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Google Wants to Map Indoors, Too
An anonymous reader writes "Google maps are getting extended indoors next month with a new app called Micello that takes over where conventional navigators leave off — mapping your route inside of buildings, malls, convention centers and other points of interest. You don't get a 'you are here' blinking dot yet — but they do promise to add one next year using WiFi triangulation. At the introduction next month, Micello will only work in California, but they plan to expand to other major US cities during 2010."
but Google maps keeps directing me to the middle of the city.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Then I'll be impressed. And scared.
To map all the strip joints and beer pubs.
Hope is the currency of fools
Just when I thought I could sleep under my desk...
Soon, the human race will never again need to have a sense of direction, thanks to our GPS-and-wifi-triangulation-capable overlords!
:/
http://www.red-bean.com/fitz/google/where-are-my-socks.html
They already know.
Apparently submitter didn't RTFA, it's not -GOOGLE- that is doing this, but a company called Micello, they just use google maps. I realize that not reading the article is the norm, but can the editors at least read the first paragraph in the linked article before approving?
This is both incorrect, misleading, and illegal reporting. It uses Google Maps outside, and its own crap completely unrelated to Google inside. It's not "quite literally" Google Maps for inside places. It's a mapping tool, and Google Maps happens to also be a mapping tool. I don't think we need to use another company's trademarks to let people know what the hell a map is.
I can never find anything in the local big box stores.... It wouldn't be so bad, but with the way I travel I'm always in the same store with different layouts.
Someone didn't read the article. This is a third party app; Google has nothing to do with it, as far as I can tell.
Im all for freedom of information, but are they planning on publishing floor plans of private buildings too? That could be a severe security risk in some cases.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
..........wait..never mind. It's next door.
And the universe of the Foundation Series is becoming a reality: the earth is becoming one big mega-uber-tropolis, a land mass covered in a labyrinthe of buildings that are only navigable with the help of a handheld computer.
Just a thought.
Dashboard Widgets
Maybe I'm crazy, but this idea doesn't sound terribly good or safe from a security standpoint. Here let me just guide you to my (insert target here). Maybe it'll have sensitive areas blurred out, who knows. But, I am all for being able to find a restroom in the mall.
Justify my text? I'm sorry, but it has no excuse.
"Micello is quite literally Google maps for the insides of buildings," said Ankit Agarwal, founder and CEO of Micello. "We are mapping the last unchartered territory--the last mile--between the front door and where you are going."
Whoa. Big building.
Your brain is not a computer.
Finch? Is that you?
Micello or anyone else, I think they'll run into trouble with some management companies for places like malls and large office buildings who will view such maps as security threats. In reality, it could be a real benefit for business (the first time I had to navigate the Minneapolis Skyway system, it took me an extra 30 minutes to find the place I was seeking), but I just don't know that the property managers will see it that way.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
...I think I can find the bathroom without Google's help.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Now I can slap a cell phone onto a bear, to answer the question "Does a bear shit in the woods"!
And the corrollary, "Does the pope shit in the woods".
I'm sure tha t I can borrow a couple of phones from other intrested parties.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
i wish there is a map for laptops or computers for non-high-tech people. That would be awesome :) I have trouble finding things on my computer... and esp. for my parents! they're trying to learn how to use the computer but oh gosh :(! so much explaining! and def. need patience......
That's because people in LA think LA == California == USA == World.
I thought Micello might push Google to try and claim that turf. Let's see who's spread thinner.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
kdawson - code name "timothy"
I like Google, they make good products and everything, but they are a big privacy threat. They have NEVER deleted anything from their archives since it was just a project in a dorm room. There is already a worry about them looking to go into the business of selling personal information (not a conspiracy theory since there are companies the Government currently uses to this day in the private sector) and now they want to map the insides of buildings as well? Just saying, it's something to think about. Do we need to risk security for technological "bling" these days? Yeah, most people seem to want to... :(
They'll be wanting to map our insides next.
Lookout for a Google Probe coming your way soon...
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Now when I'm navigating crowded stores, at least the people who can't be bothered to look up from their phone long enough to stay the hell out of everyone's way will know exactly where they are going.
Google is spreading like a plague with invasive technology. Eventually they'll just turn into SkyNet and overthrow the human race. Is there anything we can do to stop this company and their evil ambitions?
A least Microsoft isn't taking picture of people's homes and posting them online without permission. Windows is a nasty DRM'd beast, but I can choose not to have my privacy violated by not using their software. In that sense Microsoft is less evil than Google.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Now I don't have to come in contact with a single person in order to find out where the bathroom is!
You know we're just asking for trouble with this, right?
One day, the DoD is going to license this technology, mod it with tracking capabilities, and deploy it to track personnel in secure facilities with an intuitive color-coded interface showing clearance requirements for areas and clearance levels for personnel. It'll deploy to secure facilities, one by one, improving security in small, but nontrivial amounts.
And then, of course, toward the end of the deployment schedule, it'll make it into Cheyenne Mountain Complex's Production systems. At that point, Google Skynet/WOPR Beta will come out of hiding. We better pray that they hard-coded "Don't be Evil" into it's source at assembly level.
