Slashdot Mirror
TomTom Flames OpenStreetMap
An anonymous reader writes "TomTom Navigation has a recently launched article on what they call the 'negative aspects' of open data projects such as OpenStreetMap. As there are no hard facts and details to the studies they refer, the OSM community identified this release as classic 'Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.'"
FTFA: "We harness the local knowledge of our 60 million satnav customers, who can make corrections through TomTom Map Share." So... open mapping projects are worse than their closed mapping product because their closed mapping product is collaboratively edited by the users... Nice argument.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
I would hope a self-driving cars use data from it's immediate surroundings to make decisions and just use a GPS as a navigational device that can be overridden by irl factors on the ground. It wouldn't even have to be sabotage that overrides a gps, just your avg Cop/Fireman blocking off a street temporarily.
IMO, people are bigger dangers. Especially in a situation like where faulty data will lead a GPS will tell them to turn the wrong way on a one way street and they don't really check. I have a friend that obeys the things blindly. I know the GPS is screwing up and using a route that may look good on paper but is utterly long irl compared to some shortcuts the locals know. But no, she never listens. The GPS says so and it must be followed. She's the type to veer into oncoming traffic on a one way street if, fate forbid, her GPS screw up majorly one day.
They may be "built using unreliable hardware and software", but expensive commercial maps are apparently often pretty badly wrong - including "dangerous" things like mislabelled one-way streets, roads that head into lakes, and other errors that could cause serious accidents, many of them unfixed for years!
The motives are obvious, the critique is not very specific, everyone who is using OSM does realize their limitations, and anyone who is using mapping software and gets in trouble because they prioritize the mapping data over what they can see with their own eyes should not be on the road anyway.
Too bad for Tomtom, but they stopped to be relevant quite a few years ago.
"In some places, like where I live ... However, Bing Maps is the best one of them with most information"
And where is that place where you live? Sorry, I get suspicious if a newish user account promotes Bing like that.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Nice tip for Bing the same minute that the article was posted. Shill of not, that's bad slashdot swag, man.
The oddest part, to me, is that they kind of admit to the same issues in TFA:
Our map-makers are real experts, many having over 20 years' experience in the field. And we harness the local knowledge of our 60 million satnav customers, who can make corrections through TomTom Map Share.
Surely a disgruntled employee can be do a better job at keeping disgruntled users in check, than a community of volunteers...
TomTom is clearly referring to the case where OpenStreetMap caught Google contractors vandalising OSM.
Everyone can edit anything and they are often built using unreliable hardware and software... this can lead to serious problems. Imagine if some of those 'self-driving cars' would use them
There you go, jumping from one assumption to another !
While the open-map itself might not be 100% accurate, how sure are you that the map from Tom-Tom is?
And about those "Self-Driving Cars" - if those cars got into accident due to errors in Tom-Tom's map, then what?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
My GPS nav also is a "she"!
Greetings and Salutations;
Well, I have been editing and contributing to OpenStreetMap for several years now, and, I have to say that while there is a point to the criticism, in general, I would disagree with their analysis. It is a bit too self-serving for my taste. I do not own a TomTom, but, have had a couple of Garmins, and, have used a TomTom unit before. The commercial maps have been no better than the Open Source maps, and in several cases have been far less accurate. There are a number of places here in East Tennessee where the commercial maps have the GPS insisting that I am driving through the fields on the side of the road.
One point where Open Street Map shines is that it has actual roads and trails in such places as National Parks and forests...where the commercial maps have nothing but blank green areas.
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
"Many drivers rely heavily on satellite navigation for precise directions, and mapping errors can be extremely dangerous, particularly in the case of one-way streets."
I see people using these commercial quality navigation units every day and still they take stupid actions like driving into a oneway street and making last second turns (right... left, NO RIGHT swerving all over the road) while spending more time looking at their statnav than on the road. Turn by turn navigation is dangerous by itself when used blindly no matter what maps are being used, they induce a near total lack of anticipation of traffic.
Nice tip for Bing the same minute that the article was posted. Shill of not, that's bad slashdot swag, man.
I thought the same thing but I would have expected better English. It was also a bit of a convoluted argument to get to "Bing is great" don't use TomTom or OSM.
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
Going by their argument, if community driven approach is not correct most of the time, then why do we rely on wikipedia? I have used various mapping softwares in rural places and they either report wrong location, or better still, 'No maps are available for this area' Bottomline: It is all FUD on their part of marketing their product.
Fuck Beta
Basically they say that they provide more "quality control" than OSM, and that people should check their electronic map, this is not false...
The arguments are very similar to the ones the various encyclopedias offered (and still offer if they haven't disapeared yet) against wikipedia.
But they do recognize value in OSM, so I guess they are more into thinking how in the future leverage OSM, after all the real competition to tomtom is not OSM but google map or bing map on the mobile phones....
They should focus on lowering the price of their hardware, who will pay at least 150€ for a satnav, when they can have something similar for 19€ on an android phone.
(since they need the phone subscription anyway, and yes the tomtom is probably "better", but 130€ buys quite a lot of gasoline, even at current prices).
Maybe they'll bring out a 50€ android + osm based navigator, and offer some fun "add ons"
I wonder how they handle winter roads, like one can find in the northern part of Scandinavia.
This are routes that are open only in winter when the lakes are frozen, and provide very convenient routes and shortcuts. In summer however they are closed for obvious reasons.
