"Google Satellite" To Be Launched This Week

Lord Satri writes "Well, almost. Google signed an exclusivity deal with GeoEye regarding GeoEye-1, the most advanced high-resolution, civil, remote-sensing satellite to date. This must be annoying for other high-resolution, remote-sensing data users since Google already has an exclusivity deal in place with DigitalGlobe, the other major civil satellite imagery provider. From the CNet article: 'Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery... in its Google Maps and Google Earth product. And as a little icing on the cake, Google's logo is on the side of the rocket set to launch the 4,300-pound satellite in six days from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters... Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50 cm because of the terms of GeoEye's license with the US government.'"

Comments

Gee I should have had a..

[erica_ann]

Google Chrome and now GeoEye. Wow, I could have had Google Stock instead of all those V-8's ! I should have..

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[ColdWetDog]

All your space belong to us!

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[Kagura]

How can you drink that? It's like tomato soup in a can! :)

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[Martin Blank]

Tomato soup doesn't have nearly as much salt.

I still guzzle V8 when I have it around. I can go through half-gallon bottle in a day easily, so I usually don't buy it because it's expensive to drink $4 worth of beverage in a day. (Milk and unsweetened iced tea make up the vast majority of what I drink.)

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[Anonymous Coward]

all myspace is belong to you.

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[thetoadwarrior]

vegetables, oh teh horror! ;)

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[Gerzel]

Of all the evil corps predicted to rise in the future by all the cyberpunk and sci-fi writers. I'll bet you not one of them was named "Google"

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[aplusjimages]

How weird will that be, if 50 years from now people associate the word Google, like they associate the word Nazi?

Then we can all say "back in my day Google was just a search engine, not a military force that had every bit of information on each human on earth. All hail Page Brin."

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[rtb61]

You would have to consider that just a wee bit extreme. They are simply a corporation locked into one mind view and, they only see business opportunities from that viewpoint. Analyse every bodies personal characteristics and psychologically target those characteristics to make them into mindless junk buying machines, well at least that's what the google's doctorates in marketing psychology (they should be ashamed for that misuse of an education) attempt to convince those buying advertising space, all done with a broad range of very subtle marketing memes if you not paying attention you wont even really notice them popping up all over the place, google is very heavily into subconscious manipulation of their true target audience, the sellers' those that pay for the advertising, rather than any real sales efforts targeted at the buyers those getting free services.

An alternate viewpoint to take on those civilian satellites is that governments who are heavily into satellite spying technology might get involved with semi-privatised agencies to sell low res, averaged versions of the data they collect. They could even, if they are a bit cheeky, make available higher res-versions for the general public to analyse for free, creating many eyes to scan many images, so both making and saving money ;).

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the evil corps predicted to rise in the future by all the cyberpunk and sci-fi writers. I'll bet you not one of them was named "Google"

Not quite a corporation, but Allen Steele had a genetically enhanced space dwelling people called 'googles' in his books.

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[TheMidnight]

In other news, Google has dropped its 20th century name for a more futuristic, forward-looking one: Union Aerospace Corporation. A previously unknown employee, Malcom Betruger, single-handedly invented the space warp using current Google technology.

Re:Gee I should have had a..

[foniksonik]

DIdn't you hear... Google Chrome comes with V8!!!!

The jury's still out

[plover]

Is a Google satellite evil or not evil? Discuss.

Re:The jury's still out

[The_Wilschon]

Exclusivity agreements like this one are definitely quite nastily anti-competitive, which I would say is evil.

Re:The jury's still out

[Arthur B.]

The only reason it's evil is because it ultimately relies on copyright law. This exclusivity agreement would be worthless if Google couldn't prosecute people using the images they display to provide a competing service.

Re:The jury's still out

[maxume]

Google bought outer space?

Re:The jury's still out

[Plaid Phantom]

Is there a death ray? It's the only way to be sure.

Re:The jury's still out

[johnny cashed]

Evil if US Government has "shutter control"

Not evil if anyone can buy imagery from anywhere on the globe for the same rate and that all purchased imagery is published on the web

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like we have a new /. poll topic ...

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's certainly less evil than a death star.

Re:The jury's still out

[Haoie]

As long as it doesn't zoom into my bedroom, I'm all for it.

Re:The jury's still out

[AmigaHeretic]

Is a Google satellite evil or not evil? Discuss.

Do you mean.... Dr. Evil??



Johnson: [Noticing Dr. Evil's spaceship on radar] Colonel, you better have a look at this radar.
Colonel: What is it, son?
Johnson: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant--
Jet Pilot: Dick.
Dick: Yeah?
Jet Pilot: Take a look out of starboard.
Dick: Oh my God, it looks like a huge--
Bird-Watching Woman: Pecker.
Bird-Watching Man: [raising binoculars] Ooh, Where?
Bird-Watching Woman: Wait, that's not a woodpecker, it looks like someone's--
Army Sergeant: Privates! We have reports of an unidentified flying object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with--
Baseball Umpire: Two balls.
[looking up from game]
Baseball Umpire: What is that. It looks just like an enormous--
Chinese Teacher: Wang, pay attention!
Wang: I was distracted by that giant flying--
Musician: Willie.
Willie Nelson: Yeah?
Musician: What's that?
Willie Nelson: [squints] Well, that looks like a giant--
Colonel: Johnson?!
Johnson: Yes, sir?
Colonel: Get on the horn to British Intelligence and let them know about this.

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

When is Google going to learn that we want Open Source Data? Bad Google.

Re:The jury's still out

[kestasjk]

It all comes down to Google's stated goal: To index and make available all the worlds information.

The less friendly side of their stated goal, which they don't state as explicitly, is that all the worlds information should be available only through them

Re:The jury's still out

[Cheerio Boy]

It all comes down to Google's stated goal: To index and make available all the worlds information.

Isn't that also Brainiac's ultimate goal? ;-)

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

In Google America, it nukes you from orbit to be sure!

Re:The jury's still out

[svank]

It's the only way to be sure.

Whatever happened to good old nuking from orbit?

Re:The jury's still out

[Joe Tie.]

I wish they'd provide a bit more focus. I can get more information about naruto than anyone could wish for, great. But I can't get access to primary sources with which to evaluate medical or scientific issues. I know there's a lot of problems involved with getting the public free access to journals, but google has a lot of clout and coudl make a big difference there.

Re:The jury's still out

[Gavagai80]

So you think a company should invest huge wads of money in a satellite to give the data away and thus derive no better market position than without it? Good luck with that.

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrariwise, there would be anti-competitive elements to an open agreement as well. There would be basically no opportunity for satellite competition, due to massive barrier to entry and smart pricing schemes by GeoEye. An exclusivity deal means lower resolution satellite data still has buyers, and google competitors could support the launching of another satellite.

Honestly, it is hard to trade things like this without exclusivity. You wouldn't want to buy rights to have Michael Phelps on your cereal if he also said he would appear on every other brand of cereal for whatever price they were offering. It would be worth basically nothing to everyone, whereas, with exclusivity, it is at least worth something to someone. Likewise, there is no point in google or anyone else throwing billions at GeoEye to become the highest resolution online map service if GeoEye then licenses the same data to everyone. It may be that the value of the data in such a scenario is not even enough to finance the satellite launch, in which case, the possibility of exclusivity is definitely a beneficent aspect of the market--giving consumers a product that would simply not exist without it.

Anyway, one really must debate the merit of anti-competitive policies concerning something google is giving away for free. It's not as though the market is going to drive down the price of "free."

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

You spent way, WAY too much time HTMLizing your post. :'(

Re:The jury's still out

[istartedi]

You hack into the satellite and change the coordinates. I'll break into Page's and Brin's houses and set up the giant popcorn tin.

(That's a Real Genius reference for those who were out of geek culture class that day)

Re:The jury's still out

[lamapper]

Is a Google satellite evil or not evil? Discuss.

If it lets me see images all the way down to the ocean (all over the world) then its not evil. If they stop you from zooming closer at say 50% of the way and put a message that states, "We are sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region. Try zooming out for a broader look." then they are EVIL! If it allows me to see everything down to the 50 cm level it is NOT EVIL. If anything is 'sensor'ed for me, then it is EVIL! ...because you asked.

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the parent a dork for the way he phrased his post? Discuss.

Re:The jury's still out

[SEWilco]

Satellite: not evil. Just be sure to do no evil with your ICBM while you're flying it, guys.

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let Ma

Re:The jury's still out

[Dun Malg]

I know there's a lot of problems involved with getting the public free access to journals, but google has a lot of clout and coudl make a big difference there.