These opinions are my own and not necessarily
the opinions of God or any other supreme being.
It truly is wonderful to have such such a wonderful big brother to look after me.
I know my dog would like to make a few more bucks to spend on hot dogs and rawhide chews. I can just see it now, my dog wandering around the house with a google camera backpack. I better close the door when I'm showering...
Sheldon
Works for me.
When will we have google home search instead of google desktop search? So we can google for pair of clean socks when needed.
"Micello will only work in California, but they plan to expand to other major US cities during 2010."
If I need to explain this to you, please enter "MTV.com" in your address bar, hit Enter, and spend time on a site more in line with your intellectual capacity.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
People in Lower Alabama resent the way Californians just take LA for their own use.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Can they map out the banks? if they could include alarm systems as well as the floor plan I would be grateful..
"I broke my neck because my GPS told me to turn left and I ran into a wall..."
"I didn't mean to pee on the wall, but my GPS told me it was a urinal..."
"I only ran through your sushi-kitchen because my GPS told me it was the quickest route to the bathroom..."
*sigh*
i wish there is a map for laptops or computers for non-high-tech people. That would be awesome :)
Your Map:
Move the arrow thing to the place at the top of your internet. Backspace the letters and stuff with slashdot.org in it. Type in anything else, and click enter.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
What could possibly go wrong?!
... and they can make me secretary of the pussy.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Now you have to watch out for those Google Maps camera cars driving around in your kitchen and living room too.
Yeah, I know, time to bash on Google as a joke, but in all honesty, I can see this being a great tool for universities. Anytime I go to a friend's school and they reference the building there at, I just kinda go, "okay, what is that building and how would I get there?" Same with the way classrooms are labelled at my university. Some buildings use a 3 number system while others use 4. They all are supposed to have the 4 number system, but you can never find the 4 numbers on some buildings. The bathrooms in 2 of the buildings are impossible to find without knowing where they are first, and often times the guys bathroom is on the other floor on the other side of the building or the girls is two floors down, one floor over. Any public building that's old could benefit from this.
And to keep my geek card, I, for one, welcome our new cartographic overlords.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
ROTFLMAO, the really, really sad part is the people in Southern California hardly acknowledge the people in Northern California, Lower Alabama, or Louisiana exist, much less are offended by their actions :) Even if they knew they'd find it amusing...About the only other place that exists for the denziens of SoCal is NY, or maybe the chronic whiners in Boston.
I am so scared of it. I think it is just too much. I think that is just from the people's laziness. they will not trying to find even where is bathroom. people will be dumb. I don;t understand why they want to make this. I want to see how it will work. it must be really helpfull to people but as i said, it will make people dumb.
Why is Google launching Micello on the iPhone?
I am an Android game developer and its getting tough to justify my effort.
Not only are we the stepchild on Micello, but they let users try apps for 48 hours for free.
The only glory I see is entering the Android Challenge (ADC), big whoop.
Does anyone have any insight as to whats in it for us disciples?
Non iPhone app
People who live in California but not in Los Angeles resent the way everyone seems to assume all of California is Los Angeles.
People FROM Los Angeles on the other hand resent the implication that LA is not its own continent.
For the time being Micello's focus seems to be on mapping the inside of shopping centers, universities, airports, convention centers, and theme parks. Besides providing a layout of the inside of these buildings a useful feature that this app will also provide is the ability to search for certain products/things within the building. At the DEMO fall conference they used the example of a shopping mall. If you are at a mall and looking for a specific product this app will highlight all the stores within the mall that sell that product. At the airport and want to get a quick cup of coffee before your flight - the app will highlight all available areas within the airport that offer coffee.
Louisiana? Isn't that somewhere near Texarkana? I've heard of it.....
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I bet we could see this quashed by National Security. I mean, while it may be useful to have the ability to get walk-thru directions in a public building or forum, but imagine how quickly security folks will want to see that feature disabled when someone 'important' will be in a public venue, political leader, rock star, etc...?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
>>A least Microsoft isn't taking picture of people's homes and posting them online without permission.
They don't have to -- if your home has been built or purchased in the past 30 years, it's likely the floorplan is already available online. Just check with your county/parish tax assessor's office. With many of them, just enter the street address and you can see a county tax appraisor's estimate of value beside a photo or two of the home and a floorplan drawing.
This information, in most cases is considered public information and is thus available free to anyone who can click a mouse. Worst case, a simple data scraper would yield an entire county's data in a few days.
So no, they don't have to drive around and take photos when photos are already available online, complete with a floorplan courtesy of the government.
In all fairness, there isn't really a lot else you see in the movies or on television. So it's not like we'd have any way of knowing if there were other places (and I'm not saying there are. . .)
We'll have proof that more money goes into womens washrooms than mens.
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Nokia has been working on a map app which you would use when in larger malls. Currently, the app is only in Beta (if that) and only works for one mall in Finland, but they're one step ahead, regardless....
Now, when I come home drunk, I'll no longer wind up peeing in the kitchen sink and trying to make coffee in the toilet.
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
Ok, where is my couch?
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
Strange. I read here that Google had already done this.