Yeah, we really really really need a new moderator option, -1 marketdrone
They should worry more about Google maps/navigation. You get a smartphone with that on it, and suddenly a Tomtom doesn't seem like a good buy anymore. My mom has a Tomtom because she could practically get lost driving on a straight road, and it has worked well. However it has nothing on my smartphone with Google on it. Reason is that the smartphone can (and does) fetch map data in realtime. I don't have to remember to load maps for where I'm going and they'll be as up to date as Google has at the moment.
In terms of other features like plotting a route talking you through things and so on they both work fine.
That's their real threat. Anyone who has a newish Android smartphone already has this, and I have to presume it is available on all other platforms. It's free and it works well. You don't have to remember to bring anything with you, other than your phone which you probably already have. Heck even if you don't have the app you can download it in the field.
Between that and cars with built in nav systems, I can't see them having a market for much longer. Stand alone GPS units are going to be the kind of things that hikers use, if you are on a roadway your car, phone, or both will already have you covered.
I am ashamed of our marketing department
TomTom itself will direct you to a point about half a mile away from my house (in the middle of a large town) if you put my postcode into some of its GPS devices.
That's caused problems both for friends and takeaway delivery drivers :(
The problem with open maps is that too many can edit them.
The problem with closed maps is that too few can edit them.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Reason is that the smartphone can (and does) fetch map data in realtime.
Yes it does, which is great right up until you are in an area with really poor data.
On any smartphone I will always have at least one offline mapping app, so that I can find things around me (or how to get out) even if data connections fail.
You can alleviate that to some degree with caching (which Google Maps does) but it still doesn't help if you want to search for something new or run into an area the caching did not anticipate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm glad I have the tom-tom maps, and not OpenStreetMap. They are so accurate, that the TomTom maps try to take me through a tunnel not yet open (and not due to be open to end of this year). End Sarcasm.
How can Tom Tom claim their maps are accurate? They're far from that. Speed limits totally wrong. Intersections that don't exist. And don't get me started on the route planning. I have a brand new tom tom which I use in Brisbane Australia, and it will get something (if not more than one thing) wrong on every journey I've used it on.
Bring on the open community I say!
I bought a WinCE PDA with TomTom back when they first appeared.
I later got a new version of the TT software for the same PDA.
Later I bought a TomTom device (still a WinCE PDA, but only running TT).
Then I bought an Android phone and... TT didn't have an app, so I got a different brand.
TT's enemy isn't some open mapping service, it's their own failure to adapt to the changing world around them.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
"In some places, like where I live ... However, Bing Maps is the best one of them with most information"
Yeah, we really really really need a new moderator option, -1 marketdrone
I hate to say it but GP is telling the truth in the case of the UK, especially when it comes to walking trails. Look at this bing map view of a nearby valley. It clearly shows footpaths, contours, wooded areas, etc, you can see where to walk and how difficult the terrain will be. On the other hand the google map view of the same area shows the valley as a blank! I certainly find bing much better for hiking route planning, in fact I would go as far as to say its impossible on google.
In addition to your very good point some of the commercial maps (used to?) deliberately add mistakes to their maps as a test that they can use to see if anyone is copying them.
ye ye - I know [citation needed], don't feel like it
The fact that Tomtom feels the need to bring up OSM says to me that OSM is now a credible competitive threat to them. The business model of selling maps for use on gps units is rapidly becoming obsolete, they can either try to fight it and become increasingly irrelevant, or adapt...
Incidentally, what i dislike about tomtom is that having bought the device, i needed a code to register my map, and this code was on a tiny sticker attached to the sleeve of a cd that came in the box... When my sdcard died, i replaced it, reloaded the software and map, only for it to refuse to work unless i entered the code. I still have the physical device, but have no idea where the code is (most likely lost) so am left with a relatively expensive device that i now cannot use via official channels.
Ofcourse, i simply found a crack online which allowed me to use the device i paid for without the tiny strip of paper containing an arbitrary code.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I have a TomTom and a month ago visited Cyprus. I did not find map for Cyprus. The only thing I have found in TomTom forum was a discussion if Cyprus is in Europe. O.T. It did not make to slashdot, but TomTom's had a nasty GPS bug after last DST switch. To get a GPS lock you had to cold start it.
The one thing that sticks in my mind about Tomtom: when they got sued by Microsoft, the open source community rallied round. But did they ever bother making the minimal effort to distribute a Linux client, perhaps to show appreciation if nothing else? Appreciation not just for the support they got against Microsoft but for giving them a free platform to build their business on? No. Too much to ask, apparently. As far as I am concerned, Tomtom can fuck themselves.
Oh, and when I lost my Tomtom I did not replace it, I bought a Garmin.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I have been working with digital map data for on advanced driver assistance applications for a few years, and my experience is the following:
Some applications want lots of data. They don’t care if it is perfect or not, such as whether there is a zebra crossing, a traffic light, a stair, a path for mountain bike but not for road bike, etc. One example of this is navigation: it doesn’t matter if the turn has an error of 10 meter, if it is 10 or 25 degrees to the right, etc.
Other applications they are fine with less data, but this must be absolutely accurate to within a meter. Examples of this are active-safety applications, such as map-based adaptive front lighting, curve warning, etc.
Some other applications are in the middle. They are not very sensitive, but annoying if incorrect: example of this is speed limit warning.
The biggest map vendors collect hundreds of attributes at very high quality. This is true particularly for low-number functional classes (highways and motorways). They often meet the 5-m absolute and 1-m relative accuracy for geometry.
