Russian Town Puts Giant Smiley On Google Maps

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."

Comments

But where is it?

[cmaxwell]

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

Re:Where exactly?

[sivax]

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?

Re:Where exactly?

[evanbd]

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

Fake images

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Fake images

[4D6963]

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.

ÐzÑÐнÑOE Ñ...&

[gblackwo]

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

It's a bad photoshop

[Rufus211]

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.

Re:It's a bad photoshop

[gsslay]

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.

Yes, Lenina

[tetromino]

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.

Re:Lenina?

[shutdown -p now]

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.

Re:Where exactly?

[c0p0n]

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.

Re:You know what...

[Nabeel_co]

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