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"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.'"
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?
Animoog.org
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.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??
Everyone knows WMDs are only 49cm across.
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.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
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.
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hmm, I'd be inclined to bet that it will hide precisely 9cm!
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Google bought outer space?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Google uses aerial photography for the views of major cities - so those 10cm resolution images are not from satellite.
Is there a death ray? It's the only way to be sure.
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
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?
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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.
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
50cm is like half a meter.
It's precisely half a meter.
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vegetables, oh teh horror! ;)
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
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.
Worst...sig...ever!
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"
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.
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?
Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
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."
Can I bum a sig?
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
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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.
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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."
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.