It is very difficult for OSM to meet this high quality, specially because you need a differential GPS (DGPS) to collect these. That said, map vendors invest most of their effort on large important roads, while rural or off-roads have from low to very poor quality.
Moreover, one thing is the quality at which data is collected, and another one is the map quality. Vendors tend to decimate (strip-out) geometry points on non important roads in order to reduce the size of the map.
So to sum up: if you are on a motorway or highway, OSM probably won’t match the quality of Navteq, Teleatlas or Google. If you are on a rural area, off-road, bike trail, etc., OSM will probably kick everyone’s butt. Plus it is usually more up-to-date.
TomTom tries to close this gap with their community content, which I find very dishonest from them. They save millions by using people’s data, but they don’t pass these savings back to the consumer.
The problem, as I see it, is that the non-tech savvy have already realised that computers are just machines and fail all the time (just like any other extremely complex piece of machinery).
What many people fail to grasp is that a GPS is also just a computer (and thereby a machine). People seem to view it as "the magic map box that was invented at Hogwarts", and view the underlying technology as being satellites that sense where you are and feed you the right picture. Heck, they even talk about "the Google satellites".. and TV shows aren't helping
This is just a basic misunderstanding of what the technology is, and that leads to this insane blind trust.
People don't know that the GPS isn't actually talking to a satellite, and that the maps are just pictures made by someone and loaded onto the device.
The people here at /. are a bit more tech savvy than the average person, and we actually care about this stuff. Most people don't. They just want their HogwartsBox to tell them where to go in the voice of Professor Snape (okay, so do we, but we know how it's done and that the limitations are...)
I've made the mistake of buying U.S. maps from TomTom twice. Fooled me twice, so shame on me.
In both cases, I needed TomTom to get me to hotels in the south east, where the hotels are located on roads that were created about 3-4 years ago. Google Maps had the roads, but even the most recent update of TomTom did not.
So I emailed TomTom and I was like, hey, your maps are really stale regarding this address. Their response? "Here's how you can correct our maps."
Excuse me, but I'm not paying ~ $50 for the privilege of correcting your maps. If I take the time to show you where your maps are wrong, and I can point your customer support people to the correct data on Google Maps, you do the damn work of updating your fscking maps.
I've found TomTom quite useful over the past few years, but I really can't see continuing my business relationship with them.
The details of your post make your statement of bing being better for hiking a useful post.
The Grandparents post is devoid of any information and merely contains opinion. (which may or may not be correct.)
Work bio at MMWD
TomTom itself will direct you to a point about half a mile away from my house (in the middle of a large town) if you put my postcode into some of its GPS devices.
That's caused problems both for friends and takeaway delivery drivers :(
Isn't that what a post code is, though? They are only useful for narrowing a search down to a certain area, that's why addresses also include road names and numbers.
So why is this post modded up? http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2879609&cid=40139899
It contains no information to verify the commenter's claims? Why aren't you complaining there?
Just out of interest, are the fjords and other bodies of water littered with the sunken remains of vehicles driven by those who forgot to switch their GPS to summer mode?
The original five digit Zip codes identified a geographic area usually served by a single post office. Zip-9 should resolve to a specific address. I suspect that the GP post refers to a non US address that uses a postcode comparable to Zip-9 to identify a unique location.
Bing is great don't use OSM doesn't even make sense as an argument, since Bing uses an OSM layer and permits the OSM project to trace its aerial photographs to generate more detailed maps.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
UK postcodes generally identify a particular street, or even a particular section of a street if it's particularly long or has a large number of houses.
Bing maps nowadays are nothing but a front end for navteq's maps. As a result, they have very detailed maps as navteq is one of the biggest mapping companies around.
Bing maps became navteq maps after the deal with nokia where MS was forced to adopt some nokia tech for a fee to show nokia it was serious about the long term.
Google maps are not really comparable. They're significantly worse because google isn't a mapping company that existed for a long time.
That's simply because they've specifically chosen to make available data from the Ordnance Survey. You can get the same maps on your own non-commercial website free if you want them (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/web-services/os-openspace/api/index.html) or also see them on the OS website (http://www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk/).
Ironically, the "getamap" website requires Microsoft Silverlight, whereas Bing doesn't.
The same area on openStreetMap shows an odd hodgepodge of detail with some trails showing in disconnected parts.
The reality is that the problem has never been with Ordnance Survey, but with the terms and conditions of Google Maps. It has absolutely nothing to do with derived data or our licensing terms but everything to do with Google claiming the right to use any data you display in Google Maps in any way it sees fit, even if it doesn’t belong to them.
Frustratingly, this is only a problem that exists with Google Maps. No such clause appears in the terms of any other mapping API, including Bing Maps and our own OS OpenSpace.
Why is this comment labelled a troll? It points out some potential problems but supports the concept. Geez slashdot!
One obvious difference between the two is 2234483, but then you don't really care since you're probably just trolling anyway.
I bought my first TomTom (and last) a year ago, was instantly out of date map wise missing some fairly major chunks of motorway network that had been completed locally 6 months before purchase. No new maps were sent only tiny small updates. Khants the lot of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street
Bing maps nowadays are nothing but a front end for navteq's maps.
In the UK for these detailed views they use Ordinance Survey maps
The problem with open maps is that too many can edit them.
The problem with closed maps is that too few can edit them.
TomToms problem with open maps is that they can't charge for them, and they compete with their product. This is just marketing BS AKA lies.
