TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Navigates Google Maps

published on February first, two thousand thirteen. It is called tech Stuff navigates Google Maps and yeah, I'd be lost without it, so it's good that we actually covered this. Lauren Vogelbaum and I dove into this topic and I hope you enjoy this classic episode. It is the end of a long day here at How Stuff Works Headquarters. I don't know where I am anymore, which is good

because we're talking about Google Maps. So hopefully I will be able to find some direction in my life by the end of the show, because we live in the incredible Sure. So you have a cell phone in your pocket? Right? Uh? Well, technically my cellphones at my desk, but normally, yes, I would in fact have it in my pocket. Okay, you have hypothetical cell phone in your hypothetical pocket. I'll roll with that and therefore you were connected to a network

of systems that knows exactly where you are. It's both reassuring and yet terrifying, which I think should be the slogan for Google Maps. I used to have that on my business card, Jonathan Strickland. Reassuring and yet terrifying. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about Google Maps now. Now, Lauren, I know and your research because we alluded to it

earlier before we actually sat down at the microphones. You said you had sort of a kind of a grand scale timeline of the Google Maps experience, which is not what I was looking up. So I would be fascinating to hear a little bit more about this, of course. Yes, and this is an extremely comple complex timeline that I that I paged together from a single document that Google has up on its website. So don't don't tell them how the sausage is made, Laurena. We are brilliant. They

don't know that. I actually want to go a little bit back before their timeline starts, which was when map Quest launched. Oh yeah, now see, I remember the map Quest days, folks. For those of you who have never used the web, back in the mid nineties. That quest was a revelation because it was this idea that, hey, there's this place I want to go, but I don't read maps very well. I don't like having to sit there and stare at intersections, and I don't I don't know.

I don't understand how the folding works, or I have purchased the right one for this area. I don't know which streets are one way versus two way, and then I end up making a plan that ends up wrecking about a dozen cars, and I'm in a Michael Bay movie. Suddenly these are all bad things in my personal experience. Uh, Michael Bay, if you want me in your next movie, call me anyway. I can't explode the But the important

thing here was that you could actually plot out a pathway. Now, back then that was pre mobile web for most parts, so you ended up having to physically print the document that would give you the turn by turn directions and then take that with you in the car, in the place of a more traditional map, which the company that created map Quest actually began by making traditional maps, and

they still do. I think right probably you couldn't You could even have a voice turn by turn if you had a passenger read out, Hey, you know that street we just passed. We totally should have turned there. They could do it in a robot voice if they if you really want them to. Almost every single person who's written with me eventually starts to talk like a robot. That's interesting and all right for reassuring and terrifying. I'm

not sure if that one's reassuring at all anyway. Um So, so yeah, let's you know, map Quest enjoyed a good several years on the web, pretty much unrivaled, and then then in two thousand four, Google which at the time, do you know what Google was doing in two thousand four, L for sho jesus see when Google incorporates I would have been discussing with Yahoo in two thousand No, I don't know what happened in well neither do I. So

this is like, this is terrific. That's awesome. So that was a question of true you really wanted to know a lot of curiosity. I bet Google was looking around. Well, okay, so at this time Google had already started to figure out how to monetize search. Okay, so this part I can talk about just off the top of my head, Google had cracked the code on monetizing search. And in fact, if you look at Google as a company, a lot of analysts will tell you Google really is an ad company,

not a search company. They serve up ads. They happen to do that primarily through search. Well, they also determined that searching it goes beyond just searching for a term and getting a web page back. It also could mean finding ways to get to stuff. Now, Google did not necessary really have the people in the house to develop that sort of technology from the ground up, right, and that is why they acquired two companies. They acquired where

to and also Keyhole UM. Now, where Too was a Sydney based company UM Design run by two Danish brothers, I believe, and yes, I can never say that, so I'm glad that you did um and uh. And Keyhole was the company UM that had the software that would become Google Earth. Okay, all right, So yeah, so you've got the foundations for mapping software and and Google Earth, which Google Earth is a is a wonderful tool and

it's really super cool. We will not be talking a lot about Google Earth in this podcast because it really goes outside the realm of what we're chatting about We might allude to it once or twice, but it's sort of its own thing as opposed to you know, it's like a separate product from Google Map. Sure, bits of it have been integrated to Google Maps to make it the rich experience that it is today, but for the

most part it is a separate issue. Yeah, but but integral to to creating the Google Maps experience that that we know of today. Sure. So that was That was two thousand four, two thousand five, UM February is when the project of Google Maps was announced on the Google blog. And at that time, Google Maps was available only through two web browsers. Those web browsers were Bob's who lived in No wait, no, I'm sorry, web browsers, not just two people. One was an Internet Explorer, which was at

the time the dominant, overwhelmingly dominant browser. It's interesting to see like the whole rise and fall of the various browsers. Uh. And the other one was not Netscape. Netscape was already off the charts at that point. It was Mozilla, which we would eventually think of as Firefox because Firefox it was not you know, Firefox is not Firefox is a direct descendant of Mozilla, but it's kind of a branch it split off. But anyway, at the time, those are

the two browsers that supported Google Maps right um. Also in two thousand five, in June, Google Earth and Google Maps API both launched. Right API that's an applications program that allows developers to create stuff that works with whatever it is the product is. So lots of different products have this, not just in Google Application programming interfaces. Technically what API stands for so this is an interface that lets you build extra cool stuff that uses the technology

