TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Navigates Google Maps

How did Google Maps get started? How does it work, and how has it expanded beyond its original functionality? Join Lauren and Jonathan as they explore the past, present and future of Google Maps.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
I Heart Radio and I love all things tech and
today's episode is a classic episode. It's a Friday, so
it's time to look back at classics. This episode originally

(00:27):
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.

(00:50):
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

(01:13):
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

(01:33):
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

(01:55):
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

(02:18):
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

(02:40):
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,

(03:03):
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

(03:24):
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,

(03:47):
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

(04:08):
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

(04:31):
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

(04:51):
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

(05:12):
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,

(05:33):
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

(05:54):
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

(06:18):
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.

(06:40):
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

(07:04):
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

(07:25):
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

(07:50):
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,

(08:11):
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,

(08:36):
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.

(08:58):
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

(09:20):
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

(09:41):
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,

(10:04):
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.

(10:31):
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,

(10:52):
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

(11:12):
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

(11:34):
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

(11:56):
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,

(12:18):
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

(12:40):
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

(13:04):
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

(13:24):
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

(13:46):
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.

(14:08):
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

(14:29):
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

(14:54):
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

(15:16):
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

(15:37):
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

(15:59):
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

(16:22):
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

(16:42):
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

(17:03):
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,

(17:23):
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

(17:45):
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

(18:09):
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

(18:31):
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

(18:53):
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

(19:15):
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

(19:37):
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

(20:00):
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

(20:22):
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

(20:44):
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

(21:05):
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

(21:26):
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,

(21:48):
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,

(22:10):
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

(22:31):
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

(22:52):
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

(23:13):
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

(23:36):
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

(23:58):
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

(24:18):
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

(24:40):
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,

(25:02):
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.

(25:23):
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

(25:43):
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

(26:05):
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

(26:27):
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

(26:48):
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

(27:11):
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

(27:32):
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,

(27:54):
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

(28:16):
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.

(28:38):
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,

(29:00):
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

(29:20):
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

(29:43):
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

(30:04):
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

(30:26):
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,

(30:47):
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.

(31:10):
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

(31:33):
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

(31:58):
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,

(32:19):
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.

(32:40):
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

(33:02):
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?

(33:24):
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.

(33:46):
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

(34:11):
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

(34:32):
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

(34:53):
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,

(35:15):
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

(35:35):
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

(35:57):
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

(36:17):
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

(36:41):
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

(37:04):
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,

(37:26):
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

(37:48):
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

(38:10):
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

(38:32):
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.

(38:54):
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

(39:17):
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

(39:38):
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

(39:58):
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

(40:18):
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

(40:40):
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,

(41:02):
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,

(41:26):
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,

(41:47):
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

(42:10):
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

(42:31):
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

(42:53):
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.

(43:16):
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

(43:39):
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

(44:04):
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

(44:24):
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

(44:47):
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

(45:07):
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.

(45:29):
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

(45:52):
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

(46:13):
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.

(46:36):
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

(47:00):
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

(47:23):
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

(47:44):
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

(48:09):
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,

(48:30):
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

(48:52):
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

(49:16):
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,

(49:40):
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.

(50:01):
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

(50:24):
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

(50:46):
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

(51:07):
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.

(51:28):
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,

(51:49):
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

(52:09):
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

(52:33):
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,

(52:57):
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

(53:18):
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

(53:40):
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

(54:01):
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

(54:24):
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

(54:45):
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,

(55:09):
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

(55:31):
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.

(55:52):
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

(56:14):
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,

(56:35):
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

(56:56):
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

(57:16):
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,

(57:37):
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

(57:58):
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,

(58:20):
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

(58:45):
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,

(59:06):
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
how stuff works dot com. You can drop me a
line on Facebook or Twitter to handle it. Both of

(59:27):
those is text Stuff h s W. And you can
go to our website that's text Stuff podcast dot com.
You can search the archive of every episode ever published.
You can find a link to our online store where
you can purchase tex Stuff merch. Every purchase you make
goes to help the show. We greatly appreciate it, and
I will talk to you again really soon. Yeah. Text

(59:53):
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
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