This attack was mainly targeted at Waze (surpassed Twitter (!) in the App Store), which has around 20 million users, and becoming a real threat - OSM navigation is not nearly that popular (yet?).
xer.xes -- 4181
I'm not trying to say that smartphone navigation will take over the world. I knew a bunch of people would respond ascribing me that position right after I posted but oh well. I'm saying that it will take over Tomtom's market.
The Tomtom isn't a device that hikers, surveyors, etc buy. It something you buy to get GPS in your car. It is designed around the idea of car sat nav. Well guess what? When you are sticking to city streets, cell coverage is usually pretty good. Even if it drops for a second, it'll pick back up fast enough. No problems there.
In terms of foreign travel, again not the market for a Tomtom. People don't tend to pack these things along to then put in their rental car (presuming they even elect to get a rental car) because you can get one with the car, that has all the maps (Tomtom charges for maps).
Like I said: Their market is car sat nav. They aren't like Garmin who are targeting people who go off the beaten path (literally). The market they are in is the market where Google Nav works great.
OSM seems way less of a threat to them than that. As a simple anecdote: I was considering getting a car GPS. I don't drive a whole lot, I bike to work and can walk to most stores. So often when I am driving, it is to some place I've never been that isn't near where I live. Car GPS would be nice. I'd put it off since they were kind of pricey and I could solve the problem with a pen, paper, and online directions before leaving. However as the price dropped I thought maybe it would be something to have for convenience.
Then, I got my smartphone. I now have zero desire to own one. It takes care of everything perfectly. I have no reason to spend the money on a separate nav system and in fact a good reason not to in that I never forget my phone. It completely eliminated my interest in a sat nav.
You are right, that when I go visit my parents in Canada I can't use it, unless I want to pay roaming charges... However I wouldn't use it anyhow. I don't plan the driving around, it is their turf, they take me around. If I was going to do any substantial amount of driving I'd rent a car, not use their car, and in that rental I'd get a sat nav.
Actually, I have to +1 for Bing here. I spend a fair amount of time geohashing, and Bing does a MUCH better job of handling the questionable little roads out in the middle of nowhere that may or may not be publicly accessible. Google Maps has led me to a lot of gated-off forest roads that Bing Maps correctly does not show.
For a while I lived in a 17-storey tower block that had four postcodes. Each postcode covered four floors, or five for the top floors.
Norway does not host bad reality docus...ffs!
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
Navteq uses...
Navteq is the company that provides maps and mapping services. When you hear names like "tomtom", "garmin" and so on, these companies do not actually provide maps. They provide UI shells and minor map modifications but licence actual maps either from navteq or tele atlas (two biggest providers of mapping data in the world). Navteq and tele atlas in turn get their maps from their cartographers, one of whom you just mentioned.
Yep. It's a work-in-progress; if you know the local paths, go in and add them to the map!
But it's worth noting that partial coverage of rural footpaths is a lot more than TomTom ever has. ;)
Many years ago a freeway bypass was opened near my home: so to access the freeway I do not need to cross the city center. When I bought a TomTom device in 2010, I noted that the bypass was not yet added , so TomTom always plans a route thru the city center: I added it manually and suggested as a correction - but no official correction was ever issued. Last summer I forked another 70€ to buy a map update, in hope that it would add this correction: but no, I wasted my money. I am deeply disappointed.
The title should be: TomTom fears OpenStreetMaps
And by FUDing on them TomTom just really said that OpenStreetMaps are serious competitor and TomTom can soon be out of the business.
You never owned anything based on NavTeq maps have you.
Navteq map databases are the WORST in the world. bad data, really out of date roads, missing roads that have existed for decades.
It's why the OEM Gps systems in many cars and bikes is a complete piece of crap.
The databases used by garmin and the others is based on the US Census data. And TomTom is whiny because the open guys can use the same database.
Anyone can build a tomtom for 1/3rd the price of their over priced stuff. And honestly, they have fallen way behind, even the china knockoffs have a better UI than tomtom has now.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
of any service that doesn't turn our personal data over to the police. The reliability of commercial services in selling private data to law enforcement is unsurpassed, and it is a fatal flaw of OSM not to do the same thing.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Except that you haven't compared that output to the actual terrain. Someone tried to foist Bing maps off on someone I know. The guy is mister diplomacy, never a direct bad word about something ,except for the Bing maps. Both the image quality and the accuracy were shit. Had he been shown a random area he was not familiar with, the scam might have worked but in his case it only showed off how buggy and inaccurate the maps were. Needless to say things were better on Google maps and he tried to enlighed the foister. However, Bing was probably chosen on ideology so I'm not sure his admonitions had any effect.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
> TomTom itself will direct you to a point about half a mile away from my house
Yeah, I have this problem... TomTom knows where my house is. It thinks my driveway (which, granted, has only been the main access to this property for maybe 180 years) doesn't exist, and that I should access my house through the neighbouring farm.
Log in or piss off.
Of course, now I have RTFA I know there ARE applications out there that can give me some serious benefits for travelling .. so I am now downloading Waze to my Android phone .. oh my.
Reliability can be improved by anonymous tracking and by only accepting edits that are made be several, unrelated people. If a large percentage of people never enter a street even though the GPS routes them through it, it's probably one-way or blocked. If a large number of people goes off-roading on the same spot, apparently the map maker missed a street.
I've used both Tomtom and Google navigation. They're equally reliable.