developed by someone else. So Facebook, for example, has an API that allows people to build the various games and other apps that run within the context of Facebook. So the Google Maps API gave opportunities to other web pages

to have this stuff integrated into their page. So you might see this was kind of a response to hackers who hackers were sit there and they were kind of reverse engineering Google Maps to figure out how it worked and to try and give it new abilities based upon their own experience, and Google eventually said, you know what, let's just go ahead and create an API to make

this easier because there's some really cool stuff happening out there. Yeah, and also once you once you give people the capacity to use your product on their page, then you can add your advertising into it. And yet again they are an advertising company. A lot more people use your stuff if you make it easier to use. Who would have funked it? Absolutely insane? Um And in October of two five, Maps for Mobile launched and uh and that was that was back early enough in in cell phone service industry

that maybe not that many people were capable of using it. Yeah, two thousand five, you're talking about a time when uh uh, you know smartphones. If you listen to our history of Smartphones episodes and if you have it, it's okay, we'll wait. But you know that that's pretty early on in the history of smartphones. I mean, until we hit two thousand seven, when the iPhone comes out, smartphones did not really become

a big thing in the consumer market. I mean, we had prosumers and executives who people in the business market, people who needed to be connected to their email all the time and bury all that kind of stuff above our pay grade. You know, they were taking advantage of this stuff. But yeah, it's kind of interesting that the Google got into that. Now, granted it makes perfect sense, right, because it's again, why why are you using these map

programs in the first place. It's usually because you have to find your way to some other location, and so it makes us to do that most often, possibly business travelers have people who are going places. It turns out that if you want to get from point A to point B, it's not always convenient to carry a desktop computer with you in the way. Yes, yes, um, okay, yeah. And then then two thousand and six was when um, some of Google Earth's satellite images started to be integrated

into maps. Very cool, making everything shiny um. And then in July, Live traffic on mobile launched also cool. Yeah, traffic is very cool. Yeah, we'll talk a little bit about how they do that later on. It's neat, Yes, it's mostly neat. It knows where you are, but but not you just you there. We go pretty much summed it up, but we will repeat it later in the show. Don't worry with a little bit more clarity and fewer pronouns. Uh so yeah. Two thousand seven was when my Maps launched.

My Maps being um uh the capacity for individual users to make customized, shareable maps without using that fancy API kind of stuff and needing to have an actual developer working in things cool. So this weird idea, like, uh, if you want to create a map that showed off, say a particular hiking route or jogging route or something, and you could send it off to someone else saying this is what I use because it's really well lit,

it's safe, neighborhoods. That kind of stuff very useful. Yeah. Yeah, if you're having a progressive dinner party and you want to show people the route from one house to the next, something like that progressive dinner party, it sounds like a different thing than it is. I usually have aggressive dinner parties where I just I just received further and further into the background that everyone who's listening is like, that is so not true. He just gets more and more boisterous,

he does. But I have I have no transitions for any of these in in may view, it was a thing that he um and and that was that was when that was when they put some cameras on top of some cars and sent them out into the world and took a whole bunch of pictures of everything, upsetting some people, which we will talk about again later on in the podcast. Um, but but but giving you giving you the capacity to visit a place that you have never been and get an idea of what it's like

to walk around there. Very useful. I I used this when I took a up to New York so I could figure out where I needed to go to catch the subway, and so I was looking for visual cues because uh, I'm a Southerner and I was lost in New York City and uh speaking speaking of which, a Google Transit was then integrated into Maps in October. Yes, very useful, so extremely useful, especially for people who do

not drive. Yes, this this is the product that lets you look up things like public transportation schedules in various cities. And you know they roll it out gradually. You know they have to incorporate the data from various cities to to get it back to you. But it it is

really really nifty. I use it all the time here in Atlanta, where I'm going someplace where you know, I don't regularly go there, and I want to know, okay, well, if I need to get there by a certain time, what time do I need to leave my house or to to make that happen. So yeah, very useful tool. Yeah. In April of two tho then walking directions were added, further furthering the capacity. I'm seeing capacity a lot. This episode's okay, I often say the word pumpkin for no

apparent reason. Pump in technology podcasts. I can't explain it. Excellent walking directions April two eight, and then uh Matt Maker in August, which let people start to write in with changes um corrections to Google Maps, which is one of the really big important things we think about the software. We'll definitely get into that too, Yes, um. October was

Maps for Android launched, something that I use frequently. I mean, seriously, it's one of It's one of the reasons why I don't think I could ever go back from having a smartphone. Is the map feature. Absolutely, I mean they are integral to my use. I do not remember what I did before I had that information on my phone. I certainly don't remember where I was. I spent a lot of

time printing out directions. October of two nine my next plot point in this in this audio drama, and that was turned by turn Navigation and Android, another thing I use a lot, which, Yeah, back to that robot voice. You don't have to have a friend speaking in a robot voice. Anymore, your your phone. You can be friendless and your phone will do that for you. I actually count my phone as one of my closest friends, because otherwise the list is really short. Two thousand and ten,

biking directions added. Yeah, yeah, that that's also pretty cool now, and again this is one of those things that the crowdsourcing comes in handy. We'll talk about that again, but yeah. By by August of two thousand ten, google maps mobile heads surpassed a hundred million monthly users. That's a bunch.

That's more than two um and uh making making google Maps in fact so big um and so popular that by November there was this really interes sting news item where there was an international dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Oh yeah, I read about this. So from what I understand, you had the borders were established between Nicaragua and Costa Rican.

