52,720
Speaker 1: do a lot of different searches on very specific types

954
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: of health problems. What would Google Maps think of that? Like,

955
00:52:57,640 --> 00:52:59,440
Speaker 1: where would the Google maps, like do you want to

956
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: go to the clinic? I mean, it's me, it's you know.

957
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 1: It just it raises questions now, and then from a

958
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 1: from a broader perspective, Let's say that you're using your

959
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 1: own personal Google account and you do a lot of

960
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 1: you know, bizarre searches. Uh, it kind of makes you wonder,

961
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 1: like how much of this it gets personalized. It's supposed

962
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:20,680
Speaker 1: to be anonymous, so Google is not supposed to actually

963
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:24,399
Speaker 1: know that that this is tied to you personally. Again,

964
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the royal you. It's that. It's it's

965
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 1: not you, Jane Smith. It's it's it's the person who

966
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: does these searches and goes to these places would like

967
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:36,320
Speaker 1: these things. And it's hard for us to kind of

968
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: reconcile that in our heads and divorce that from who

969
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: we are personally. So it starts to feel like Google

970
00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: not only knows where we go and what we do,

971
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: but it's telling us what to do now and we

972
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:51,440
Speaker 1: need to follow those instructions carefully. Um, it is a

973
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:55,279
Speaker 1: little weird. Now, this being said, I personally think that

974
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: it's kind of an interesting thing, and I'm I'm more

975
00:53:57,760 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: I'm open minded enough to say, bring it on. I

976
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 1: want to see how this works out. And I want

977
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: to see like the kind of suggestions Google comes up with.

978
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: Absolutely and Uh, I've been using field Trip, which is

979
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:10,839
Speaker 1: a Google app. I talked about it with Chris in

980
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: a previous episode a few episodes ago, where it's it's

981
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 1: a location based service that looks at where you are

982
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:20,800
Speaker 1: based upon you know, occasionally it's pining your your device

983
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:24,640
Speaker 1: to see where you are based upon your either cellular

984
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: triangulation or GPS or whatever. And then it says, let's

985
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:29,920
Speaker 1: take a quick look in this area and see if

986
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:32,799
Speaker 1: there's anything the area that would interest him and you

987
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: kind of or her and you you kind of let

988
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 1: the app know what you are, what your interests are. Okay,

989
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 1: So it's not broad categories I want sports or I

990
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 1: don't want restaurants. Mine as always I want food is

991
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: always a food in history. Those are the two that

992
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:50,799
Speaker 1: I will always pick. And so I get a lot

993
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: of stuff like best Beignet's in Atlanta, which honestly not

994
00:54:54,719 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 1: a lot of competition there, but uh and uh and anyway,

995
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 1: Uh it's a parish by the way. Anyway, the p

996
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:09,840
Speaker 1: A R I s H Free plug uh the any Anyway,

997
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:14,719
Speaker 1: the the app does this by by checking its database

998
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:18,759
Speaker 1: and and referencing against your physical location and occasionally giving

999
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 1: you stuff. And you can even tell it how frequently

1000
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:22,520
Speaker 1: you went up to how often I want them all

1001
00:55:22,520 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: the bloody time, or do it or only when I

1002
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:28,000
Speaker 1: opened the app or sometime in between. I've got it

1003
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: in the in between because I don't want to get

1004
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 1: I don't want my phone vibrating every five seconds thinking

1005
00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:34,080
Speaker 1: I've got a message and it turns out it's hey,

1006
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:37,719
Speaker 1: there's a place that sells burgers. You like food, And

1007
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't need it quite that frequently, but

1008
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 1: that that's kind of an example of what Google Maps

1009
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:45,400
Speaker 1: could incorporate in the future. But in the case of

1010
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 1: Google Maps, it would be even more personal, so it

1011
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:49,319
Speaker 1: would be based like if if it noticed that I

1012
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:52,239
Speaker 1: had done a lot of searches for like Indian food.

1013
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 1: I love Indian food, and there are only a few

1014
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 1: restaurants that I know of that serve really good, authentic

1015
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:01,279
Speaker 1: Indian food that are near me. I know there are

1016
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 1: a lot more that are further out of my neighborhood.