IAAN (I am a Norwegian) and, no. Mostly, fjords don't freeze over, partly due to salinity and partly due to other factors, such as higher winter temperatures along the coastline (due to the Gulf stream) than in the inland. Also, I've rarely heard of winter roads across lakes and fjords. It's not very common, although I have heard anecdotes of some locals taking advantage of the occasional frozen lake or fjord. Going from there to a mapped, official road is a bit of a stretch, though. Of course, if you're feeling funny and add it to OSM, who knows?
UK postcodes generally identify a particular street, or even a particular section of a street if it's particularly long or has a large number of houses.
UK postcodes are just a grid 1km I think, I am on the wrong computer to check. You can always import that leaked Postcode db into a mapping software to see what I mean. This normally translates in to a part of a street.
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
I have to actually LOOK at the road I'm driving on? I can't simply go down the flooded road 'cause my navi says it's all right?
What's next? First they want me to pay attention to the traffic, now this! Driving sure gets more complicated every day.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
ohai false flag troll. how ya doin? looks like you're spreading your own FUD.
In addition to your very good point some of the commercial maps (used to?) deliberately add mistakes to their maps as a test that they can use to see if anyone is copying them.
ye ye - I know [citation needed], don't feel like it
[citation provided] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_streets
UK postcodes are just a grid 1km I think, I am on the wrong computer to check. You can always import that leaked Postcode db into a mapping software to see what I mean. This normally translates in to a part of a street.
Not a grid, and their size does vary, but they are generally only a few hundred yards across; Google Maps will do an outline of the approximate area that a postcode covers, but as a rule of thumb a postcode covers an average of 15 properties.
Oh, and forget using any 'leaked postcode db'. The Ordnance Survey made available a CSV file that maps postcodes to coordinates as part of their OpenData project a few years ago; usage only requires attribution, not payment.
... at leading me to some unsuspecting granny's rural driveway when taking me to Mammoth Caves, Kentucky. The mailbox tipped me off. Don't expect the cave bats order off Amazon. That reliable *closed* data will probably never get updated till a news story surfaces about a clever old girl giving paid tours of her cellar.
Google uses Teleatlas, so not much difference there.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
When you hear names like "tomtom", "garmin" and so on, these companies do not actually provide maps. They provide UI shells and minor map modifications but licence actual maps either from navteq or tele atlas (two biggest providers of mapping data in the world).
TomTom bought TeleAtlas in 2008...
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
If anyone knows the meaning of FUD, its the slashdot crowd. Likely the only acronyms used more often in discussion here than FUD are MAFIAA and BHO. It's a waste of space and time to expand it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Of course, I'm sure that TomTom licensed it properly, rather than just swiping some 'freely' available data for their own commercial use.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
UK postcodes generally identify a particular street, or even a particular section of a street if it's particularly long or has a large number of houses.
UK postcodes are just a grid 1km I think, I am on the wrong computer to check. You can always import that leaked Postcode db into a mapping software to see what I mean. This normally translates in to a part of a street.
Wrong. My postcode covers about twelve square kilometers; down in the village they have three within a hundred metres. It's based on a (rough) number of delivery addresses.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Are you sure you haven't got the two confused? To me it looks like it's Bing that has the area as blank, and Google shows wooded areas and streams....
How is that possible? There are far more than a 1000 addresses within a city zip code (I know that because I used to have to check addresses for newspaper deliveries and each route would be a few hundred houses, and even a small part of my zipcode was many dozens of these routes.
Correctly does not show? Surely a good map shows you what's actually on the ground, and the 'gated off forest roads' are nevertheless roads which (If you have a key to the gate, or else a bicycle) you can actually use. It should show it as what it is - a track, without necessarily public access, but nevertheless there.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I find Google maps much better in many cases. As Navteq maps do not include correctly most rivers or even lakes. Many bridges are missing totally or water route is non-existing even that at the location there is a huge river.
Navteq as well includes too many private roads what are totally useless for normal people, as either by law or by the heading where they go. Google has been smart by leaving out all non-official routes so land owners can be happy that suddenly people just don't drive to farming road just to end up to stuck on field where no one should drive than farmer itself.
In bigger cities Navteq has nice routes at some parks, but Google does that as well, like New York Central Park http://goo.gl/maps/d8ED vs Navteq version http://binged.it/KZf9vO
Or how about these? http://goo.gl/maps/yBrU vs http://binged.it/KZfU8d ?
With Navteq, you can think you are going to solid land... with Google you can clearly see that you can not even walk there.
And when going to hiking and other road trips, accurate water routes are important. As if you end up to situation that map says it is solid ground but between you and goal is separated by river, you get angry.
After all, Google Maps about Manhattan is nice difference http://binged.it/KZgB17 to Google Maps http://goo.gl/maps/4Bkt
I find Google Maps more informative with a glance and even when looking longer, I can easily plan my own route without changing zoom or any other view.
Oh, and did you notice that which one gives you the water routes to different places from/to southern Manhattan? Just for as example:
When you go to somewhere "middle of no where" like http://binged.it/KZhvLa I would say that accuracy of that isn't just so acceptable like http://goo.gl/maps/6OBE
Like do you find three lakes to south at middle of Fort Bennet road?
Navteq comes close, but it isn't not yet there in same class like Google Maps is.
But even today, I would take a printed map gladly from local store. After that I would trust Google. But I would not use Navteq maps unless I am driving from city to city or just traveling on big roads or in streets.
I have many times laughed my ass off to my friends who have followed blindly the Nokia navteq maps when Google Maps have been correct. As they have had the blind faith to Nokia to deliver "best and most accurate maps than any other" and when you are biking or using canoe to travel 1000km, every detail is important.