This is a border that's been it was. It was a disputed border, which Google Maps, by the way, will mark in red on international borders right are in dispute. But but it had been settled in one way and uh, and then Nicaragua started to dig dig out part of the river that separates the two countries, like they were dredging the river, and technically they were dredging the river on the Costa Rica side of the border, because they took some exceptions. Costa Rica was like, hey, dude, what

are you doing? Except by saying hey dude, they actually sent an armed group of people to stand at the border of the river and stare directly at the Nicaragua side and then the over and on the Nicaragua side. You had the government say wait, wait, wait, Google Maps says the is on our side, whereas I think anyone would tell you that was probably a disingenuous move that yeah, yeah, that might have been. That might have been a little bit of a passing the buck. But anyway, multiply it was.

It was resolved that they were in fact on the Costa Rica side, and they withdrew and uh and then Google also amended the map. But that's not the only time it's happened. There have been other cases where the particularly around bodies of water, because it's it's hard to see the dotted line underneath because it's always underneath all that water, so it's really hard to tell where the border is, and Google sometimes will uh you know, in their maps they have it laid out one way and

in quote unquote reality, which your mileage may vary. Uh, it's it's a different it's a different layout. So there have been cases like that. Yeah, right right, But you know, just just the fact that it was big enough that that a government could sit there and say, well, Google Map said, is impressive to me. I you know, I'm also we can justify this war because Google said this. I mean, gad, there was no war here. I don't

want to I'm obviously exaggerating for effect, but um, but yeah. Um. Two thousand and eleven, uh, Android had Indoor Maps premiere, which is the fun thing where if you get lost, for example, in a mall instead of in a neighborhood, um, you can call up a map on your Android device and have it tell you where to go. Um. And then in two thousand and twelve, which which we are

just recently out of, Google Plus Local premiered um. And towards the end of the year, Apple and Google Maps had some exciting things happen in that Apple totally kicked Google Maps at the App Store for the premiere about three months about three months. Yeah, it wasn't until December that it came back. So but we will also talk about that a little bit later on in the episode. Yeah. Well, and and now I think I'm gonna take a little bit of time here to talk about the nuts and

bolts that Google maps. Um, this is uh, this is the technical part of our episode. And I'm not going to get too deep into this because, for one thing, it would be very difficult to really really dive into it in an audio format. I kind of need visuals to help we can gesticulate all we want. Again, it's not really going to come from helping Lauren. But beyond that, unfortunately it's lost. But but a couple of things I wanted to talk about before I really get into the

nuts and bolts. First of all, with the satellite imagery, that's kind of interesting in that there have been cases. You know, we talked about the border dispute, there have also been cases where Google has been asked by various entities to blur out some of their satellite imagery, which we should also point out Google is partnering with other companies to get the data and the images. It's not

that Google has satellites encircling the earth constantly taking photos. Uh. So the satellite imagery is acquired through other other partners. But there have been times where Google has blurred stuff out. In some cases, it no longer does blur out a few of those places like the White House, that kind

of thing, right, but it used to be facilities. Um some it's like like like like military basis would be a big one, right, And and so there have been ties where Google has blurred that stuff out a little bit to make it less likely that someone might use Google Maps in a military strike against a target, that kind of thing. Also, Uh, if you ever wanted to know what Area fifty one looks like, you can actually see that on Google Maps. Yeah, you can see its

satellite you. Oh yeah, no, it's it's it's there now. Granted, you know, we should also point out the Area fifty one hasn't really been an active secret base for a while. They moved that we would have to talk to the conspiracy stuff guys. I'm pretty sure they're in Colorado now actually,

and that's not a joke. I think they're really. I think the new base where a lot of the secret Air Force stuff where they're doing test flights of secret aircraft is out of Colorado and not area if if do you want anymore, Um, that's just off the top of my head. But anyway, it is on there if you want to take a look at it. But getting into the nuts and bolts, it all starts with a

project at Google that they call ground Truth. Now, if you think about all the Google maps you've seen in the various ways that you can customize it, where you can put push pens in, you can put different routes in, and you can view it in a million different ways, ground Truth is kind of the focal point of all that.

Think of it as like the proto map. It has all this data and we're talking terabytes of data here that are going into making the maps what they are, and that kind of terrifying amount of data that we can't even really deal with on a mental level because think about the stuff that's involved in a Google map. You've got the actual graphical representation of the map up, so you've got you know, streets, You've got you might have you know, outlines of buildings, you have uh, the

names of landmarks, that kind of stuff. On top of that, all of those those pieces of information are linked to um coordinates right, physical coordinates right exactly, so latitude and longitude you know that those are all identified, so that when you look at a map, you're looking at it the correct you know way. It's not just a bunch of random places. Hey, Now Rushmore is right next to the Grand Canyon, which is right next to Disney World. And I mean that's not a little bit more precise

than it used to be. Is all we're saying. We have we have precisely to scale right. And then on top of that, you have things like business names included in this information. It's it's lots of info all together, and it's all there because you need to be able to look at the map in one of a billion

different ways. So all this data is there, and then Google's algorithms are what have to make sense of the information and display the information that's relevant to you in the context that you are using the maps in when you when you go in and say, hey, I want traffic, HAIR want satellite, Hey I want to know how to get from point A to point B versus, Hey, I want to know how many different pizza places are around point B versus I want to know where the top

