Google erases G8 venue from Earth: Microsoft doesn't As all the world that cares knows, the leaders of the eight most powerful nations in the world have just been holding a summit meeting at the Lough Erne Resort in Northern Ireland. Most accounts suggest that this is a 5-star golfing hotel complex, but according to Google Maps and Google Earth it is just a muddy field: Damn, …
But it's the far past. I mean, Google earth says that the housing estate I live in is surrounded by a jungle. In real life said patch of green vanished over a decade ago to make way for adjacent housing estates.
Google must not have been getting the latest images for some reason.
The street view imagery is up to date for the resort though. Oddly my house, also in Northern Ireland, is shown under construction in the aerial view, but isn't there at all in the street view. We moved in 8 months ago, so aerial is under a year old, street view at least 18 months (but could be a lot more).
So... some images are more up to date than others.
Which maybe isn't a very profound conclusion.
It isn't odd at all, Maps and Street View are separate entities. Google buys up old, outdated satellite images for use in maps, and as far as I can remember doesn't actually own its own satellite. Street View is Google's own creation and has its own of pictures, the updating of which is ongoing. My street had 4 year old pictures already on street view but new ones appeared last year, for instance.
This post has been deleted by its author
The main overhead images date from 2013, look at the bottom of the screen for the date. They have obviously been replaced by older images.
BUT, oh dear they forgot to remove the streetview images which are more than detailed enough ( event though they date back to 2009)
streetview is no good for the nork nukes. Or an amphibian approach by a team from Mars (purely hypothetical, I haste to add, we arrive in peace)
well, on a more serious note, what exactly did happen? Was it that the "relevant personnel" who contacted google and asked, nicely, to foil the potential tree-huggers trying to swim across, were not aware of the existence of MS imagery? Since this happens on British soil, I'm sure the power in charge, i.e. Ms May, is due to fall on her sword, shortly, for this gross oversight of basic security measures, non?
Google could have erased Ireland entirely and saved everyone a lot of bother, ESPECIALLY if they waited until the "G"crats had arrived.
While thinking in that vein, could I ask Google to erased DisneyLand Paris; that bunch of tossers who were still selling tickets to all and sundry despite the fact a strike had shut them down, and the ONLY things you could do inside were buy Disney tat and walk around looking at the picket lines???
Nuke because I had to get the credit card company to do a charge-back as Disney refused a refund.
The Google images in north west Scotland, where twice a year NATO live-firing war games happen, are degraded by lightening the images when zoomed in, all the time, not just during "Joint Warrior". Bing doesn't do this, and their imagery is more recent anyway. Makes you wonder if Google are prove something.
Re: Pardon?
If you zoom in on areas along the far north west coast of Scotland, you'll eventually get to a zoom level that sort of fades the detail. (North of Ullapool, south of Durness)
Mildly bemused by the downvote in the previous post, as I'm genuinely puzzled about why Google does this. It's quite irritating. There is a group here working on archaeological sites for which aerial photography is superb. An example:- recently an unerected standing stone was discovered, very far west for such an artefact. It's actually visible in the Bing imagery, but once you get to that critical zoom point in Google you get that annoying fade. Also frustrating personally, as while I'm not particular Google-friendly, I'm definitely on the Eadon side of the Microsoft divide, yet find myself grateful for their offering.
Tux, 'cos he got me here!
Hi QL
There is no conspiracy, honest. ;-)
The difference between Google & Bing is solely down to their respective dataset provider's useable coverage, (Bing having paid for exclusive rights to the best current available, possibly 25cm/px).
The area you refer to, has fairly reasonable oblique coverage, (AIUI, Bing's rendering engine can re-project oblique to vertical), but poor vertical coverage, (AIUI, required by Google Map's rendering engine).
If you look in Google Earth, their source for that specific SW trending NE coastal zone, is probably 1m/px, and very badly affected by haze, (possibly oversampled, hence the funny water colour/pixellations).
GetMapping have been struggling since 1999, with aircraft availability, against weather conditions, (cloud cover & haze), to collate a coherent set of commercial quality vertical imagery for Scotland, (30cm/px or better).
Their primary targets being commercially viable areas, i.e. densely populated, (where 6cm/px is getting to be the expected norm), but NW Scotland ticks few commercial boxes.
Until fairly recently, their website's coverage maps displayed for each available resolution. For Scotland, these clearly showed as extremely stripey, (particularly so in NW, and Peterhead, areas). Since processing their 2008/9's aquisition campaigns, they've rationalised these into a single coverage map, which looks almost presentable.
http://www2.getmapping.com/Support/Aerial-Photography-Coverage
LOL Helicopters.
To clarify, when I said "currently available", I'd mean't commercially, which Google are prepared to pay for.
The fade when zooming in, lowres zoomed-out, hires zoomed-in, you are switching between viewing 2 entirely different datasets, acquired at different times, in different conditions.
N.B. The haze in the Bing imagery, isn't that much better, just being higher-res makes it more tolerable.
If you think the imagery is bad on Google, try! Yahoo! Maps!. ;-)
Under the government's OpenData initiative, you could request tasking a GR4A to spend a couple of days over LFA14. E Schmidt could then petition his buddy @#10 for access.
For an alternative date set, if you can tolerate their f*ckwittedly intrusive watermarking, try -
http://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx
For a laugh/see the effects of oblique reprojection, go to http://binged.it/145lueX
its Bing's "Aerial Detailed View" of Kyle of Lochalsh pier, @ 100ft zoom. Observe the open-hatched "banana boat". Switch to "Aerial Bird's Eye View", then "Rotate Right" through 360 degrees.
1) I am an evil minded terrorist/super-villain
2) I can amass enough people/equipment to make a viable assault on the G8 summit
3) I can do all this in total secrecy without tipping off the CIA etc.
Am I going to be thwarted by Google erasing some pictures? Err...no. Maybe I'll just go and buy, I dunno, a paper map! Or use one of my super-secrect-deepthroat-agents to procure detailed terrain info. Or any number of other things.
This is has security-purely-for-looks all over it.
.....Or here's an alternative twist on that. With special thanks to the NSA / Google .... Welcome to North Korea net censorship folks. Our 'Great Leaders' have decided it isn’t necessary for you to know where the elite are meeting….
I've found that much UK Google aerial imagery is over 5 years old, which is a great shame as there are many missing roads and developments, but on the other hand, it is completely free.
I'm surprised that Google doesn't create its own aerial imagery, and sell some of it to commercial interests.
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