The publishing of scientific journals is a business. No amount of "clout" is sufficient to convince the folks that run these journals that they should give it all away free and go make money working at a hot dog stand or something.

Re:The jury's still out

[Walt Dismal]

In case of war with Microsoft or Iran, Google is licensed to use its ultrasecret satellite death rays. As a side effect, answers to your Google queries will be burned into wheat crop fields from orbit. The bad side of this is, a tiny clause in the Chrome EULA also says "All your data are belong to us."

Re:The jury's still out

[AmigaHeretic]

You spent way, WAY too much time HTMLizing your post. :'(

No, I have a computer from the 'future' First you search google, then you "View source", copy, and paste.

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't penetrate the concrete covering your Mom's basement.

Re:The jury's still out

[shutdown -p now]

There is, but it's in beta for now, so it might not quite fry you to death from the first go. Also, it only targets people operating Windows PCs so far.

Re:The jury's still out

[richlv]

the second paragraph probably nulls any chance that google could provide satellite data for projects like http://www.openstreetmap.org/...

would be kinda cool though. somebody even suggested (as a joke :) ) "google summer of map", a project for openstreetmap mapping =)

Re:The jury's still out

[houghi]

In Europe we call that 'anti monopoly law'.

Re:The jury's still out

[bickerdyke]

OMG, with a resolution of 41cm, I better keep the curtains closed... :-)

Re:The jury's still out

[XcepticZP]

Your reply has nothing to do with the parent you replied to! He never said anything about giving it away for free. You assumed he meant give it away for free when he actually complained about the fact that the company gave exclusive rights to one entity when it should have allowed others the chance to license the rights from them.

But hey, if the parent was talking about Microsoft you would have agreed with him and called Microsoft evil without thinking twice!

Re:The jury's still out

[Sobrique]

No we don't. A monopoly is when someone has control over a market. That would imply that other people couldn't launch their own sattelites for taking photos - which they can.

Re:The jury's still out

[Sobrique]

Death rays don't need reloads.

Re:The jury's still out

[Corwn of Amber]

No, you don't understand. What Google sells is advertising space, which pays for the content and services.

Picture this : free primary scientific information means a narrowly targeted, highly interested public. If it gets all published for free on the web, people will read it, and some WILL buy associated products. Lab machines and such, for example - and one spectrometer is a product so deliriously expensive that one sale could easily pay for a whole lot of article royalties.

But if articles are free, so many more people will read them that some are bound to buy something after reading an associated ad on a product they want or need. That's one sale that might not have occured at all in the current model. Moreover, many more ads would be displayed than in science journals that print the same ads on all their copies, and that is Good Capitalism, because it enhances competition. And in such conditions, lab machines might, just might have a market multiplied by orders of magnitude, and their prices would drop accordingly.

Cheaper science means the algorithm of the scientific method would be distributed on many, many more nodes, thus Progress would come much, much faster. That is a Good Thing, yes?

See the awesome power of Capitalism Done Right.

Re:The jury's still out

[Corwn of Amber]

Sorry, I'm disagreeing here. If it CAN zoom to 41cm, it's EVIL to censor it down to 50cm.

Re:The jury's still out

[flappinbooger]

If it was purely about information and tech for the sake if information and tech, and they didn't need to pay the bills, then they would not do things like exclusivity deals... no?

Re:The jury's still out

[seandiggity]

Google's just thinking "above the cloud".

Re:The jury's still out

[warvair]

I, for one, welcome our new Internet overlords.

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

What? How is Google preventing other companies from sending up their own satellites?

Re:The jury's still out

[StikyPad]

Next up, they'll own Innerspace Too. Starring Martin Short and other people you wish were dead.

Re:The jury's still out

[StikyPad]

Look, everybody knows democracy only works because terrorists can't afford a subscription to Nature. You start putting that shit out there for everyone to read, and soon Google Bomb will take on a whole new meaning, most likely to describe the weapons created, but it could also come to mean "to shit oneself." As in, "Man, that article was CRAZY scary. I think I just dropped a Google Bomb."

Re:The jury's still out

[StikyPad]

That's no space station.. it's a goatse moon!

Re:The jury's still out

[zentinal]

So, what happens when Google decides to purchase a company like Reed Elsevier - http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RUK ?

As of today, that would only cost them $11 billion or so.

Then they would own LexisNexis and all of those journals. Served up in search. Brought to you by Google Ads.

Re:The jury's still out

[The_Wilschon]

And during the period of Dell's dominance, nothing was preventing anybody from starting up a system-builder shop. This didn't mean that Microsoft's exclusivity agreements with Dell* weren't anti-competitive. I think that the analogy here is sufficiently strong to draw the conclusion that Google's exclusivity agreements are anti-competitive.

* I may be overstating my case here. I don't know that Microsoft had actual exclusivity contracts with Dell. I do know, IIRC, that Microsoft threatened to eg jack up the price for Dell if they didn't cooperate, which boils down to the same thing.

Re:The jury's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least is not like Monsanto, the only producer of seeds that will allow Gringoland to eat only to the countries that are on the same side as the Bushes and their succesors.

Google Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Earth Goog.... nevermind.

Re:Google Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Earth Goog.... nevermind."

Hahahah ! Best version of this I have seen for a while.

Precisions on the summary

[Lord Satri]

Some precisions on my summary. DigitalGlobe is obviously not the only other remote sensing data provider, but it's GeoEye main competitor in civil high-resolution multispectral remote sensing. GeoEye is itself the merging of two other previous major players on the same playing field, OrbImage and Space Imaging.

As for my claim of an agreement between DigitalGlobe and Google, see this two years old entry. The original archive for the DG message is here (the link on /geo does not work anymore).

One of the obvious questions that comes to mind is to which extent these exclusivity deals have negative impacts on other remote sensing imagery customers, small or big.

Another question is; does Google really needs such a deal to provide the best webmapping and virtual globes-related tools?

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Ostracus]

"Another question is; does Google really needs such a deal to provide the best webmapping and virtual globes-related tools?"

I've used Google Earth for my area and lets just say that the state provides better maps and imagery.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[lgw]

Exclusivity doesn't make Google's mapping products any better, it just makes their competitors' products worse. Sounds anti-competitive and "evil" to me.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Arthur B.]

Maybe the satellite company wouldn't afford a satellite if it didn't sell exclusive rights to the pictures.

I'm not saying the whole thing isn't evil, it's just a little more complicated than you make it appear.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[LWATCDR]

I keep hoping that Google will start releaseing some of their data into the public domain/GPL/Creative Commons.
That Google spy van must be gathering data like speed limits, which streets are one way. Maybe even which are paved and not.
One place missing GPL application is a really good navigation system.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me but competition is defined as somebody winning and somebody losing. Google is winning and doesn't appear to be cheating, how can that be anti-competitive? I wish you people would figure out that a monopoly isn't evil, it is the goal of all companies. Illegally suppressing your rivals is anti-competitive, cornering the market is not.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[rockmuelle]

My biggest concern as a consumer of GIS data has always been access to the high-quality, tax-payer funded data (which is usually aerial, not satellite). Exclusivity deals are fine as long as any data gathered from the instruments for tax-payer funded programs remains accessible without restrictions.

I'm not sure how deals such as Google's will affect this, but as the parent pointed out, there are already many sources of high-quality data from government sources.

If there is something to fear from Google Maps/Earth, it's the spatial imagery mono-culture developing around consumer and media GIS applications. Google's approach is by no means the best approach for all geospatial data, it just happens to work well for navigating large data sets. But, as we've learned from Microsoft, if enough people are using a solution, the level of technology present in dominant solution becomes the "state-of-the-art" even if it isn't.

-Chris

Re:Precisions on the summary

[QuantumG]

"anti-competitive" is defined as anything that is against competition. Exclusive contracts with suppliers is exactly that.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[hellwig]

Considering it costs millions and millions of dollars to develop and launch an orbital satellite, there is no way GeoEye could make money by only exclusively licensing the use of its imagery to Google. I am guessing that Google fronted much/most of the development and launch costs for the satellite. Basically I would assume that Google owns the satellite and GeoEye is simply managing the logistics of orbiting, photgraphing, and maintenance.

If Google did front most of the costs, then it's not anti-competative to ask GeoEye to agree to only allow Google use of the photos. If GeoEye fronted all of the costs themselves, then how do they plan to make money off a multi-million dollar investement by simply licensing use of the photographs to a single entity?

Satellites are not vital infrastructure like telephone lines. As such, I doubt there is any legal standing to say what GeoEye can and can't do with their own satellite (especially if Google DID provide some initial funding).