rated restaurant in San Francisco. Is these are all different contexts you can use Google Maps in, and so it has to be able to be very flexible. Now when you're actually looking at Google Maps, what you're looking at is uh that has a top side a top bar in a sidebar, and those are just basic HTML. So it's just like which hypertext markup language. It's the stuff that the web is made of and dreams as it turns out that parts of life and then the rest of it it all well, originally it was all XML,

which is extensible markup language. Now, extensible markup language is a way of telling a client, meaning a web browser in this case, how to display the information. So it's a set of instructions that says, here's all this data, and here's how you show the data to the person looking at it. Okay, So it's just a set of instructions, really, is what it What it boils down to. These days, didn't they switch to a to a JavaScript object. They've got Java script. Yeah, it's all JavaScript and it's all

um it's JavaScript is what they program everything in. I mean, it's essentially Back when it first started, this was a C plus plus program. That was back when the Dutch brothers were working on it, and now it's uh, now it's all JavaScript stuff, but yeah, it's uh. You know, it was really heavily using x m L and UH and something called x s t L which is extensible

style sheet language. You would apply that to the XML to get h t m L. All of that is just very technical, and it also ultimately doesn't really matter because they kind of switched to something called maps g L, which is a variant of the Web Graphics Library. That's the Java script you're talking about, part of the JavaScript Application Programming interface, and it renders interactive graphics, which is what Google Maps are. It's an interactive graphic that you

can play with. It's actually really kind of cool the way that works. Um. I have to give a lot of credit, uh to Joel Webber. Now, Joel Webber is is a former graduate of Georgia Tech, but I don't hold that against him. Go Bulldogs, I'm a Gator. Oh oh well, then Joel and I both hate you. You learn things every day, right, so I mean, granted, I never once went to a football game, and I was not on the football team, so you weren't you don't have to hate me that much. She moves like a

running back is all I'm saying. Um, anyway, what that means? I think running back is in baseball. So anyway, steroid, Sorry back to but no no. Joel Webber had he took a lot of initiative early early on in Google Maps. He thought it was a very interesting product, and then he began to reverse engineer it and kind of learned the way it worked. So it wasn't until fairly recently the Google started talking about what makes Google Maps tick.

In fact, I would say I think it was like two thousand twelve when they started letting journalists come in and they were essentially giving uh kind of a symposium on an overview of how it works. But before that, it took people who were actually to dig into it exactly, and Joel Weber was one of those guys. And he still has quite a bit of information up on the web that explains what he did and and sort of

what he learned. And among those things, he learned that the the center pain that the actual map that you're looking at is made up of a grid of tiles, and that grid is a hundred and twenty eight wide and tall. Not all of those tiles are in view of the map. So so I think of the think of the map is kind of cutting off. It's it's the center of this tiled puzzle and the border around it. There are tiles that are outside of your your vision, okay, and you know you can dragon and move the map around.

You know, you hold down the mouse button and you pull the mouse across and then the map moves. I believe the Google term for this, by the way, is slippy map. Yes, which I love this And it turns out the slippy map. The reason it works is that every single image you're looking at is absolutely positioned, and when you scroll, it is essentially picking up the tiles that are off screen on one side and placing them

down on the other side. If you want to think of like a different way of of imagining this, Joel had a great example. Just imagine that you're on a train and the way that you continue moving forward is that you pick up the track you've just crossed over and you put it down in front of you so you can keep going. So as you're moving, your remove moving the track behind you and putting it in front of you, and that way, you just you don't have to end up generating the entire map, which would be

a huge drain on resources. It's clipping it down to just the integral, right, and exactly the stuff that you need. It can cash stuff that happens to be around. And again you've got you've got stuff that's two or three or four fifty tiles off the border, right, so as you're pulling your first seeing stuff that's already loaded up, it's just wasn't in your view, right, and then the tiles that are essentially moving to the other side are starting to pull the data necessary in case you keep

going that way. So it gives you the sort of infinite scroll ability um. And also it's it's very much a client side application. And what we mean by that is that while it's pulling data from servers, from Google servers, which has you know, have all this information, the most of the work is being done within the client, so on your computer, within the web browser, on your smartphone whatever,

that's what's doing most of the work. And the good thing about that is it means that frees up the servers on Google side, because lots of people are using this, right, and we talked about how more than two, and we talked about how many different ways you can use it.

So with that in mind, with all the different ways you can use it, all the data that Google is holding, and the number of people, it's important that we that Google had designed it, and I say we that Google had designed the system in such a way that it doesn't bog down the server side or else. Every time we would try to use Google Maps, it would take forever. And because a lot of that work is being done by our devices, it means that you know, if there's

something slow to computer's fault. That's not exactly true, because I mean there could be other issues obviously, but in general, it means that the system works more smoothly than it would if it was all server side. So I mean, like I said, I could get further into the actual nuts and bolts of what Google Maps is doing and how it's doing it, but ultimately I think it would

be more confusing than helpful. And also, we're getting to a point now where I have got to be completely upfront and honest with you guys, Like all of this I've got a pretty good handle on, but when I started going further in, it's going into a level of development and programming that's beyond my own personal experience. So at that point, I'd just be like, well, according to this, this word that I don't know affects this other word I don't know, and I'd rather just spare everybody that

thank you, You're welcome. Hey guys, it's Jonathan from nineteen and I am so lost while I get my bearings. Let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor, and now back to the show. Alright, So, one of the many top that we said that we were going to come back to was Google street View. And the reason that we wanted to come back to this is that it has been a little bit contentious because it's this fabulous technology that, like we said, let's you visit a