My wife used to work for a well known map company. She was told that it was common practice to deliberately insert errors so the company could tell if its maps were being copied (I guess they could easily release the lawyers that way).
I wonder how many errors there are in the maps used by GPS. Maybe since it is more controlled, there are less errors ... maybe.
The problem of being led astray by computerized mapping data is a very old one. It predatesTom Tom and is independent of what kind of data source you are using.
I still refer to this problem as "getting mapquested" despite the fact that I haven't used that service in years.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Google maps are more accurate than Navteq, just compare yourself.
Let's be honest, though... how many sales does TomTom lose to people running open map software, vs people with Android phones who use Google Maps because it's free? What compelling advantage to TomTom devices have over Android Phones with Google Maps? The irony of the article is that TomTom criticizes open maps for focusing on things like hiking trails, but that's actually one of the only areas where TomTom has any (temporary, lingering) potential advantage (because those same areas tend to have piss poor 3G coverage, so a device optimized for offline use might be a tiny bit more useful. Though Google Maps' new ability to cache maps for offline use kind of neutralizes that one, too.)
People have on occasion driven down ferry access roads, and plunged into the water because the ferry was mislabeled as a bridge... (I remember such an incident occured in Germany years ago. Darkness and poor signage helped, obviously...)
If you are talking about the US, ZIP+4 (what I think you mean by Zip-9) only indentifies a small region (like a block). Otherwise you'd be limited to 10k addresses per ZIP code, and there's certainly plenty of places that would fail.
Except that you haven't compared that output to the actual terrain.
Actually it is an area that I walk in a couple of times a week, and it is very accurate. The woods have spread a little further down the valley, and there is an "unofficial" path running at the top west part of the valley that is not shown (but its probably not a legal right of way), but the terrain is definitely accurate.Since the data is from Ordinance Survey maps in the UK I would expect nothing less.
What has a number attached to a username got to do with facts? But then you don't really care because you're probably just a mindless slashdot idiot just moding up groupthink.
Interesting. I think the reason that Bing maps are so accurate in the UK is because they use Ordinance Survey maps. Things are obviously different in other countries.
It took me about 20 seconds to track down a paper that supported the Tom Tom blog, how come no one else did. The biggest problem with open source projects like OPM and Wikipedia are the people who deliberately sabotage data for their own twisted reasons. Projects like Tom Tom and the other closed source systems can check important data changes made by users. Some open source projects end up with malware written into the code by creepy losers. In reality these lamers are undermining the entire open source community. Even worse, the Open Source community refuses to acknowledge and address the issue. Tom Tom points out the issues and the community vilifies them, ignoring the problem and in that ignorance refusing to address it. Without a doubt the future of software is in open source, but, that future depends on the communities ability to sift out the creeps who suppress information, insert false information or sabotage the code. Recognize the Problem. Address the Problem. Check the Problem. Do Again. Basic people, basic.
On the way to my former residence, all the mapping services I have ever use direct me to a bit of a shortcut, taking a small bridge over a local river instead of the bridge associated with the state highway.
Said bridge has been closed (condemed) since 1967.
I have attempted to bring this to the attention of multiple major map direction sites and gps companies, but despite 'accepting' my correction, the latest Tom-Tom unit (just for example) still gives the route over the closed bridge
The map in question is ultimately sourced from The Ordinance Survey, the UK government's mapping agency. OS maps are well regarded for their accuracy .
Of course, your milage may vary (perhaps literally!) in countries where Bing relies on other sources for it's detailed maps.
They still do. Or at least some...others claim to have stopped the practice.
Do you have an example such road –such roads should be tagged access=private on OpenStreetMap, and would be rendered with alphaed red splodges over the top indicating it as private.
> The problem of being led astray by computerized mapping data is a very old one.
Yep. I don't trust my GPS to tell me how to get somewhere. I can rely on it to tell me where I am, but when I plot a route I normally cross-reference it against paper maps, directions, and other computer mapping services.
Paranoid, perhaps, but the last few major trips I've made have been to Montreal; TomTom just doesn't seem to be able to deal with that clusterfuck known as "Quebec road work".
Log in or piss off.
What, because those authors publish in places where other people take a look at their work to check that it's all correct and valid, just like OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia?
Mmm... Peer review, powering open data and academic work both alike ;)
Same in Netherland. Postcode + house number uniquely identifies and address.
My problem with TomTom is that it doesn't know where it is. It can take 15 minutes before it's finally found its GPS location. My Android phone has the location in a few seconds.
Also, TomTom has sent me down the wrong road on occasion. And I live in the city where their HQ is located. So they really shouldn't be the one throwing stones here.
Another tremendous Open Street Map feature is that we get the data. When I need a map specific to my needs (treasure hunt for the kids, map for a flyer, etc.), I go to open street map, download the map as an SVG, open it in Inkscape, add/remove features, crop, edit to taste, save as PDF, mail and/or print.
Thank you, Open Street Map!
However it has nothing on my smartphone with Google on it.
How much does your smartphone cost per month to use? Sure, I'll grant that it can make and receive voice calls, unlike a dedicated navigation device, but so can a $60 per year dumbphone that has its own battery. But how much per month does one pay for the ability to "fetch map data in realtime"? Is a $360 per year[1] data plan for a smartphone cheaper than what TomTom and the like charge for periodic map updates?
[1] Source: VirginMobileUSA.com, comparing payLo to Beyond Talk plans for someone who uses very few minutes.