Oh, I just RTFA, and apparently Google is the only "online mapping company" allowed to use the photographs. I guess Google just paid a lot for those rights. Kinda like how Pepsi is the official soft drink of the International League of Woman Voters (though no one considers this to be legally anti-competative to Coke or Royal Crown Cola).

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

PEPSI ?? I hate Pepsi!

Re:Precisions on the summary

[witherstaff]

NPR Science friday just had a discussion with GeoEye. They will also snap a photo of anyplace you ask them to for a cost. They go into some details of the process and it was a neat little interview. Things like it's in a polar orbit, whipping around the north to south pole every 90 minutes.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[PsychosisBoy]

WOMEN? I hate women!

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

which streets are one way

Ehhhhhhhhhh Google Maps already shows you which streets are one-way. That data has been available through web mapping sites since... I dunno... forever.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

How can one so hate that which he does not know?

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

GeoEye and DigitalGlobe both get a large amount of their business from the U.S. Government, and from other state, municipal and foreign governments. GeoEye 1 and DigitalGlobe's WorldView 1 satellites were both built mainly with money from the US Govt NextView contract.

Also, the Google/DigitalGlobe agreement was only exclusive for the first 3 years, and was renegotiated to remove the exclusivity after that. DigitalGlobe is now also working with other mapping providers.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[dargaud]

Hopefully with the polar orbiter we'll now get google maps of Antarctica. I've been lamenting the fact that it's impossible to find any halfway decent satellite image from down there, for ever.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Is google somehow keeping you from making a better offer and securing those rights for yourself? No?

Then their actions are not anti competitive.

Re:Precisions on the summary

[kilo_foxtrot84]

How about this? http://lima.usgs.gov/

Re:Precisions on the summary

[dargaud]

Thanks for the link... but that's only a slight improvement. Landsat images of Antarctica were available in the past if you knew where to look (no nice zoomable applet), but its resolution is completely insufficient for any kind of work. What is that applet resolution ? One km at most ?!?

Anyway, I don't work in Antarctica anymore (never mind 2 recent propositions) so I haven't been following closely.

The satellite's still out

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes the satellite is evil and must be brought down before it takes over the world. Now Google however...

why the

[ionix5891]

50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

the 50cm restriction on resolution is a government restriction. Even though the satellites are capable of higher resolution shots, they'll have to shoot at slightly lower quality.

Re:why the

[ionix5891]

why mark me as troll? whats wrong with asking does the government have anything to hide?

Re:why the

[loshwomp]

50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??

Everyone knows WMDs are only 49cm across.

Re:why the

[schnikies79]

Do you really think that the difference between 41cm and 50cm, when it comes to satellite imagery, is going to hide that much?

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??

Everyone knows WMDs are only 49cm across.

I know a few gentlemen in my favorite streaming video web sites who should be worried that google can take pictures of 19 inch monster appendages :D

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

They can still see my penis from space.

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, all the secret UFOs they have hidden at Area 51 are 49cm long.

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason is privacy. (to an extent)

While in general, it won't matter, it could help to prevent details being displayed to the extent that you could ID someone from space.

At least, i'd guess it would be for that reason.

Re:why the

[lgw]

50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??

For once the government is protecting our pivacy (a side effect of portecting its own, no doubt). 50cm resolution hides the identity and activity of individuals, which is for the best.

Re:why the

[downhole]

I don't think that there's much of a difference, but if there's going to be a line in how high resolution they can distribute, they have to draw it somewhere. They can't let things go by just because it's "only a little bit better" than what's allowed, or else there might as well not be a line there at all.

Re:why the

[Tibor the Hun]

Hmm, I'd be inclined to bet that it will hide precisely 9cm!

Re:why the

[ksd1337]

These are only US government restrictions. What about other countries?

Re:why the

[Beardo the Bearded]

I don't know why you're marked troll. You shouldn't be.

Anyway, above a certain threshold, it starts to get a military-grade function, and therefore it's not something they want the general public to have. The general public includes America's Enemies.

It's the same reason why commercial GPS shuts down above 60,000 feet or faster than [can't remember the units].

I'm sure an American will point out that their 2nd Amendment grant the citizens rights to GPS-equipped military hardware.

Re:why the

[hedwards]

You'd be surprised, you're not going to hide an object like that.

But if you're limited to 50cm, that means that you're not going to be able to accurately identify a number of things. You'd be able to pick out a book on a table, but you'd not know what it was. You might be able to tell that that lady is sunbathing in the nude, but not actually see anything.

It also makes it more difficult to tell objects apart from each other.

Re:why the

[imbaczek]

it's almost 20%, that's quite a lot I guess.

Re:why the

[Arthur B.]

I can think of a few loopholes around this regulation.

What about taking many low resolution images of the same area and combine them later using super resolution?

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

For God's sake, this is a wang joke waiting to happen. Won't somebody step up?

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a few gentlemen in my favorite streaming video web sites who should be worried that google can take pictures of 19 inch monster appendages :D

Now, somethin' about that is just downright unsettlin'.

Re:why the

[LWATCDR]

Maybe the difference between an F-15D and and F-15E.
My guess is that anything better is really too useful.

Re:why the

[caluml]

(50^2) - (41^2) = 819 cm2

Re:why the

[vux984]

But if you're limited to 50cm, that means that you're not going to be able to accurately identify a number of things. You'd be able to pick out a book on a table, but you'd not know what it was. You might be able to tell that that lady is sunbathing in the nude, but not actually see anything.

50cm is like half a meter. Most people are under 2 meters tall, and between 50cm and 100cm wide. So if you had a resolution of 50cm, you wouldn't see a 'lady sunbathing in the nude' you'd see 1x4 to 2x4 block of colored pixels. Try to draw a 'woman sunbathing in the nude' using 8 pixels. Now using 4-8 pixels draw each of 'borat wearing a g-string', a pig, a camel, a litter of cocker spaniels, a beige hammock, and a cardboard box and explain how to tell them apart.

For comparison the 'mario' in the original Nintendo "Super Mario Brothers" was around 400 pixels. And they had to dedicate the entire top 3rd to his head just so that he'd have a discernable eye, nose, and moustache.

Re:why the

[afabbro]

50cm is like half a meter.

It's precisely half a meter.

Re:why the

[ColdWetDog]

Now using 4-8 pixels draw each of 'borat wearing a g-string', a pig, a camel, a litter of cocker spaniels, a beige hammock, and a cardboard box

You sir, are one sick puppy. You need to make another appointment with your therapist and go over this stuff.

Re:why the

[vux984]

It's precisely half a meter.

Touche.

FWIW I was orginally going to convert to feet, and then decided to stay metric.

"50cm is like one and a half feet"... the average person is under 6.5 feet... 6.5/1.5 = 4.33... it just got needlessly messy to get to the same 8 pixels to work with. :)

Re:why the

[russotto]

It's the same reason why commercial GPS shuts down above 60,000 feet or faster than [can't remember the units].

Although, oddly enough, the law is more permissive than that; the GPS can work above 60,000 feet or faster than that velocity, but not both at the same time.

Not that there aren't firmware hacks to get around that, at least for older hardware.

Re:why the

[RiotingPacifist]

For God's sake, this is a wang joke waiting to happen. Won't somebody stand up?

fixed

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

The mario sprite is 16x13 pixels, or 208px. 46 of those are blank so you could say that he's only 162px.

Though yes, 50cm is ~19", so you won't get much of any resolution capable of identifying people.

Re:why the

[piltdownman84]

Most people are under 2 meters tall, and between 50cm and 100cm wide..

100cm Wide? I know a third of Americans are Obese, but 100 cm is massive. I'm about average and only 45 cm wide

Re:why the

[couchslug]

"50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??"

Roseanne Barr's favorite nude beach.

Re:why the

[Baton Rogue]

No. 50cm ought to be enough for anybody.

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant "America's enemies are its general public".

Re:why the

[gblackwo]

You might be able to tell that that lady is sunbathing in the nude, but not actually see anything.

So if you had a resolution of 50cm, you wouldn't see a 'lady sunbathing in the nude' you'd see 1x4 to 2x4 block of colored pixels.

Why would I want to use satellite imagery, that's what street view is for!

Re:why the

[vux984]

100cm Wide? I know a third of Americans are Obese, but 100 cm is massive. I'm about average and only 45 cm wide.

Agreed. I wanted to keep it to round numbers. Where a reclined person at 50cm resolution would be 1 or at most 2 pixels wide. So 70cm or 100cm ... really made no difference.