place that you've never been to. Let's you walk around an area that you are perhaps going to visit or are just curious about, without having to get on a plane and get out in the wet, in the rain and the cold. You know, it lets you do more

once you get to a location. However, unlets you do more when you get to a location by virtue of the fact that it's taken detailed pictures of that location, including for example, the cars and people and children and dogs that were walking by when the photography was taken. And some people had a problem with this. Some people said, hey, maybe maybe my baby should not be on Google street View. Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have that picture of me coming out

of the adult entertainment establishment, uh in downtown Atlanta. So that now whenever anyone looks at said adult entertainment establishment on Google street View, they see that, by the way, is a generic me, not me me. It's the royal me. I guess, I guess how that works. But but no, that's exactly that's exactly right there. There were several communities not and also individuals that objected to Google street View, saying that, uh, it violated privacy, that they felt it

was kind of creepy. There were people who who said that this is going to turn into a tool for thieves to use so they can they can virtually case a house without ever having to actually go into the neighborhood. Sure, sure, for the kind of higher paranoia of this is going to turn into a government tool for those countries that do not have CCTV already. Sure, yeah, yeah, or or that uh, you know, maybe the day that Google street View went through my neighborhood was after I had not

not taking care of my lawn yet. And so now the later when you try to sell your house exactly and people like, m, that's a dump. Yeah, it may very well be any of those things. Now, the flip side of that is that there were people who had fun with Google street They would see that the Google

street View. They would either know that the car was scheduled to go down the street at a certain time, or they would see it and they would stage various humorous things to happen so that it would be captured by the Google street View car as it went by. We've talked about some of these in previous episodes of Tech Stuff, where there were people who would create a virtual parade on on a street and yeah, it's fantastic.

If you look at Google street View and you look at you know, art projects or parade that kind of stuff, it will pull these these images up and you can actually see how creative people were. I saw one where I was a group of larper's all in uh full foam, gearing on each other. Wonderful. You're going through a suburban neighborhood and like there's a melee happening. Um. I mean if it were me, I know what I would want

to do. Like anytime I knew that there was gonna be a Google street View car going through New York, I would be like, Okay, guys, it's Warriors. Causplay time. Who wants to be the baseball furies? Who wants to be the high hats? We are gonna go out there and bangers. We are gonna make some noise. Can you dig it? That's probably the whitest can you dig it? I think it probably was. History is being made right here. Come out and play a dear. That's a documentary for

you folks out there for Warriors. Late seventies look important, important information. But yeah, so so it's gonne, you know, both with the privacy issues and as well as like people you know, taking advantage of it to have some fun. I think I think for the most part, Google enjoys the whole let's have fun with it thing as long as it's within the realms of you know, safety and good taste. But the but as the privacy thing has been a lot more complicated. I mean, you've had entire

community say we don't want this. We think we're a gated community. You do not get this is private property. You don't get to come in through here. Um. You know, Google's whole motto is that they want to index the information of the universe, and part of that is all of the places you can go on the planet Earth. So there is there has been this problem. Now. The other thing about street View is that it's actually been very helpful with Google Maps in making them more accurate.

You know, we talked about earlier. If you were just looking at a map, a physical map, a paper map in your hands, you might not be able to find the best route from where you are to where you're going because you might not be able to see which which roads are no longer open, or which ones are one way streets, what's under construction exactly. So one of the things that Google street View would do is that the routes that these cars would take would help validate

which routes are open to vehicles. So if if a Google street New car could not go up a street it's because it might be a one way street or whatever, then that information was part of the information that be saved and would be integrated into that proto map I was talking about, and you know, really when you think about when you're getting directions from point A to point B,

it's pretty complex. It has to take into account all of those things and say, all right, this may not seem like it's the fastest route, but this it is, because yeah, it's really complex. But Google street View helped that out. So the Google street View provided two different kinds of information. It provided that the images, which that was the obvious one, top level, but also the route information by the actual route the cars had to go

through in order to capture all those images. So that's it was sort of a validation method that Google used as well. On top of that, we had the whole idea of this crowd sourcing, which we had talked about a little bit earlier. But crowdsourcing. Google uses crowdsourcing in two ways, or at least two ways one of Google Maps. Google Maps. Google uses crowdsourcing in lots of ways, but

Google Maps in particular to two main ways. One of them is traffic, and generally speaking, they're tracking, um, people who happened to be using cell phones, particularly cell phones using Google Maps and tracking their progress either through uh, you know, little anonymous GPS tracking or anonymous uh cell phone tracking, you know, as you move from from another and the idea is that, hey, you know, if if the same user is able to make their way through

this this particular street at this particular speed, that gives me an idea of how how fast traffic is going and whether or not, Yes, what color code? We need to break that up as yeah, exactly like if they're if they're crawling, they're either not in a car or traffic is bad. And this is aggregated, so it's not just a single person. We're talking thousands upon thousands of people. And the important thing to remember is that, assuming that

we're all on the up and up, here is anonymous data. Right. So Google doesn't know it's a particular person. Right, It knows that it's your phone, but it doesn't know that you are Jane Smith and that you are going from your home to your office pet smart to write. All it knows is that this particular phone is moving at this particular speed in this particular place. So beyond that, it doesn't know that that phone belongs to Jane or that Jane is on her way to commit a hit

