How Does Google do it? [Archive]

View Full Version : How Does Google do it?

WA4OTD

11-14-2009, 04:27 PM

Google has hit homerun after homerun and everything is free! Download Google Earth and there is an option for traffic. WHen on it shows the speed of cars on most major interstates in nearly live condition. This is getting the speed and location from cell phones as people travel along these roads. HOW DO THEY DO THAT?

K6TEP

11-14-2009, 04:43 PM

I would have added "they are that good at finding great people". I know a few Google folks; some of smartest people I've met.

K8ERV

11-14-2009, 05:47 PM

Google farms out their street-level photography to, I think, Geoatlas, who run the camera cars.

I live in a small backwater town. I recently wanted to see a new store near a small street improvement, only two weeks old. The street-level image showed it already!

A friend saw the camera car and wanted to stop and ask a question, but he was too late.

Truly amazing.

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

WA4OTD

11-14-2009, 06:03 PM

I saw the Google car drive by my house last spring and subsequent picture after.

For the cell phones I wonder how they get the GPS position and speed data from a cell phone provider(s)? Maybe deal based on their new phone or is this information public knowledge?

TEP: yes, Google reminds me of Microsoft in the early days.

WA7PRC

11-15-2009, 07:14 AM

HOW DO THEY DO THAT?
It's done with mirrors. :D ::rimshot::
vy 73,
Bryan WA7PRC

magician

12-21-2009, 03:17 AM

I would have added "they are that good at finding great people". I know a few Google folks; some of smartest people I've met.

You Guys can check this Site ->
h t t p ://googleblog.blogspot.com/ <-

And the new technology call Cadie ->
h t t p://www.google.com/intl/en_us/landing/cadie/tech.html

128 Clusters Computers -> Cadie is the new AI .

Remeber ...

By last year we were ready for the final push: re-crawling all the generated knowledge representations and restarting the system from near scratch. Much as the end-Ediacaran mass extinction event opened the door to the Cambrian explosion, newly opened processing resources and storage gave fuel to a new cycle of evolving the most successful networks which comprise CADIE. On January 12th 2009, the STT run (Standard Turing Test) confirmed behavior indistinguishable from that of a reasonable human being with above-average intelligence and 3.8 GPA (we're still struggling to understand that missing .2; we suspect it points to fundamental flaws in the GPA system rather than CADIE. It's also worth noting that CADIE was never shown any textbooks and reading material for the classes; she was only administered the exams. In fact, during the first morning of testing she pointed out several important theoretical flaws in particle physics and cosmology. On several occasions she asked us whether we were really sure we wanted to do this; it is unclear what exactly she meant by these questions, or even by the word 'this.')

Cadie now is learning by her own !!!!!

AsS.: Magcian-David - Google IT-LABS

KA5ROW

12-21-2009, 11:09 AM

Where do you find such things on Googol? I found my house the photo is at least 7 or 8 years old. And you can't even make out the shape of the house. As far as street level i don't even know where to go to find it. Help Help please. :D

K8ERV

12-21-2009, 12:52 PM

On a Google map, at the top of the left zoom bar, look for a yellow figure. Click that and drag it to a street. The street-level pix should show up if it is available. Then you can move the cursor around to move or rotate the view. Takes a few seconds to catch up.

Truly amazing.

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

N0IU

12-26-2009, 05:50 PM

Street level doesn't work everywhere... yet! And while the image of my property is not quite as old as KA5ROW's, it is at least 3 years old.

Now if you want to contribute to the images, you can use Google's online photo album called Panoramio (http://www.panoramio.com/) and upload pictures there. The one thing you have to do is have your pictures geotagged with the latitude and longitude so it can be pinpointed on the map. Learn more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging

What's that you say, you're camera does not have a built-in GPS? As long as you know where the picture was taken, you can use Google's photo organizing program called Picasa. (http://picasa.google.com/) You store your pictures on your PC then you can upload your pictures to albums you create on the Picasa website (http://picasaweb.google.com/). It works sort of like Flickr and Photobucket - and it is FREE. Once you have a picture in Picasa, you can geotag that picture by pinpointing it in Google Earth.