Looking it up after the fact...
http://www.morencyrest.com/sizing.htm

If this is to be trusted, it appears most people are 16-26 inches at the shoulder. (or 40-66cm)

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, are one sick puppy.

Switcher!

I've got Crow T. Robot eyes.

Re:why the

[vux984]

The mario sprite is 16x13 pixels, or 208px. 46 of those are blank so you could say that he's only 162px.

Sorry, yes, its the 'super mario' sprite which is double height, 13x32 or 416, which I was referring to.

Re:why the

[vux984]

It is not "like" half a meter, it is exactly half a meter.

Yours would be the 3rd reply that pointed that out.

Re:why the

[TooMuchToDo]

It's fairly easy to get around the limitations you pointed out if you're familiar with how GPS operates and have a solid electronics/programming background. The limitation stops only the least motivated.

Re:why the

[AJNeufeld]

Actually, it is closer to 50%, when you consider that we're looking at area. (50cm * 50cm) / (41cm * 41cm) = 1.487

Re:why the

[RealGrouchy]

For higher resolution, use an airplane instead of a satellite. Which is what they already do. (As also mentioned elsewhere)

- RG>

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiiiiiiight, because people who don't have a "solid electronics/programming background" are unmotivated. Like doctors. And neuroscientists. And physicists. And mathematicians. And...

Re:why the

[patrixmyth]

Try to draw a 'woman sunbathing in the nude' using 8 pixels.

I'm sorry, what else did you say... I lost tracking remembering my youth after this part. Oh, C64 sprite art, how I miss thee.

Re:why the

[Kgosi Makwati]

For once the government is protecting our pivacy (a side effect of portecting its own, no doubt). 50cm resolution hides the identity and activity of individuals, which is for the best.

The government themselves have access to less than 50cm data!

Re:why the

[houghi]

To go around that, they put a camera on a car and drive around. See if the government still will stick to the 50cm rule or not.

So will 41cm images be available for other places outside the USofA? That way we could compare the differences between the two and see if it is a huge difference or not.

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

It's between 0.495 and 0.505 of a meter.

Re:why the

[Sobrique]

I'm more curious as to what they think they'll achieve by limiting a civilian provider? I mean, sattelite launches aren't exactly expensive in the context of a nation state, so anyone who's interested in spying will almost certainly already have their own sattelites up.

Re:why the

[profplump]

Isn't "exactly" a subset of "like"?

Re:why the

[TravisO]

Restriction, bah humbug, I can still go to
http://maps.google.se/
Maybe we'll have higher res access there, oh wait nevermind.

Re:why the

[T.E.D.]

I'm sure an American will point out that their 2nd Amendment grant the citizens rights to GPS-equipped military hardware.

No, that's the first amendment. The second amendment gives us the right to shoot the sattelite down with our own personal missiles.

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it have to be a beige hammock?

The man's always trying to keep the black hammocks down.

Re:why the

[kilo_foxtrot84]

What about taking many low resolution images of the same area and combine them later using super resolution?

Because not only is the satellite moving, things in the scene may be moving as well. Parallax, motion blurs, clouds, and missing objects make such a method difficult to pursue using the multiple-image approach.

Re:why the

[Arthur B.]

I'm pretty sure it's actually better if the satellite *is* moving, the point of SR is to combine different pictures.
Parallax at this height ? I don't think so...

Re:why the

[Anonymous Coward]

Then that means 100 cm is like an entire meter!

in related news..

[Briden]

close your curtains please.

Kewl

[eclectro]

Shiny new browser that can do everything and fancy new satellite. The only thing missing is my new RFID implant.

Re:Kewl

[should_be_linear]

The only thing missing is my new RFID implant.

I have mine already! It is still beta and therefore limited availability for pre-registered users.

Re:Kewl

[vonart]

Got an invite? ;)

Re:Kewl

[KingKiki217]

The only thing missing is my new RFID implant.

Or so you think.

do no evil

[Anonymous Coward]

The web's cross-platform, but it's not inconsistent to launch your own browser instead of working on interoperability with all platforms, because Google does no evil, right?

Google's goal is to make all information available to everyone at any time, but an exclusivity deal on use of information is OK, because Google does no evil, right?

Extra! Extra!

[LM741N]

Google starts plans for Moon base and Mars base, right after the space elevator is completed, and the new high power laser defense system the army is working on gets better than 19% efficiency. (to combat alien intruders) Oh, and they need the flying cars as well to round out the high tech glory.

Plus new Mars and Moon search services will be launched. Find your future lost relatives on Mars or the Moon.

Re:Extra! Extra!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google starts plans for Moon base and Mars base, right after the space elevator is completed, and the new high power laser defense system the army is working on gets better than 19% efficiency. (to combat alien intruders) Oh, and they need the flying cars as well to round out the high tech glory.

Plus new Mars and Moon search services will be launched. Find your future lost relatives on Mars or the Moon.

In its spare time, Google plans to end world hunger, cure all diseases, bring peace, prosperity and wealth to all humankind (causing neo-cons everywhere to spontaneously vaporize), rescue all endangered species (but eliminate mosquitoes because, well, who needs them?), save the rainforests, invent an infinitely sustainable source of totally green energy, create 6 new colors, give everyone a free lunch (so that we never have to see "TNSTAAFL" again) and get the remaining members of Led Zeppelin to reform and tour (although they will be forbidden from playing Stairway to Heaven). Oh, and get Ballmer a room with a sea view at The Cherry Blossom Clinic.

Re:Extra! Extra!

[pbhj]

Google starts plans for Moon base ...

Scarily I can well imagine Google could finance landing on and claiming sovereignty of the moon (Moon-gle perhaps?). But I'm guessing this would be illegal under some local law up-holding some international treaty ... but Google ads on the moon might even pay-off!

Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Monkey boy is yelling and smashing chairs against the wall again:

"I'm gonna f**king KILL google!!!"

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[bobdotorg]

Monkey boy is yelling and smashing chairs against the wall again:

"I'm gonna f**king KILL google!!!"

But now with this new satellite we'll actually be able to see the chair carcasses scattered across the Microsoft campus.

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[ksd1337]

No, he's going to throw it at the satellite.

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[TheGratefulNet]

for once - and only once - in my life, I am actually on monkey boy's side.

google has too much power and this only worries me. I see no good coming from this.

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll quiet down once the Google Orbital Deathray is launched next year...

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[ozbird]

Microsoft can afford their own satellite.

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[sloanster]

for once - and only once - in my life, I am actually on monkey boy's side.

google has too much power and this only worries me. I see no good coming from this.

You've gotta be kidding.

How could things possibly be any better if microsoft, rather than google, had this power?

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[kestasjk]

Yes, these readily accessible maps are deeply concerning.

So is the roadmap I have in the back of my car, for that matter; think of the implications.. Just think of them!

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[TooMuchToDo]

Because Microsoft wouldn't be able to implement anything worthwhile properly with the data? If Google knows one thing, it's how to execute.

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[slimjim8094]

It's like some screwed-up Chinese military posturing...

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[Anonymous Coward]

What power its open source

Re:Meanwhile at microsoft HQ

[Anonymous Coward]

what do you think why they limited it to 5cm - that's the exact size of a microsoftian flying chair...

FUCK!

[anaesthetica]

We are so screwed.

50cm? That barrier is gonna fall soon

[davidwr]

Within 1-2 years other countries will have civilian spy satellites that break 50cm, putting American companies at a disadvantage.

The USA will have 3 choices:
Shoot the birds down, literally.
Shoot the birds down, politically - bully the other countries into imposing similar limits.
Lower or eliminate the artificial limit.

Anyone remember when encryption software was considered a munition? Apple and other companies had to go through hoops to export it, putting them at a distinct disadvantage over non-American companies.

New to google labs...

[nobodylocalhost]

Sunbather search... Bikini excluded

Re:New to google labs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sunbather search... Bikini excluded

In that case, does safesearch filter out the fat guys? :P

Re:New to google labs...

[kramulous]

In that case, does safesearch filter out the fat guys? :P

Unfortunately, the US gov only wants you to see the fatties. Why do you think there is the 50cm limit?

This was predicted three years ago

[AnswerIs42]

Though at the time.. it was just a April Fools joke..

resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[_Mustang]

...it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters... Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50 cm...

I'm not really sure how this breaks down in terms of what I can actually SEE. Since current imagery lets us sorta see people, I'd like to know how much further along are we to seeing _a person_.

Can anyone provide a little more detail, maybe a good example.