for the mob. Right, it does not it does not record the starting and stopping points, which is another thing that people were worried about with directions, right, right, of course, if I put in I need to know how to get to this point, is it going to be saved somewhere so that Google knows that I went from here to there? Obviously, depending upon what you're doing, that could

be very sensitive information, very undesirable share like up hunting. Yeah, let's say that, you know, my boss is like, hey, you know, um, this weird thing popped up. It turns out it looks like you've been going to every single one of our rivals recently, and a lot of our rifles are coming out with really similar products to ours. That would be I mean, clearly, you know that's unethical behavior on the part of the user, but that's just sure. But for example, um, yeah, the other way that the

traffic data is garnered is via microwaves. Oh wow, so like when people are making popcorn? Yes, okay, but that's but that's another episode that is in fact an episode that Jonathan and christ did previously. Oh yeah, that's right. I was like, this sounds really familiar, but I didn't research this. We've already done this bit seventy something episodes, kind of hard to keep track. He has no idea anymore. No, I don't even know where I am. That's why I

need this podcast also ages getting to him. Thank you. There has to be one in every episode, doesn't there? There does? Okay, that's fair anyway. So that was one form of crowdsource. The other one is you were talking about the the the map maker. Where this idea about in your personal experience using Google Maps, you might encounter a situation where the map is not accurate, and it's allowing people, um to be helpful. It's allowing you to

inform the map experience. Yo, dude, you totally turned me down the wrong side of the street or the road you wanted me to take as a private road and I cannot actually drive on it. I encountered that actually yesterday. But it was because Google Maps can't counter user stupidity, and in my case, it was that I wasn't really thinking I was. I was going to a specific location on the minds anywhere. It was I was going to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens so I could see some pretty lights.

Well that's a classy place to go down it is I felt totally out of place. My wife, however, completely at home. So trying to get to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

But here's the thing. Atlanta Botanical Gardens has a there's a parking structure that's a a sent to Atlanta Botanical Gardens, but it's run by a different company, right, So when I put Atlanta Botanical Gardens into the Google Maps program, it's telling me how to get to the gardens themselves, which are off of little private roads that I cannot

actually can act success. If I had put in the parking garage from the very beginning, then it would have sent me the correct way to get to actually enter the garden. I did not do that. So in that case, I actually didn't counter a problem. Not granted, you know, I just realized that I was on the other side of the enormous park and I just had to go around around and then I got there. So it wasn't a big deal. But in other situations that could be.

So Matt Maker, lets you correct those sort of problems and send send information to Google and say, hey, guys, just f y I fix this. Yes, And we're pretty sure that that's not based on a single users experience. Because that would be very dangerous, and you can easily troll the system, you know, you I can. Here's here's how I would use it. If that were the case.

Everywhere I would go, I would say that the closest, fastest route was not working, so that way I could guarantee there never be any traffic because people would be routed around it. That would be insidious. That's that's how I think. This is this is the way I think. I think, How can I manipulate the system to benefit me? That's terrifically evil. Thank thank goodness, Google is slightly less evil than you and have it counted for for such things,

you know. That's that's the thing. They really do anticipate people gaming the system, and so they're wants to bad Google. Right, So anyway that both of those methods are really important for Google Maps, uh, you know, just to just to give the best user experience possible. Because even though you know, Google is in the business of selling ads essentially or selling ads space, you know, they have to make products that are are user friendly, and it's part of what

makes the product yours. It's part of part of what makes it interactive, and it adds into that entire slippy map concept of of being able to to go in there and mess around with it and really dig your fingers in then. And of course also you can add in your businesses information into a map. You can edit business and businesses information, you can provide reviews of a business. Yeah, it's it's it's literally mapping to other parts of the Internet.

So it's not just showing you the physical location of a place that you're searching for. It's giving you access to other resources that gives you more information about the place you're looking for. It's kind of this whole idea of marrying the physical world in the digital world so that the two are integrated so tightly that we have access to pretty much any kind of info you want at any time you want, any place you want, which has its benefits and its drawbacks. But I wanted to

also kind of touch back. We talked about this briefly, but I wanted to talk a little bit about what happened with Apple. Right. So, Apple comes out with the iPhone five as well as the release of the sixth generation of iOS, the operating system for the iPhone and iPad and iPod Touch, and for that it had developed its own map system, Apple Maps, Apple Maps, and UH.

People began to notice that Google Maps was no longer available within the Apple app Store, which I was struggling to name earlier today, and then I got out, oh wait, yes they are the one that's called the app store, but yes Google Maps. Google and Apple had had sort

of a a weird relationship, a love hate relationship. There was a time when Eric Schmidt, who was at that time the CEO of Google, he was also sitting on the board of directors of Apple, and then eventually he resigned his position as a member of the board of directors UH, and he cited that it was because he felt there was going to be an increasing conflict of

interests between the two companies. And and in fact, there were several reports that Steve Jobs was more than a little put out when Android hit the market because he said that he felt that Android was copying Apple. Whether or not you think that makes him somewhat hypocritical with his sighting of Picasso saying that good artists borrow graad are steele. Uh, that's beside the point. Anyway, the die

had been cast. There was this contentious relationship between Apple and Google, and then Apple released its Apple Maps app that that introduced turn by turn navigation, which was a huge deal. That was something that Apple users have been asking for on the iPhone and had not gotten. They have still not gotten. Yeah, well no, no, because Apple Apple Maps does have it, but Apple Maps was buggy.

