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Russian Town Puts Giant Smiley On Google Maps

Posted by samzenpus on from the working-together dept.

Toramir writes "Citizens of the Russian town Chelyabinsk calculated when the satellite, QuickBird, which takes images for Google Earth and Google Maps, would cross above their city and used people to make a giant smiley face. A rock concert on the main square attracted many people and everyone got a yellow cape. It looks like someone at Google was quicker than usual to put up the new data. Maybe Google likes the idea of an entire town working hard to get its 15 minutes of fame. The article has a screenshot of Google Maps and images taken directly at the event."

19 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. But where is it? by cmaxwell · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't see it on Google Maps:
    http://tinyurl.com/butwhereisit

    Up close and personal - the long version:
    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=+Chelyabinsk+&ie=UTF8&ll=55.159908,61.402202&spn=0.001906,0.005686&t=h&z=18&iwloc=addr

  2. Re:Where exactly? by sivax · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://maps.google.com/maps?q=55.166667,61.4&ie=UTF8&ll=55.159688,61.402395&spn=0.005522,0.013089&t=h&z=17&iwloc=addr Not there now?

  3. Re:Where exactly? by evanbd · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here is the spot in the screenshot. No smiley, though.

  4. Fake images by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can see the search used in the image. Search for for 'Tscheljabinsk, russia' and zoom in. You can see that you end up in the same square, but there is no smiley there!

    Also: cars were removed from the image close to the square, but they're in the same locations further away. Light hits the image from the same angle, which means same time and date difference from equinox).

    1. Re:Fake images by 4D6963 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Furthermore the fake screenshot depicts the very exact same thing as the rooftop picture. What's more pathetic, that they actually did it but not for when Google would actually shoot (is there even any way to actually know that?) or that the Slashdot "editors" didn't even see that coming.

      I guess that's Journalism 2.0, in which it's the user who does the editor's job of spotting the bullshit.

      --
      You just got troll'd!
  5. ÐzÑÐнÑOE Ñ...& by gblackwo · · Score: 5, Informative

    ÐÑо? ÐÑ Ð½Ð ÐонÐмÐÐÑÐ Ðо-ÑÑfÑÑÐÐ? ÑмоÑÑÐ Ð google ÐÐÑÐÐоÐ! ÐоРWow, seriously no cyrillic on slashdot? What is this the 90's?

  6. It's a bad photoshop by Rufus211 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Compare these two:
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IeJHb-2CVGM/SNUFiyTlEHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/shQMNh5h89o/s1600-h/smiley-1000.jpg
    http://maps.google.com/maps?q=tscheljabinsk+russland&ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=iceweasel-a&t=h&ll=55.160037,61.403425&spn=0.004793,0.011179&z=17

    The cars on all the side streets and all the shadows are exactly the same. Someone just photoshoped out the cars on the main street and put in the smily. Nothing to see here.

    1. Re:It's a bad photoshop by gsslay · · Score: 4, Informative

      Except that the high resolution photographs on google are not taken by satellite. They're aerial photographs.

      So the entire exercise was based on a fiction, and the organisers probably knew this.

  7. Yes, Lenina by tetromino · · Score: 5, Informative

    If a town or a street got renamed during the Soviet period, after 1992 its name was in most cases restored to the pre-revolutionary version. However, if the street was built during the Soviet period, of course it would not get renamed, since it never had a pre-Soviet name in the first place. Renaming a street just because its name is no longer politically fashionable is akin to rewriting history, no better than what the Soviets were doing.

    1. Re:Yes, Lenina by ubercam · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sure they did! All over the place.

      As an example, Platz der deutschen Einheit, Kassel (Square of German Unity) used to be called Adolf-Hitler-Platz. That's what a friend of mine who lives there told me.

      I mean come on, if you lived on Hilterallee, Goebbelsstraße or Mengeleplatz, wouldn't you want it changed too?

      Not only that, the East German city of Chemnitz was renamed to Karl-Marx-Stadt during communism, but reverted to the previous name after the wall fell. Same with Eisenhüttenstadt, which was renamed to Stalinstadt.

      I'm sure there are way more examples, but that's all I could come up with in 2 minutes.

  8. Re:It's a GOOD photoshop by Rufus211 · · Score: 2, Informative

    correction: it's a good photoshop, because it fooled us enough to dig deeper. i think they succeeded in their prank marvelously.

    Fooling a /. "editor" doesn't make it a good photoshop. It took me about a second to realize it was a hoax, and less than 30 more to look up the above link. I guess that was a bit too much effort for samzenpus.

  9. Re:Lenina? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative
    Some do.

    Anyway, almost every city in Russia still has Sovetskaya street and the Lenin square (complete with a statue). My own home town, Tambov, also has Karl Marx street, Komsomolskaya street etc. Some streets that were named after the more odious figures were renamed in the 90s (one was named after Antonov-Ovseenko, who was the commissar in charge of suppressing the anti-communist Tambov peasant rebellion in 1920s, and personally signed the order to use poison gas against the rebel), but most of the "generic" names were left untouched.

  10. Re:Here's an example of the real thing by Petrushka · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not for the sake of Google Maps, it's to be visible to passengers in passing planes. Notice the major international airport (O'Hare) about 500 m south-west of that spot ...

    Here's another company logo just to the south of O'Hare. Sometimes you see them further away if the building is in a flight-path. Here and here are a couple several km away from Auckland Airport; notice the different orientation of the logos, depending on the angle the building will be visible from.

  11. It was actually explained in one of the links ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Read the discussion in the link after the images taken on the event.

    This was a real attempt, but it was acknowledged (by people who were there) as failed, probably beccause of the overcast.

    It was a ploy event for a local IPS (which according to the commenter happens to have bad reputation anyway).

    Case closed?

  12. Re:Where exactly? by c0p0n · · Score: 4, Informative

    Looks fake to me. The screenshots on the article's websites show the cars on the exactly same positions, so it's obviously the same square, photoshopped.

    --

    Your head a splode
  13. Re:Where exactly? by complete+loony · · Score: 2, Informative

    The other pictures from the event clearly show an overcast sky. Even if they did time it properly for the next fly-by, I doubt the google earth image will show anything.

    --
    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  14. Re:You know what... by Nabeel_co · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah this is fake. It's not actually on google maps... Take a look: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Tscheljabinsk+Russland&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ll=55.16035,61.402127&spn=0.004952,0.007499&t=h&z=17

  15. Re:Where exactly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Whoooooooooosh

  16. Re:Where exactly? by irenaeous · · Score: 2, Informative

    Look again. Even the moving cars (the ones that have not been photoshopped away) are in exactly the same place.