And please - no examples using libraries of congress worth of hogsheads of dat tape traveling in the back of station wagons or any somesuch..! ;)

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[rcw-home]

I'm not really sure how this breaks down in terms of what I can actually SEE. Since current imagery lets us sorta see people

It means a car shows up as 4 pixels by 12 pixels. The top of your head is part of a single pixel along with a square foot of sidewalk.

Google already has higher-res data for populated areas of several countries from aircraft reconnaisance. The satellites are for everything else.

Unfortunately, there is a physical limit to how good an image taken from 400 miles away can be.

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[Ant P.]

This thing has enough resolution to pick out your head, all the better to see you with when it gets the laser upgrade

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[petermgreen]

Afaict all the google earth images where you can make out individual people are aerial photographs not sattalite images (google earth uses aerial photographs where they are available and sattalite imageary where they are not).

I think with this new satalite you might see a slight difference in pixel color where a person was standing if the background was even but you wouldn't be able to tell it was a person. Another order of magnitude improvement and it would probablly be comparable to the aerial photographs you get on google earth.

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[cats-paw]

    Unfortunately, there is a physical limit to how good an image taken from 400 miles away can be.

Unfortunately ?! I'd say that was fortunate. Wouldn't it be nice if there were limits on other forms of monitoring.

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, there is a physical limit to how good an image taken from 400 miles away can be.

Well, according to the pretty crummy Wikipedia article, Google just needs to buy a superlens and they can blow right past that limit:

However, through the use of metamaterials, a superlens may be constructed and the diffraction limit is no longer the limit/constraint.

Seriously, I can usually get the gist of something from its Wikipedia article regardless of the subject, but that article is just a mess.

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[TheGratefulNet]

the diffraction effect is not the only issue; but its worked-around.

recently, there were 'multiple exposure' (roughly) algorithms being used to 'look thru' the heat, pollution and general waviness of the sky, in plotting out celestial objects.

and even *with* diffraction, you can overcome it with sharpening. I often shoot my photos 'with too high an f-stop' according to common theory; but my post-processing overcomes the diffraction issues in practice; and I get the nice large depth-of-field that I was after with quite good sharpness, as well.

if you get multiple shots, exposures or angles of a subject, you can 'subtract out' quite a lot of noise and distortion. single shots can't do this but multiple ('high dyn range' or HDR) shooting can.

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[caluml]

and sattalite imageary where they are not).

I think with this new satalite you might

You managed to spell satellite in two different ways in your post, both of them wrong.
Nothing wrong with having trouble spelling, especially if English isn't your first language - but Firefox does have a built in spell-checker these days...

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[rcw-home]

recently, there were 'multiple exposure' (roughly) algorithms being used to 'look thru' the heat, pollution and general waviness of the sky

Yeah, I noticed the lucky imaging article right after I clicked submit. Come to think of it, I've seen such compositing in action in a couple APOD pictures - specifically this solar eclipse picture and this Milky Way lake reflection picture. I don't think those photographers were trying to eliminate atmospheric effects in those particular shots, but they sure did turn out well.

and even *with* diffraction, you can overcome it with sharpening.

A lot of astronomers are already leery of things like lossy image compression - they don't want to find that their new discovery was really just some image processing artifact. Although, I can understand wanting to make a picture as sharp as possible to show to the general public afterwards.

Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams?

[GleeBot]

and even *with* diffraction, you can overcome it with sharpening. I often shoot my photos 'with too high an f-stop' according to common theory; but my post-processing overcomes the diffraction issues in practice; and I get the nice large depth-of-field that I was after with quite good sharpness, as well.

Sharpening filters don't add detail that isn't there, they just make the image crisper by making edges more well-defined. It looks nice, but you're not actually recovering any more usable resolution.

There are techniques for recovering more resolution than the classical Rayleigh limit (which is more of an arbitrary cut-off than a real limit), but they aren't quite as simple as pushing the "make sharper!" button.

Launch scheduled for Sep 4 11:50am PDT

[Brett Johnson]

GeoEye-1 is scheduled to launch aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg AFB Sep 4 11:50am PDT. However, unconfirmed reports state that the launch may be delayed because Hurricane Hanna has grounded east coast support personnel.

Re:Launch scheduled for Sep 4 11:50am PDT

[Martin Blank]

I wonder if it will be visible from the Los Angeles area. I've seen rockets from Vandenberg in the sky, but they were night launches, so very easily seen.

Re:Launch scheduled for Sep 4 11:50am PDT

[Brett Johnson]

I live about 50 miles north of Vandenberg and can see most daylight, night, and evening launches. The evening launches are spectacular, although I have only seen one. Its pretty cloudy outside right now. I hope it is clear on Thursday.

Courtesy of Google SatWords

[rbarreira]

Guy comes out of bar holding a girl's hand while walking home. Suddenly, a targeted ad for condoms is projected on the ground in front of them.

Re:Courtesy of Google SatWords

[evilviper]

Suddenly, a targeted ad for condoms is projected on the ground in front of them.

... of course they can't make it out, because of all the other ads already painted on the ground, the walls, the streets, and every other free bit of space there is...

Re:Courtesy of Google SatWords

[Anonymous Coward]

Suddenly, a targeted ad for condoms is projected on the ground in front of them.

... of course they can't make it out, because of all the other ads already painted on the ground, the walls, the streets, and every other free bit of space there is...

Except this one will be -flashing-!!! Surely no one has thought of that before!

Re:Courtesy of Google SatWords

[StikyPad]

Not likely.. you see, that guy won't need them, and the guy who banged her in the bathroom 5 minutes prior already has them.

Re:Courtesy of Google SatWords

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy comes out of bar holding a girl's hand while walking home. Suddenly, a targeted ad for condoms is projected on the ground in front of them.

notes** that sir makes to the top of my todo innovative Andriod app list

Someone tell me why the resolution limit ?

[zymano]

resolution of 50 cm?

What's up with that?

Top secret military sites?

Re:Someone tell me why the resolution limit ?

[Facegarden]

I was going to make a comment about Ron Jeremy, but i'll spare you...
-Taylor

4300 lb?

[blind biker]

I'll be honest and admit I am no expert, but a 4300 satellite must be very expensive to launch to that altitude.

Re:4300 lb?

[Chineseyes]

It could cost anywhere from 2K to 6K per pound. So on the high end you are looking at 26 million.

A drop in the bucket for a company worth 150+ billion.

50cm? How about 10?

[camperdave]

My understanding is that at 50cm resolution, an object that is 50cm across would appear as a single pixel on the image. So, a manhole cover in the street might show up as a single pixel at that resolution. A car's hood might be four pixels, etc. Objects that are smaller than 50cm should not be detectible, especially if they are close to the same color as the background. However, if you zoom in on almost any American city to maximum resolution on google maps's satellite view, you will clearly see traffic lines. Traffic lines are roughly 10cm wide. Often these resolve to two pixels.

So, either my understanding of satellite photo resolution is wrong, or Google can already go to 10cm, and possibly even 5cm resolution.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[jcam2]

Google uses aerial photography for the views of major cities - so those 10cm resolution images are not from satellite.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[Hyppy]

I believe the images in urban areas are taken with airplanes. The 50cm limit only applies to satellites in orbit.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

The imagery that you are talking about in Google Maps & Google Earth is most certainly taken from an aircraft, not a satellite, and can have much more definition than a 50cm limit would allow.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[ksheff]

They complement the satellite photos with aerial photography. This can be purchased from the USGS or other vendors.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[QuantumG]

They use aerial photogr.... wait a minute, *FOUR* other people have said this already.

Don't you wish that everyone would read the whole freakin' thread before replying.

Jesus.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Time stamps are pretty close though.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[Narishma]

If you checked the time of the posts you'd see that the 4 people replied at the same time.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[magicchex]

Aerial photograp... what??

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[QuantumG]

Bah, it happens all the time on Slashdot. There's no netiquette.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[TooMuchToDo]

Wait till Google uses unmanned aerial vehicles for getting imagery.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[slashtivus]

Other posters have said that aerial photography is involved so I'll side-step that one. Where this is really cool is when you get out to maybe some potential camping ground areas that are displayed with their current satellite imagery. Some of it is not very good and does not really reveal much more than green blobs / chunks. 50cm for these areas would be a very cool addition especially when you combine it with the topography maps they offer.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[Kagura]

Take a look at the time of posting for all those. They all replied at about the same time.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[QuantumG]

I have to wonder if you're trying to be ironic or you're just a moron.