That was the problem. But that was the thing, was that they were asking for it for ages U like, and once Google Maps came out for Android and once it incorporated navigation. UH. I had a lot of friends who had iPhones who were very much irritated by this because they said, well, you know, Apple leads the way in the smartphone experience. They defined the smartphone experience for the consumer in the United States at least several other parts of the world as well. Why are they trailing

behind Google? And part of the reason was that, you know, Google didn't really want to work with Apple so much, and Apple didn't really want to work with Google so much. There was enough tension there that UH that they were they were increasingly becoming competitors in the market, and Google was like, I don't want to give you my toys. I think I'm going to keep those toys and that way that differentiates my toys from your toys and the way people will buy my toys and not your toys

and uh. And Apple was like, well, fine, we're gonna make our own stuff and when which is a perfectly valid response, I'm making it sound like they were being petulant children. That's not that's not the case. It's it made perfect business. What what maybe he didn't make as much sense was that they released the maps app for iPhone, possibly too early. Yes, there were a lot of people who felt that the application was not as polished as it needed to be, and then it did, in fact

have lots of bugs in it. Now, Apple got its map data from primarily from tom Tom, which has great data, which is pretty okay. Yeah they do, they do, all right, Yeah, they they've they've got they know their stuff and you know, and we mentioned earlier Google gets their map data from like sources and then has to merge it all together. And Apple got it from more than just tom Tom, but tom Tom was the primary source of the map

data for Apple. So something was going on between the data that they were receiving and the implementation of the application itself that made it less accurate. There's something wiggy in that algorithm that we were talking about earlier, that actually pulls the the important information out and presents it to you. Yeah, so you might not notice that there is a river in the way of your route because

Apple failed to pay attention to that. Or there was a pretty well reported incident where the Government of Australia said, don't use Apple Maps because it's it's taking this one route that should go a fairly simple way and putting people through. Yeah, it was a desert. It was essentially it was essentially routing people through a huge desert that

was a part of an enormous park in Australia. And the fear was that people would be using the application to try and go someplace, they would get rerouted through the desert, lose signal, lose signal and not have enough gas to get out and they're stuck in the desk. And then accidental walkabouts are not really Yeah, and in Australia at the time of the story, it was just

starting to get into summer. You know here it's here it's winter because we live on the upright side of the world and they live on the upside downside of the world. I love you Australians also Kiwi's I Love you too. It's Jonathan nineteen again. I totally know where I am. I just don't know where I'm going anymore. So I'm gonna take another quick break. So this was this was a big issue, and so it was a double whammy, right because they kicked Google out of the store,

the Apple app was not fully baked. In fact, famously, the guy who was in charge of the whole iOS thing was asked to leave Apple, became a consultant and then was kind of pushed out. Yeah, I mean it was. It was a huge hubbub. I had so much of that hubbub coming through, coming through my internet perceptors that I just did not even update my phone. I use an iPhone and I did not upgrade. I didn't want

to mess with Apple Maps. I chow was to ignore the entire situation, and and a lot of people did that. And about three months later, so it was late December of two thou mid to late December been mid December when Google Maps reappeared in the App Store, complete with turn by turn navigation and uh and Google took the opportunity to kind of twist the knife a little bit and talk about how great their map data was. Keeping in mind again, the Apple data wasn't necessarily what was wrong.

It was something else between the data and the implementation. But at anyway, Google definitely took a little bit of time to kind of say, look, how awesome we are. Yeah, well they they also, I mean it became the most popular download within hours on the app Store. You know, clearly people had been clamoring for it, and and that um also I might have I might have missed this one on my timeline. But but in December of two thousand twelve, Google Maps hit one billion monthly active users.

That's a lot of people trying to find their way to the same restaurants I'm going to. So why I can never get in? I just need to be a little more famous people, just a little more famous. I'm not quite famous enough to get a good table at a restaurant. So if you guys can help me with that, that'd be awesome. If you can clout me up in good table and restaurant, I would really appreciate it. I don't know that that's going to help, but you know,

I can't hurt you can. You can bring in your phone and just say, like I have cluses, look at me. Look how important I am. Yeah. Yeah, McDonald's does not take that serious. Now do it and do what you can. Listeners, keep us, keep us well fed. Yeah, so we wanted to kind of conclude this episode talking about what is in store for Google Maps. What's the future, like, you know what? What is Google working towards to make Google Maps even more interesting and yet potentially worrisome? It's just

the way it is. Again, what was that? What was there catchphrase from earlier? I have zero I'm looking goldfish reassuring and yet terrifying. Something like that, re you sharing and yet terrified. I don't have my business cards, I can't tell you for sure. Um. According to uh to Michael Jones, who is one of the employees at Google, the chief technology Advocate, I think his is his title. It is a great title. Google names things so well.

I'm jealous of their entire marketing department. But um, his his vision of the future. Um he was just talking about the other day in interview, is that Google really wants to provide individualized information on the go, which means that as you're as you're walking down a street with your Google Maps app open, it might start telling you like, oh hey, scene from your favorite movie was filmed in that lot over there, Maybe you want to go check

that out. Or oh hey, you really like Vietnamese food, and the highest rated Vietnamese restaurant within a five mile radi is right over there on the other side of the block, so you might want to go check that that out. It's pretty cool, I mean, but the idea here is that Google is not just using your previous

use of Google Maps to determine this. They're using everything like your actual search history, your search history, your Google Plus account, all of that integrated information that starts getting just a little bit stockery. Yeah, and you wonder to what extent could this go to? And I made some very goofy ridiculous examples to Lauren before the show, which I'm not going to repeat because really it's just they

got silly. But the point being that if if you like, let's say that you have a job, and you you've logged into a job version of your Gmail um and your job is with the CDC. Sure, so you might do a lot of different searches on very specific types of health problems. What would Google Maps think of that? Like, where would the Google maps, like do you want to go to the clinic? I mean, it's me, it's you know.