1017
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 1: So I've done a lot of searches. Well in the future,

1018
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 1: Google Maps will be taking uh, well, we'll notice second

1019
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,960
Speaker 1: of stuff. It'll cross reference with my search history. And

1020
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: let's say I go to some other city, like I

1021
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:19,760
Speaker 1: don't know, London and says, hey, you like Indian food,

1022
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 1: let me tell you where to go. We've got We've

1023
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: got a thing for you. Yeah you want some kebabs,

1024
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: we can give you kebabs, or if you want real

1025
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 1: Indian food, if you want if you want the various

1026
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:35,320
Speaker 1: curries or vende loose I'm a vendeloo fiend then um yeah,

1027
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 1: So I mean in that sense, it's interesting, but there

1028
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: is still this lingering fear that perhaps this information is

1029
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 1: somehow being tied to us as our identities, and that

1030
00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: it could that it could be stored or us and

1031
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:52,600
Speaker 1: get used against us in some way, or or even

1032
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 1: even just some people get a little bit creeped out.

1033
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: I get a little bit creeped out that I'm being

1034
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,759
Speaker 1: advertised to so specifically. Sometimes I mean, when it's when

1035
00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 1: that's useful, it's terrific, But very occasionally I just get

1036
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 1: this pin in the back of my head that's like,

1037
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:07,759
Speaker 1: why does it know that about me? It makes me

1038
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:10,480
Speaker 1: think that in the future we're all going to only

1039
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:13,880
Speaker 1: see the stuff that we are truly interested in and

1040
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: not see all the other stuff that we're not interested

1041
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:22,000
Speaker 1: And I'm okay with that because occasionally I I flipped

1042
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 1: through something like Reddit or I'm randomly changing channels, and

1043
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: I think I could have lived happy ever knowing that

1044
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 1: that was a thing. And if I have my life

1045
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:34,920
Speaker 1: where I mean, granted, it also means that you're it

1046
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 1: also means you you're less adventurous and all. Yeah, yeah,

1047
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean the process of discovery is really terrific.

1048
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 1: And also I mean, what will it Will it de

1049
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: authenticate the process of discovery? Will you never again have

1050
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,920
Speaker 1: the terrific feeling of walking down the street and going, hey,

1051
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: that hole in the wall looks terrific and walking in

1052
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 1: and having one of the best meals of your life. Yeah, yeah,

1053
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:53,520
Speaker 1: I mean there are a lot of questions here. Maybe

1054
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: maybe Google will build that into the algorithm where occasionally,

1055
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 1: just so like you know, Lauren never comes out of

1056
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:04,360
Speaker 1: her shell. Just down the street is a tap dancing

1057
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:08,480
Speaker 1: and jazz dancing uh school. We're going to convince her

1058
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:10,960
Speaker 1: to go in there and take classes, and then she's

1059
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:13,720
Speaker 1: gonna have a recital and everyone's gonna go. It's not recital,

1060
00:58:13,760 --> 00:58:17,920
Speaker 1: is it whatever? The dance equivalent is absolutely no clue. Anyway,

1061
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 1: we'll see. That's that's why it would pop up for you,

1062
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: because it would say, like, you know what Lauren needs.

1063
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 1: She needs to get out more, she needs to needs

1064
00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: to to shed this shy exterior and and just let

1065
00:58:30,200 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: her inner choreographer shine. I think I think that if

1066
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 1: Google can talk, that is in fact what it would

1067
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 1: say about me. I'm pretty sure Google would never stop

1068
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: slapping me. Just grow up, grow up Strickland pretty much

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00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 1: what I would get all the time. That's that's what

1070
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 1: if it weren't for a for a employee handbook laws here,

1071
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:54,320
Speaker 1: it has to work, so I'm sure that would happen

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00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 1: in the office. I've not slapped here. It's fine, it's happened, Josh.

1073
00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:06,000
Speaker 1: Josh alternately praises me and hits me. It's it's nice,

1074
00:59:06,240 --> 00:59:13,080
Speaker 1: k fans. They are great people. And that wraps up

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00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:16,600
Speaker 1: this classic episode about Google Maps. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

1076
00:59:16,960 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future episodes, you can

1077
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 1: send me a message. The address is tech stuff at

1078
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. You can drop me a

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00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter to handle it. Both of

1080
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 1: those is text Stuff h s W. And you can

1081
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 1: go to our website that's text Stuff podcast dot com.

1082
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 1: You can search the archive of every episode ever published.

1083
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:40,680
Speaker 1: You can find a link to our online store where

1084
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 1: you can purchase tex Stuff merch. Every purchase you make

1085
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:46,200
Speaker 1: goes to help the show. We greatly appreciate it, and

1086
00:59:46,240 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Yeah. Text

1087
00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:56,200
Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.

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00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:59,160
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i

1089
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.