Maybe if I choose to believe you're trying to be ironic I will have a better day.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[4D6963]

Objects that are smaller than 50cm should not be detectible, especially if they are close to the same color as the background.

Yes they should be detectable, it's just that they'll only be represented by their frequency components under the 100 cm frequency, which takes of a lot of their power away, but there's nothing about it that makes them inherently undetectable.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[Huggs]

Unfortunately, Mr. Jesus, people don't want to spend 2 hours reviewing the entire thread, only to post afterwards with something relevant, and find out that, in that 2 hours they spent, 5 other people decided to ask the same relevant question... For, instance, in the time it took me to get this far... this post probably already has 10 - 15 replies to it.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[Kagura]

I'm being funny, so laugh. I read your posts and generally like them, QuantumG. :)

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Wait till Google uses unmanned aerial vehicles for getting imagery.

It would probably be worth Google's while to put up a stratellite over each major city with cameras for ~live mapping work.

Re:50cm? How about 10?

[QuantumG]

Oh good. I laughed, I just wasn't sure if you were intentionally trying to make me laugh or not :)

Gooeye?

[LoRdTAW]

Is that anything like pirate eye?

Google Universe released

[Anonymous Coward]

Now with 10^100 atoms.

My keys

[bingo_cannon]

Still not enough to find my keys! :(

A primer on satellite resolution

[Cliff Stoll]

Defining optical resolution from space is a bit tricky, as several generations of optical engineers have discovered.

The main criterion is the telescope's point spread function - this is roughly the angular diameter that a pinpoint star appears to be, as seen through the telescope. We want the smallest point spread function, and it should map onto about one to three sensor pixels. (arguments go here about over/undersampling).

The Fourier Transform of the point spread function is the Optical Transfer Function, which is a graph of the spatial frequencies response of the telescope. It's analogous to a hifi's frequency response ... it's an engineering challenge to prevent high frequencies from getting rolled off.

The main limit for high resolution is the diameter of the primary mirror (All mirrors and optical elements, no matter how perfect, have diffraction effects which spread out the light and reduce resolution. The bigger the entrance pupil, the greater the resolution) For the GeoEye, orbiting at 684Km and a resolution of 0.4m, I roughly calculate the primary mirror is somewhere around a half-meter diameter or so, depending on the wavelength of light it's optimized for.

Other things limit resolution - scattering of light in clear air (Rayleigh scattering) screws up the image, especially in the blue. Dust, haze, clouds and urban pollution are a bother, but not as much as you might think. Naturally, there's lots of image processing software ... quite compute intensive.

A typical human, seen from above and not casting a shadow, is about 20 to 60 cm across. So someone walking down the street should appear on a few (1 to 5) pixels. Not enough to recognize someone, especially since you're looking down on 'em.

Generally, images taken from aircraft have better resolution (they're closer, and there's less Rayleigh scattering). Perhaps airlines will attach automated, downward looking hires cameras to their daily flights.

Re:A primer on satellite resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally, images taken from aircraft have better resolution (they're closer, and there's less Rayleigh scattering). Perhaps airlines will attach automated, downward looking hires cameras to their daily flights.

Stop giving them ideas. I like not being identifiable from the air. :-(

Re:A primer on satellite resolution

[tomz16]

FYI : you are off by a factor of two on the diameter of the primary. It should be roughly a meter (probably a little more accounting for aberrations)

Good news

[GRW]

This is good news. Google Earth is one of my favorite applications, but I have been frustrated by the resolution of many areas outside of cities. I will have to do better at hiding my secret nuclear missile silo though. :-)

Re:Good news

[BraksDad]

I thought we already established that WMD are only 49cm across. You don't need to hide it, just paint it beige and it will look like a nude woman sunbathing... or a litter of spaniels. What is the differnce between the 3?

Re:Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that WMD's and nude women don't give me a hard on.

Re:Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

wait what

Map accuracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe now they can start fixing their maps - the round pond in the middle of Kensington Gardens in London has been obviously broken in Google Maps for a long time - it's neither round, nor in the right place. If such a prominent location goes unfixed, I dread to think what happens to mistakes in more out of the way places.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=round+pond,+london&sll=51.50527,-0.180845&sspn=0.009189,0.019312&ie=UTF8&ll=51.505724,-0.180566&spn=0.009189,0.019312&z=16

Re:Map accuracy

[Graywolf]

Looks reasonably round and not out of place to me. Care to elaborate?

Which Orbit?

[smilinggoat]

I did RTFA but nowhere did I see any information about which orbit they're going to use.

It can't be geosynchronous because that wouldn't allow them to photograph all of the country at once. In order to cover the whole US, they'll need to have an orbit that passes the satellite over different parts of the country at different times.

The interesting thing is that in order to get such an orbit, it has to pass over other countries. Will Google take footage of other countries? If so, will it use that footage? That would probably require some intense international negotiations.

Re:Which Orbit?

[WUNHJazz]

Given the orbital height of 423 miles above the surface, this satellite will have a near-polar sun-synchronous orbit similar to other land imaging satellites (the Landsats, IKONOS, etc).

Re:Which Orbit?

[usul294]

423 miles is stated in the summary which implies Low-earth orbit, most likely. The word choice doesn't seem to support it, but it could be on an elliptical orbit that takes it out to 423 miles, which increases the exposure time on the given spot. But to do that it would have to dip pretty low, causing small(but significant over months/years) drag. Also, I'm commenting on the new Google Satellite while test driving the new Google Browser

Re:Which Orbit?

[TubeSteak]

The interesting thing is that in order to get such an orbit, it has to pass over other countries. Will Google take footage of other countries? If so, will it use that footage? That would probably require some intense international negotiations.

What?
Of course they'll use those pictures (footage is for video).

If other countries do not want Google to put them online, they'll have to come and say so.
Google has already been asked/told by various countries to lower the resolution of sensitive military installations, because Google didn't do so for non-US/Euro countries.

Long story short: If you don't want something to be visible in satellite photos, cover it up or put it underground. Governments know to do this by now.

Re:Which Orbit?

[cyclone96]

The interesting thing is that in order to get such an orbit, it has to pass over other countries. Will Google take footage of other countries? If so, will it use that footage? That would probably require some intense international negotiations.

Actually, it will not. I'm not sure if it's codified anywhere in international law or just by historical precedent, but a nation's airspace does not extend into space. A satellite can legally take photos of anything it can see, and there's little a country can do about it except hide things under cover or shoot it down (which likely would be considered an act of war).

Some countries (like the US) can exert control in limited ways by restricting operations if the imaging company does business in the country, but that's it.

Google has quite detailed satellite photos of Pyongyang, North Korea - I'm sure they didn't really agree to that.

Re:Which Orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

from wikipedia: the spacecraft is intended for a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 425 miles (684 km) and an inclination of 98 degrees, with a 10:30 a.m. equator crossing time

Re:Which Orbit?

[TheSync]

Geosynchronous satellites are too far away (22,000 miles above the planet) to take detailed pictures of the surface.

Most surface imaging satellites are in low earth orbit (500 miles or lower).

Re:Which Orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Launch Alert email list, www.spacearchive.info , however it was just announced the launch has been scrubbed due to key personnel being unable to attend due to hurricane related weather issues, and no new launch date has been set yet:

" DELTA II LAUNCH SCHEDULED
                                          Vandenberg AFB News Release

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - Vandenberg is scheduled to launch a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket carrying the GeoEye-1 Satellite from Space Launch Complex-2 on North Vandenberg Thursday, Sept. 4, at approximately 11:50 a.m.

The GeoEye-1 satellite will collect high resolution imagery for a wide array of commercial and government applications.

Col. David J. Buck, 30th Space Wing commander, will be the spacelift commander for this mission.

Boeing Launch Services procured the launch vehicle and associated support services from United Launch Alliance. A Delta II 7420-10 configuration launch vehicle is expected to deploy the GeoEye-1 spacecraft approximately 58 minutes after liftoff.

                                                    COUNTDOWN STATUS

Space journalist Justin Ray of Spaceflight Now will probably provide current countdown status on a web page devoted to this launch. Point your browser to:

    http://www.spaceflightnow.com

On launch day, the launch status page will be updated frequently beginning at about T-1 hour. Be sure to regularly hit the refresh button on your browser to see the latest information.

Boeing will broadcast the launch throughout the continental United States at:

    Satellite: AMC-1 C17
    Orbital Location: 103 Degrees West
    Uplink Frequency: 6265 MHz Vertical
    Downlink Frequency: 4040 MHz Horizontal
    Audio: 6.2 and 6.8

The broadcast begins at 11:00 a.m., PDT with bars and tone and ends about 1:00 p.m. A one-hour test signal will be broadcast Sept. 3 from VAFB beginning at 1:00 p.m. PDT. The test will include bars, tone and an identifying slate. Prior to the scheduled test media should verify their receiving equipment is capable of receiving C band signals and
AMC-1 C17.