It just it raises questions now, and then from a from a broader perspective, Let's say that you're using your own personal Google account and you do a lot of you know, bizarre searches. Uh, it kind of makes you wonder, like how much of this it gets personalized. It's supposed to be anonymous, so Google is not supposed to actually know that that this is tied to you personally. Again, it's it's it's the royal you. It's that. It's it's

not you, Jane Smith. It's it's it's the person who does these searches and goes to these places would like these things. And it's hard for us to kind of reconcile that in our heads and divorce that from who we are personally. So it starts to feel like Google not only knows where we go and what we do, but it's telling us what to do now and we need to follow those instructions carefully. Um, it is a

little weird. Now, this being said, I personally think that it's kind of an interesting thing, and I'm I'm more I'm open minded enough to say, bring it on. I want to see how this works out. And I want to see like the kind of suggestions Google comes up with. Absolutely and Uh, I've been using field Trip, which is

a Google app. I talked about it with Chris in a previous episode a few episodes ago, where it's it's a location based service that looks at where you are based upon you know, occasionally it's pining your your device to see where you are based upon your either cellular triangulation or GPS or whatever. And then it says, let's take a quick look in this area and see if there's anything the area that would interest him and you kind of or her and you you kind of let

the app know what you are, what your interests are. Okay, So it's not broad categories I want sports or I don't want restaurants. Mine as always I want food is always a food in history. Those are the two that I will always pick. And so I get a lot of stuff like best Beignet's in Atlanta, which honestly not a lot of competition there, but uh and uh and anyway,

Uh it's a parish by the way. Anyway, the p A R I s H Free plug uh the any Anyway, the the app does this by by checking its database and and referencing against your physical location and occasionally giving you stuff. And you can even tell it how frequently you went up to how often I want them all the bloody time, or do it or only when I

opened the app or sometime in between. I've got it in the in between because I don't want to get I don't want my phone vibrating every five seconds thinking I've got a message and it turns out it's hey, there's a place that sells burgers. You like food, And I'm like, I don't need it quite that frequently, but that that's kind of an example of what Google Maps

could incorporate in the future. But in the case of Google Maps, it would be even more personal, so it would be based like if if it noticed that I had done a lot of searches for like Indian food. I love Indian food, and there are only a few restaurants that I know of that serve really good, authentic Indian food that are near me. I know there are a lot more that are further out of my neighborhood.

So I've done a lot of searches. Well in the future, Google Maps will be taking uh, well, we'll notice second of stuff. It'll cross reference with my search history. And let's say I go to some other city, like I don't know, London and says, hey, you like Indian food, let me tell you where to go. We've got We've

got a thing for you. Yeah you want some kebabs, we can give you kebabs, or if you want real Indian food, if you want if you want the various curries or vende loose I'm a vendeloo fiend then um yeah, So I mean in that sense, it's interesting, but there is still this lingering fear that perhaps this information is somehow being tied to us as our identities, and that it could that it could be stored or us and get used against us in some way, or or even

even just some people get a little bit creeped out. I get a little bit creeped out that I'm being advertised to so specifically. Sometimes I mean, when it's when that's useful, it's terrific, But very occasionally I just get this pin in the back of my head that's like,

why does it know that about me? It makes me think that in the future we're all going to only see the stuff that we are truly interested in and not see all the other stuff that we're not interested And I'm okay with that because occasionally I I flipped through something like Reddit or I'm randomly changing channels, and I think I could have lived happy ever knowing that that was a thing. And if I have my life where I mean, granted, it also means that you're it

also means you you're less adventurous and all. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean the process of discovery is really terrific. And also I mean, what will it Will it de authenticate the process of discovery? Will you never again have the terrific feeling of walking down the street and going, hey, that hole in the wall looks terrific and walking in and having one of the best meals of your life. Yeah, yeah,

I mean there are a lot of questions here. Maybe maybe Google will build that into the algorithm where occasionally, just so like you know, Lauren never comes out of her shell. Just down the street is a tap dancing and jazz dancing uh school. We're going to convince her to go in there and take classes, and then she's gonna have a recital and everyone's gonna go. It's not recital, is it whatever? The dance equivalent is absolutely no clue. Anyway,

we'll see. That's that's why it would pop up for you, because it would say, like, you know what Lauren needs. She needs to get out more, she needs to needs to to shed this shy exterior and and just let her inner choreographer shine. I think I think that if Google can talk, that is in fact what it would say about me. I'm pretty sure Google would never stop slapping me. Just grow up, grow up Strickland pretty much

what I would get all the time. That's that's what if it weren't for a for a employee handbook laws here, it has to work, so I'm sure that would happen in the office. I've not slapped here. It's fine, it's happened, Josh. Josh alternately praises me and hits me. It's it's nice, k fans. They are great people. And that wraps up this classic episode about Google Maps. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you have any suggestions for future episodes, you can send me a message. The address is tech stuff at

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I will talk to you again really soon. Yeah. Text Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.