Once you have your pictures geotagged on Picasa using Google Earth, they could be chosen to be part of Google Earth so that everyone in the universe can see your work on the Picasa website! Learn more about it here: http://www.panoramio.com/help/photos_google_earth

Happy Boxing Day and Happy Picture Taking!

K8ERV

12-26-2009, 06:21 PM

Google maps is amazing, but I wish each image was date stamped.

TOM K8ERV Montrose Colo

N0IU

12-26-2009, 07:02 PM

If you click on an image in Panoramio, it will tell you when it was uploaded but not when it was actually taken unless the photographer includes that in the description.

WA4OTD

12-26-2009, 07:14 PM

Agree only dim distant overhead view. At my house seems the overhead is updated once a year and same for the street level camera.

Nice website! http://www.ka5row.com/

Where do you find such things on Googol? I found my house the photo is at least 7 or 8 years old. And you can't even make out the shape of the house. As far as street level i don't even know where to go to find it. Help Help please. :D

K1WMB

12-31-2009, 08:32 PM

Ditto here in western MA - the pics are 6 - 7 years old. But street view is early 2009...go figure!

-Will
K1WMB

AD2U

01-01-2010, 05:39 AM

Google's business model: Catch as many eye balls as possbile with lots of freebies, then sell ad spots to advertisers.

They might not put an ad on a map, but all those cool and free features will help to change/re-enforce your mentality so that whenever you want to look for something you go google. Some day somehow they will catch you on a google web page with ads.

For the speed information, they could buy sensor data or they can buy free way live camera video feed and use motion detection to do speed estimate.

KB9LXP

01-02-2010, 05:43 PM

KJ4CMG

01-02-2010, 06:09 PM

The satellite views of my house are over 13 years old. The street view images are about 4 years old but when I type in my address, the image it shows is about 1 1/2 miles up the road from my house.

W4RLR

01-08-2010, 08:32 PM

As a small business owner who maintains his own web site, I can say that if properly written, meta tagged, and indexed, a site that is added to Google is a godsend for business generation leads.

Conversely, improperly written, untagged, and improperly indexed web content frequently points Google searchers to YOUR COMPETITORS.

Try and do a street level search of my ACTUAL QTH, not my FCC listed address. First, you will have to dig to find my ACTUAL address. The GPS coordinates are on the 'Zed. You still won't see my house. Just a big wooded lot.

And that is the way I like it. :D

W4RLR

01-08-2010, 08:34 PM

K6TEP

01-10-2010, 07:50 PM

Google using real time cell phone info for traffic speed?:eek: My youngest daughter lost her cell phone, and I asked the Sheriff Dept. for help in traking it, and was told I needed a judges order to get things started??? So if Google is pulling "Illegal" info from cells, they are doing it Illegal.
My vote is...With the Devil :D
Mike

Sorta :-) The need for the court order comes partially from the cell company. They want a liability shield to protect them from being sued if they release the data. Because they were served with a court order, they are "compelled" to release the data, and are therefore not liable. That's also because you're looking for an individual's record. This is the "privacy" part of the equation working, at least in theory.

For the Google traffic crowdsourcing, it's very different. First of all, you can't get data about any individual. They even play some tricks, like dropping the first and last segments of your trip data, so people can't correlate your "track" with you based on a unique start or destination point. They also don't show traffic info unless they have a certain number of people at that location. In other words, unless there are more than, say 20-50? people giving traffic data on a street, they won't show anything. If you are the only person on a street that's giving traffic info, I guarantee that the data won't be displayed and may not even be stored. They are trying to make sure that they have a large enough sample that no individual can be identified.

Your biggest privacy threat in this model is the E911 and tower location data. Your cell phone is broadcasting your GPS coords whenever it is on, and if you make a 911 call, that position appears at dispatch. The cell company also stores some of that data, *and* the location of the cell tower(s) involved in your phone calls.

So, before you make that trip to the ham store for that shiny new radio, take out the phone battery so no one will know your dirty little secret!

KA4AAA

01-11-2010, 05:40 PM

How does Google do it? Why pigeons, of course!!

http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

KD4SSS

04-27-2010, 03:12 AM

Best I can figure,it my area they are 2-3 years old.But,I have found several places named wrong.

WA4OTD

04-27-2010, 04:15 AM

I haven't used it but Google Latitude can trace individual phones. Seems like it would be good to install on your kids phones.

http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html