Boeing will web cast the launch at:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bls/missions/335/.

Viewers may also access the live web cast at: geoeye.com or http://launch.geoeye.com. "

Re:Which Orbit?

[4D6963]

It can't be geosynchronous

Aduh, no shit Sherlock. It would take something like the HST to get the resolution you'd need from geosynchronous orbit. And obviously you have no clue how far geosynchronous orbit is because you can see the whole country at once from there. Failing two times with one argument.

The interesting thing is that in order to get such an orbit, it has to pass over other countries.

O RLY? You mean like the fact that Russia made passes over the USA and even Area 51 during most of the Cold War? You know, Google isn't exactly the first one to send satellites out there with a camera, all these questions have been answered over 40 years ago.

Re:Which Orbit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey now, just because the Parent brought up an interesting point (Score: 4, Interesting) doesn't mean you have to be such a dick about it.

Re:Which Orbit?

[4D6963]

That is indeed because it's been modded up that I have to be such a dick about it.

Competition

[sbeckstead]

From the discussion I'm reading (not here exclusively either) it would appear that everybody thinks that any one having a superior position in the market is evil. Sorry but by that definition I want the most evil company on the planet. Cornering the market on a commodity is the time honored method of gaining ground on the competition. After all a competition has both winners and losers. It would appear you all don't want a competition you want a communism where everybody shares the market equally with no one having any advantage. Sorry folks that's not how it works. Get over it folks we live in a capitalist economy there will be losers and there will be winners, quit whining. Look up the definition of Competition.

Re:Competition

[QuantumG]

This is the american way of doing business. Competition exists to ensure that customers get the best possible price. That's why we tolerate it. That's why we encourage it. When a company talks about putting up "barriers to entry" and signs exclusive deals with all the suppliers, we don't get the benefits of competition anymore.

Re:Competition

[sbeckstead]

Actually you are quite wrong and simply don't understand econimics 101. Competition does not exist to "ensure" (I'm almost certain that's the wrong word) the consumer anything. It exists and that is the capitalist economic system. The law of supply and demand insures that competition will occur when there is more than one point of supply. But if you have the only supply (Like you invented it and you keep how you make it secret) then there is naturally no competition as long as the situation remains the same.

You can't have the competition and complain when someone wins.

Having cake and eating it too is a no no.

The law of supply and demand require that you make it harder for your rivals to get market share. It is when you use illegal means to obtain that market share that a problem exists. Believe me signing exclusive contracts with suppliers is not illegal. If you simply out compete your rivals then where's your complaint? When you have the best/only supply and demand is great you have the perfect combination. I see no problem with that. Why must there be barriers to competition?


I assume that your sig is rhetorical? You could ask the Shakers.

Re:Competition

[QuantumG]

Clearly, you've just learned what capitalism is and you're all idealistic about it.

Grow up a little, then the adults will talk to you.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Attention, I'm *NOT* a Google employee and dont have any stock from them...

Anyway, ahead with the post... Honestly, let's forget that we're talking about Google for a while and let's think this through. It seems whenever their name gets cited, things get thrown automatically in the 'z0mg, evil' bucket, so let's think this without involving their brand.

Suppose you own a company that makes geographic programs that rely on accurate data for engineering purposes (for example, to make the project of a dam). Suppose you have a lot of money and that you see that a satellite imagery company is going to launch a new satellite. It makes sense for you to pay a lot of money to this company to have exclusivity rights, after all, it will give your company an advantage. And for the company behind the satellite, it makes even more sense.. After all, you are putting a pile of money on top of a bomb (that also costs a pile of money) to blow it to space, hoping it will work.

As for your competitors, what option is left for them? If they consider that good satellite pictures are important, they will go after the other satellite companies and ask for a similar agreement. Then another satellite gets launched. Then another competitor sees that and goes to the company that launched the satellite you use and gets an agreement as well, because the agreement said you had exclusivity to the images generated by satellite X only.

So, in the end, the result is:
- all companies are forced to improve their product
- all satellite companies have to have a better product (better resolution, better coverage, etc)
- all rocket companies involved have to be more competitive, since unreliable rockets are a problem for business
- all satellite makers will have to improve their processes and products, to produce more and faster (or do you think those satellite imagery companies build their own satelites?)

In the end, a single satellite caused competition in at least 4 industries, not to mention all the other areas involved (camera companies, radio companies, companies that make the ground station hardware, etc). If that's not good for the economy, I cant see what could be good then....

In the specific case of the agreement between Google and this company, it seems that their terms are that Google will be the sole user of data *from this satellite* for web purposes. So nothing prevents this same company from launching a satellite for Microsoft or any other company from that matter.

Now, if the agreement said that the company must sell its data only to google, independent of which satellite generated it, then it would be anti-competitive.....

Re:Competition

[QuantumG]

It *could* have that effect, or it could not.

Whether the result is one or the other determines whether the action is anti-competitive or not.

Re:Competition

[Krotos]

But if you have the only supply (Like you invented it and you keep how you make it secret) then there is naturally no competition as long as the situation remains the same.

And, precisely because there is no competition and it is difficult to impossible for new players to enter the market, you no longer have much incentive to innovate or keep your prices low. Consumers suffer accordingly.

It should be obvious to anyone with a brain that Google is going to become the next Microsoft once it succeeds in destroying the current one. And at least the current one doesn't have satellites watching us.

Re:Competition

[sbeckstead]

And, precisely because there is no competition and it is difficult to impossible for new players to enter the market, you no longer have much incentive to innovate or keep your prices low. Consumers suffer accordingly.

Define suffer, what gives you and any consumer the right to relief from suffering? Besides, market saturation and several other factors will self limit the prices, and like Coke a Pepsi will come along and steal a bit of your market. Economics is a rather complex subject and this over simplification of "They own it so they are Evil" crap is annoying.

Re:Competition

[sbeckstead]

Clearly you have no understanding idealism.

Re:Competition

[QuantumG]

Clearly you have no understanding grammar.

Uh oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just used the Google browser to look up on Google Finance whether or not the price of Google's stock was affected by the launch of the Google-branded satellite...

This can't end well!

Re:50cm? That barrier is gonna fall soon

[Anonymous Coward]

when it WAS a munition? Have you looked at the legal requirements recently for selling a program containing encryption, internationally? (perhaps, including something as simple as libSSL on an iphone application)

heh

[B3ryllium]

*tags it as theunblinkingeyeofgoogle*

I was just referring to the Chrome logo as that - and then this happened. Serendipity, I say. Heh. Or, at least, synergy.

Re:heh

[Graywolf]

Or conspiracy!

Screwed up units, you crazy USAnians

[Anonymous Coward]

Pounds, miles and centimetres, all in one post. Sigh.

I can see you're trying, but 1 out of 3 is still a losing score.

Personally, I am awaiting Google TiSP...

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I am awaiting Google Tisp...

My previous installations from Comcast and Time Warner were already in the sh*tter... at least fiber would be an upgrade...

a lesson for everyone

[ILuvRamen]

If you charge an insane price for satellite photos, your customer will just launch their own damn satellite. Btw I think what they mean is the size of one pixel is 50cm on the ground. That kinda sounds about right for a high res satellite pic. And finally, I can realistically say that it uses "pixels the size of cats!" Sorry SNES emulator graphics, but they get the title.

Quasi-Evil

[raftpeople]

The diet coke of evil

50cm? Why not buy the 6cm synthetic radar data?

[uf911]

Folks like Intermap and some of the lidar scanning folks have 6cm data sets available. While not photorealistic, it's great for 3D mapping ... which is one probable direction for future mapping services anyway.

Who needs skynet?

[McNihil]

when google exist? Hm.... wasn't there an AI learning from search engine data... bzzzt... ^HUP

This reminds me...

[ohay]

of a song:

I always feel like somebody's watching me...

A Sun-Synchronous Oribit

[Cliff Stoll]

Most satellites for earth observation use sun-synchronous orbits. These orbits let the satellite's cameras take pictures ob objects at the same solar time. This means that it will pass overhead at the same local time every day ... so the images will have the same shadow characteristics.

You accomplish this by making the orbit precess exactly 360 degrees per solar year.