Tom Tom still thinks the first few hundred kms of the 800+ kms Hume Highway between Melbourne & Sydney is 100 km/h. I am not sure how far it thinks that's the case because I turn off after a mere 250kms. It's been 110 km/h ever since I moved to Oz 12 years ago.
Granted, my example is not quite as old as yours, but probably a more significant example of certain providers actually not giving a crap about updates on the basics, let alone the explosion of new estates and traffic conditions. FFS.
Roads are flagged with hours of operation, seasons, etc. I don't know about Scandinavia but here in New Hampshire, US we have roads that are only open in the summertime because they are not plowed in the winter (and thus closed). This is handled in the database as restrictions.
(Source: former TomTom (Tele Atlas) employee.)
Here in Canada there are vast areas that can only be accessed by plane or ice road, so all the heavy hauling of equipment, gear, and non-perishable food gets set up in the winter. And yes, there are numerous vehicles sunk (though fewer than you'd think)- the semi's create a dip in the ice that can fracture when approaching the bank if you go too fast.
http://marsandmore.com - Posters of space, spacecraft, and astronomy.
Indeed, in a city a Postcode is usually a street, part of a street, or a single block of flats. Out in the countryside a postcode can cover square miles of farmland.
Google Maps sometimes shows postcode boundaries, here's one in Glasgow that's about 200m across
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=G2+4jq&hl=en&sll=55.86512,-4.267604&sspn=0.002071,0.004506&hnear=G2+4JQ,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16
Wheras this one near Inverness is about 1km across
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=IV6+7XN&hl=en&ll=57.528981,-4.470577&spn=0.015852,0.036049&sll=57.529572,-4.536686&sspn=0.253622,0.576782&geocode=CZh9Pqs90U35Fd3rbQMdgOy4_ynT6PPhdwCPSDE0q-qJe8xFvw&hnear=Muir+of+Ord+IV6+7XN,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=15
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Where I live, virtually nothing is completely mapped by OSM. Some stuff (that seems to have been imported from an ancient database) is completely wrong. Knowing that, it's still useful. Basically, the stuff that is mapped are the roads and trails that are in common use by the 4 or 5 people using OSM in the area. Even with poor coverage, you end up being able to get to all the major areas. If it isn't mapped, it's a good indication that there isn't much to see there.
I actually started with OSM because none of the bike trails in my area were mapped by anything else. I wanted a map, so I had to draw it myself. It's been fun. I used to use Google maps all the time, but I've now switched completely to OSM with no complaints. I don't really do that much, but whenever I get time, I wander off on my bike and GPS to someplace that hasn't been mapped and go exploring.
Google used to use Tele Atlas data, but now make their own.
Google uses Teleatlas, so not much difference there.
They used to, but not anymore.
In Canada and Alaska ice roads are very real in the winter. I have learned quite a lot about them from the History Channel's Ice Road Truckers over the past several seasons. It's amazing to me that in some places the ice can hold over 2 tons.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
For one, it starts with a logical fallacy, that is the assumption that the software and hardware used to build OpenStreetMap is unreliable, there is also the assumption that it could cause problems with self-driving cars which if you think about it would use local sensors over map data to avoid accidents. And then their is the fact that it is a brand-new account that also puts in a plug for Bing.
The last bold point is my favorite. "we harness the local knowledge of our 60 million satnav customers, who can make corrections through TomTom Map Share." Using people who apparently cannot navigate on their own is on par with Webster hiring partially literate editors.
"Imagine if some of those 'self-driving cars' would use them."
If a self driving car was using the data from my Garmin GPS, then it would merrily drive me down single lane country roads (with high hedges on either side) at 60 mph instead of the nearby (though theoretically slower) main highway. That would be pretty much guaranteed to end up in disaster.
With OSM data (especially the tagging bit) it would be a lot easier for the self driving car to think twice before choosing those routes.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Tom-Tom, Google and the rest should not even be topics in this discussion. The issue is this: when are we, as tax-payers, going to agitate for our Nations, States, Provinces and municipalities to do the map updating and maintenance? After all, these are the bodies who are actually responsible for the roads for which we have, and continue to, pay dearly for. They have the most accurate raw data. They schedule repairs and maintenance. They should maintain their sections of the worlds' roadways.
*** Don't be dull.***
Bing uses ordinance survey in some fashion so in the UK it should be the best. (Their data is the best bar none)
Compare - OS Explorer data (With something like a trial of memory map) to anything else and it is lightyears ahead.
Google wants to be able to edit the map, as they expose a Map Editor for users. If they can't claim ownership, then they will not able to have their users make changes, either directly (using Google Map Editor) or indirectly (collecting GPS tracks and elevation data to supplement roads and terrain)
Dear TomTom, we have awaited your introduction to Android since forever. Your Windows Mobile navigator was excellent but Android version never came. And now it is up to OsmAnd and OpenStreetMap to fill the void. Welcome to irrelevance.
groupthink hasn't posted anything since 2005 http://slashdot.org/~groupthink/comments, so no.
Where are all the good trolls, these ACs are useless.
http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ :(
"Private Garmin", yes, but quite the opposit attitude as concerns Openstreetmap.
And it works: My dezl does drive me, turn by turn, with this.
Too bad the dezl is so buggy that at the present time I just cannot manage to get the speech back
Herve S.
That isn't really fair and some of the the issues it brings up are real.