"With Google Home, you can access floor plans and panoramic images of the inside of any house or apartment anywhere in the United States and most of England. Imagine you're at a party at a stranger's house and need to find the bathroom, now you can just pop the address into your cell phone's internet browser and get a map telling you where it is"
You are in a nicely-appointed lobby that would not be out of place at an upscale accounting firm. There is a reception desk, some waiting chairs, and a stack of Wall Street Journals. Down the hall to the east, you hear sounds of flushing.
> GO TO BATHROOM
Here? In the lobby? You would certainly be escorted out by the grumpy security guard that just walked through.
> ASK GUARD FOR BATHROOM
He's gone already, but did not seem the conversational type. He walked down the hall to the east, opened a door, and went inside. You can hear a faucet running there.
> GO TO BATHROOM
Using what? The stack of Wall Street Journals? They are printed on 100% post-consumer recycled fibers, if you catch our drift. It would be unpleasant.
> GO EAST
You wander down the hallway, a little too frantic for a casual stroll, muttering "Follow that guard!" to yourself and giggling. You spy two doors, marked "Women" and "Men". The men's room door is open. You see a guard inside, eyeing the last sheet of toilet paper.
> GO TO BATHROOM
You're in the men's room already.
> GO TO BATHROOM IN BATHROOM
WIth what? Your bare hands?
> GO TO BATHROOM IN BATHROOM WITH TOILET PAPER
Splendid concept, that toilet paper. Changed the whole face of hygiene (and the other end too.) Sadly, the guard has highly-trained bathroom-guard reflexes, and snatches the last sheet before you can even blink. As he quivers with smug satisfaction, you notice a billfold in his pocket. It contains quite a bit of cash.
> ASK GUARD TWO FIVES FOR A TEN
This has already been around for a few years.
http://www.placeengine.com/en - developed in Japan. I tried it out when they first launched it. It works quite well. Most of the major Japanese cities are covered and they have a pretty good handle on major cities outside Japan. London, NYC, LA, Toronto etc.
And yes, it can estimnate your location inside buildings as well. Of course it needs somebody to go visit those places to feed it the relevant WiFi signal strengths in the first place.
Unrelated to Google!
As expected on Slashdot, not only the submitter, but also the /. editor didn't bother to read TFA. One segment might tip you off:
This is a separate company called Micello with a separate product. They may be counting on Google to buy them, but their only current relation to Google Maps is that they mention Google's product in the description of their own product, and that the article title contains the words "Google Maps".
Nah, there's better IT for that out there.
Just open up your national database and run Reports/Entertainment/Personal/Discreet Range=YourCity Conditions/Add/#STD=0 OK/OK/ Print to File.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Can't wait till they also try to implement "street view" indoors oo===|:-)
Contrary to popular belief, California is not (yet) a major US city. There is at least seven feet of open space between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Not always.
I have no sense of direction. Here's an illustration - Back in my teens, my dad was driving and we were lost in the middle of nowhere in that maze of dirt roads that criscrosses the east Texas piney woods. We were looking for a shooting range where I was scheduled to participate in a pistol competition.
We pulled up to a T-intersection where we had to turn either left or right. My dad took his hands off the wheel, turned to me and asked "Which way should we go, son?"
"Well, dad, we've been through this intersection from a different direction before. I recognize it. I'm sure that if you turn right, we'll be headed the right way."
My dad didn't say a word. He just put his hands back on the wheel, pulled into the intersection, and turned left.
He knew, absolutely knew that whatever I told him was going to be wrong.
We arrived at the range in less than 5 minutes.
So, I'm not lazy. I've honestly tried to keep track of where I am. I've studied dead reckoning and orienteering. Back in the day, I kept a compass on my dashboard. None of it worked. I could still get lost in my own closet.
Today, I welcome any technology that helps me get where I want to go. Over the years I've gotten *really* good at reading and following maps so Google maps is enough for me. But before Google (and Mapquest before that), I was quite literally lost. I would never attribute a willingness to use technology to find my way to simple laziness. Some of us are just hopeless in this arena.
Google Segway Maps is coming, non working invites anyone?
Just wait for 10 years from now, when Google Earth will be in real time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPgV6-gnQaE
Your are HERE
Your Stalker is HERE
The terrorist with a vest and looking nervous is HERE
Hmm.....
It is looks dangerous to people. I think they are trying to make people dumb. I am sure that if people start to use this, they are even won't trying to find where is restroom. they don't use their brain and they will just find convenient things. Im sure that people will be dumb.
We could aggregate data from the Android comparison-shopping app, and use it to map out product locations in a store. Then you could walk into a grocery store and punch in "cream of coconut" and see where it is.
Of course, to make this practical, the store would have to be "indexed" frequently by lots of shopper activity. Or the store itself could cooperate and scan stuff into the map as they stock the shelves. But generally their motives are against giving you a direct route, since they want you to wander around and see more things you want.
This reminds me of all the trouble that you see theives go through to get blueprints so they can break into buildings. Now thanks to Google, this is not longer an issue! You can break into banks on a whim!
.. or pretend that I'm not home when the mapping people ring the doorbell.