These orbits are typically nearly circular, but needn't be; you can put a spy satellite into a sun-synchronous elliptical orbit, so it'll swoops down and photograph near perigee, then waste a lot of time around apogee.

Since this orbit is around 684 Km, it can be shown that it must be pretty close to circular, has an orbital period of around 100 minutes, and its inclination is probably about 96 to 100 degrees (meaning that the satellite is slightly retrograde - 90 degrees inclination is polar, zero degrees is equatorial) In turn, this means that pretty much all of earth will be seen by the satellite, except for 8 degree circles around the poles.

A 96 minute period means that each successive orbit will look down on a place 15 degrees west ... one time zone to the west.

Geosynchronous orbits are pretty useless for this type of work, since they're so far away (you need really big telescopes to get much resolution). Also, you'd only see one hemisphere, and half the year it'd be nighttime over the areas you want to see.

OH NOES!

[davidc]

At 50 cm resolution it will be able to see my naughty bits while I'm nude sunbathing in the back yard!

GULP!!

[stainlesssteelpat]

Now they can really their googlegulp data without my tinfoil hat getting in the way.

At first glance I thought it said "Georgia Satelli

[bwohlgemuth]

At first glance I thought it said "Georgia Satellite". I was wondering what took them so damn long...

/and keep your hands to yourself...

Data sources and GPL NavSystems

[Lord Satri]

I keep hoping that Google will start releaseing some of their data into the public domain/GPL/Creative Commons.
That Google spy van must be gathering data like speed limits, which streets are one way. Maybe even which are paved and not.

You're right for StreetView (you can still use Google's StreetView data in OpenLayers.org for example), otherwise, Google Maps/Earth licenses data from others (Tele Atlas/NAVTEQ/DigitalGlobe/GeoEye/etc), so they are not the ultimate geodata owner (yet? ;-).

One place missing GPL application is a really good navigation system.

Yes but... do you really need this? When you'll buy your GPS-enabled navigation system (e.g. from Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, etc), you'll be given appropriate software that works with the hardware you just purchased (even the iPhone has (in dev) it's turn by turn nav syst software). You don't "need" to install an open source nav syst.

That said, I agree, a solid open source nav syst would be nice. Roadnav is an example, but I think it's not as mature as commercial offers. The data for such an open source software project already exists on OpenStreetMap.org.

Re:Data sources and GPL NavSystems

[LWATCDR]

"When you'll buy your GPS-enabled navigation system (e.g. from Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, etc), you'll be given appropriate software that works with the hardware you just purchased (even the iPhone [slashgeo.org] has (in dev) it's turn by turn nav syst software). You don't "need" to install an open source nav syst."
And when you buy a PC it comes with Windows so you don't need to by install Linux, Firefox....
I do tend to agree with you but I would love to build my own car nav system and see if I could do better than what the car companies are doing.
Since Google is driving the StreetView Trucks It seems to me as an ideal way to gather GPS data for the streets, Speed limit data, and even the type of roads they are. That data could provide a large amount of free GIS data. Of course if all the states, counties, cities, and towns would just release their GIS data then it wouldn't be needed but I don't see that happening.

Re:Data sources and GPL NavSystems

[Enigma2175]

And when you buy a PC it comes with Windows so you don't need to by install Linux, Firefox....
I do tend to agree with you but I would love to build my own car nav system and see if I could do better than what the car companies are doing.

Currently, I use GPSDrive in conjunction with Mapnik and OpenStreetMap.org on my carputer. It's more of a "you are here" system than a navigation system, but with the OSM data navigation abilities are supposedly in the works. With OSM maps it really looks nice, although I haven't used the new version with upgraded OSM and LandSat capabilities so it may be even better now.

Orbiting brain lazers....

[Temujin_12]

This is the first node in their cluster of orbiting brain lazers. Next thing you know they'll be holding the moon for ransom.

'Targeted' ads

[Anonymous Coward]

30 seconds later, his wife receives a cheat-tweet and goes ahead and splurges on the Google Deathray from orbit (Google Deathray, the NEW only way to be sure...)

License??

[Bert64]

// Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50 cm because of the terms of GeoEye's license with the US government.'"

Surely this only applies to US territory, and they can use higher resolution images of other places...
Come to think of it, the US takes pictures of other countries without their permission all the time, why shouldn't google take any pictures it pleases? If something is out in the open you can hardly claim it's private anyway.

What can you hide in 9 cm?

[hanshotfirst]

Seriously, how much difference is there in 41cm imagery and 50 cm imagery? Is this talking lens size, like a camera (e.g. 35mm, where a different lens size can make a big difference) or is it maximum resolution of objects on the ground?

But, but, but ... how big are these meters?

[sean4u]

Are they like over a metre, like a parking meter, or around 20 centimetres, like a gas meter, or what? And is there an international reference meter somewhere?

Re:But, but, but ... how big are these meters?

[Permutation Citizen]

Yes

Re:But, but, but ... how big are these meters?

[Sobrique]

No. But there is an international reference metre.

Viewing Beeeg Boodies from Space

[posinabox]

"Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50 cm"

Awesome I can now see my X-woman's thong from outter space?

Re:50cm? That barrier is gonna fall soon

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot the birds down, politically - bully the other countries into imposing similar limits.

10:1 that that's not only what will happen but also what already IS happening.

electronics background

[DrYak]

Like doctors.

IAAMD and let me tell you that, indeed most of us doctors could manipulate a soldering iron (except maybe for psychiatrists). You just have to realize that it's mostly like routine work, except that this peculiar patient has less tendency to bleed.

Re:electronics background

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an electronics technician, and let me tell you, the hospitals won't even let us do the routine work. Even when we point out that it's just like what we do except more of our tools operate at 700 degrees.

obligatory Godwin's post

[Corwn of Amber]

I was looking for some place to post the factoid that 41cm is way, way behind the current tech level. Satellites can see with a res of 1 inch, and that's whet the public is told. Make that 1mm for really advanced current systems, those we'll be told about in a couple of decades.

"50cm because of US regulations". That's ridiculous. You can't regulate technology. It's just like regulating science.

Re:obligatory Godwin's post

[Gerzel]

Soon enough roof mounted license plates might be in order.

I think it's time

[Anonymous Coward]

to stop croping circles into corn.
Just let's all spread the word
"F**k off Google" everywhere visible from their satelite.

They wouldn't have to.

[brunes69]

If Google started offering the publishing of peer-reviewed journals for free, including print copies and mailing, with the only caveat being that the journal remains indexed and accessible via journals.google.com, I am sure within a very short period of time the current profiteering academic journals would go the way of the dodo bird. Then again, this kind of seems like what they are going for with knol.google.com, except maybe a bit more formalized and peer-reviewed.

A good thing

[GPS Tracking]

This is good. Google Earth has room for improvement. Maybe they can catch up to Microsoft V.E. This will improve our mapping for gps tracking devices.

they bought NASA [Ames]

[peter303]

Personal runway just across the 101 for Sergey's 737.

Re:they bought NASA [Ames]

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's on the same side of 101. It's just down the street. And it's not like NASA is using it, nothing launches from Ames.

they spy too?

[Ryogo]

wooh.... now google's spying on us. hey, maybe i'll be able to search myself playin my fiddle on the roof -_-. This is amazing technology. lets just hope they don't decide to abuse it.

41 cm vs 50 cm?

[RichiH]

The restriction will just come from a more or less arbitrary decision back in time and not be targeted at that specific satellite as some people seem to think.

What I am interested in, though is how they will be able to use 'real' 50cm shots. Will they do special rounds for Google and other customers? Anti-aliasing is not an option and I can't come up with anything else. So.. How will they do 'real' 50cm?
Even vague speculation highly welcomed!

When is the launch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know what time the launch is on Sunday, Sep 7th? I'll be in the area and want to know when to look up...

microsoft to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

with google increasing power, we need another power to balance it out... now it's the time to microsoft act and be the nice guy for a change, since apple long forgot how to be nice...

a "nice guy" microsoft would put privacy in top priority and make sure that microsoft products aren't affected by google's ads...

it would be interesting if microsoft did something like that...actively disrupting google. it would be a battle on two fronts.. both legal and technological... and I belive microsoft has more brains, method and experience and lawyers than google.

unless google buys microsoft, than it's done. big brother, skynet, whatever...

So wasn't John Holmes

[TravisO]

and the pile of missing 2004 US election votes

Give them a call

[Colin Smith]

Maybe they'll send you their search indexes.

 

Google satellite launch

[Q2we4rt6]

The Google satellite launch is postponed until August 6th.

whogal

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh that's right... I remember now...

4 legs good 2 legs bad.