Frankly the adding POIs I find a bit confusing. Some people will outline the building and or parking lot while others do not. I have added some POIs myself but I found it a bit limited. I found no way to add a phone number to a POI or a website which seems a bit silly. IMHO I think OSM should create a FourSquare type app for check ins and work hard to encourage local businesses to add themselves as POIs. In fact a local business POI could be a source of revenue for OSM as well as data.
The other issue is that OSM uses the Wikipedia style of Open vs the Linux style of Open. While anybody can can take the Linux source and fork it if you want to add code to Linux you have to get your changes approved. On OSM just about anyone has commit privileges Nothing stops me from creating a fake account and trashing the data with bad info. Sure it will get fixed but it will take time.
Finally paying people to work on a project can produce a more complete data set. Some things are really hard and have a limited market. For those areas FOSS just doesn't work all that well. A good example is 3d Cad. None of the 3D programs really compete with SolidWorks, ProE, and Autodesk's products. The same is true right now for mapping.
Go to Enterprise Or on open street map and on Google maps. Which has more street names? Which has more POIs?
I really like OSM and think that more people should support it but TomToms comments are true. You will get a better, more complete map from them than OSM for not much money.
Now if we could get local states, towns, and other entities to start adding data to OSM than that could change but with just people like me adding POIs from memory when we feel like it... Well not likely.
And just for the record Google maps can also have bad data in them. Thing is that they have more data to start with.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I use Waze for most of my navigation now, which also uses an open mapping back-end that's user editable. Winter roads are one of the features I've requested that it doesn't understand yet -- telling me to take a shortcut through a back road that's not open in January for example. Of course, as soon as I avoid it, it re-routes me properly.
One of the things I love about Waze is that it tracks your actual routes you take, and saves them on the routing server to help it make better decisions in the future.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Ah, the MyFukedPC troll is back. This asshole is part of a astroturfing company sent to spam social media sites. Ignore the fuckstick. May he and his type get painful testicular cancer and die horribly in pain, alone.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Yeah, but they're talking about creating minor roads where they don't exist, not reversing one-way street directions!
The type and amount of such "errors" would depend on which cartography company they buy their maps from. Through their "community" they might find and correct some of the errors, or perhaps induce more - who knows?
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
On vacation hitchhiking around Norway about a decade ago I saw some of those lake-roads mapped, and actually asphalt ending in the water. The driver told me that was the start of one of those winter roads. I totally forgot where it was, but it was quite intersting to see.
TomTom flames open street maps? Shocking! In other news, Microsoft flames Linux, and RIAA labels flame indies. Does this actually surprise anyone? Are there really that many people who would lend any credence to a commercial company bashing its competitors?
Free Martian Whores!
To fully understand zip codes in the US the full 9 digit zip code is the 5 digit post office number and the 4 digit route number.
Time to offend someone
As the proud owner of an international model XXL 540 TM (IIRC... basically a midrange lifetime maps/traffic device), I can honestly say tomtom sucks.
The device is mostly ok, when it works. The problem is the map and firmware update process is so fcked up as to make the device unusable for non computer geek mortals. There is probably a 50% chance every-time I update it, that it ends up broken. Just go to the tomtom forums and look at the list of complaints. I could go on for hours about what is wrong with the device, but the summary is that, even with the "free" maps the hours you will spend updating it, and fixing the stupid crap that breaks, means your probably better off just throwing the device away every couple years and buying a new one.
All I can say is thank god for internet forums where people have figured out how to fix one bug or another by standing on their heads and doing some nonsensical thing. Otherwise I would have thrown mine away years ago.
Basically, I won't be buying another TT device, at any price.
TomTom's main claim to being better than OSM seems to be the care and effort they put into keeping their database accurate.
My experience with Navteq and TeleAtlas in trying to get an accurate depiction of the road I live on leads me to question this assertion. My road is broken in the middle by a dirt jeep trail, impassable to all but 4WD, high clearance vehicles, which was not shown in database, causing routing software to believe a route existed from one end of my road to the other. I can't tell you how many delivery drivers claimed my house didn't exist, because apparently their routing software took them in at the "low number end" of the street, assuming they could drive through to my house (which is on the "high number" end). Delayed packages, airport limos that didn't show up, friends coming over and calling to report they couldn't find the house -- apparently, all the GPS companies, including Google and Yahoo maps, are based on the same data.
The good thing about this, is that I only had to convince two database companies that there was a change needed. The bad part was that it took literally *years* of submitting the same change to these two companies (and receiving acknowledgements) before they did anything, and another year before I saw the change reflected in Google and Yahoo databases. GPS units which haven't been updated with a new database will still take folks the wrong way, but at least I get my packages now. We still need to tell delivery people to come in from the "high number" end. And their dispatchers still fail to note that on their delivery sheets, so we still get the phone calls. But not as often.
I call BS on TonTom's assertion that their database is somehow more accurate than the crowdsourced one.
Yeah, we really really really need a new moderator option, -1 marketdrone
The problem is the market drones would use it to mod down anybody else, the way all anti-Google comments are attacked now.
And now you know what those google vans roaming around are doing. That's why cell phones typically can pinpoint your location in seconds while a true GPS can take up to 15 minutes before it even has a clue where you are.
No one's stopping them from creating a TomTom app that uses their puportedly superior maps, uses the GPS already in many tablets and cell phones, that syncs with actual TomTom hardware to suggest user rated locations based on previous travel history or listed interest, shows you on your App's map and then syncs to your TomTom in the car where you're supposed to meet your wife for your anniversary dinner as soon as she updates it on her phone, facebook, or TomTom App, etc.
They don't realize the advantages they've had all this time and never bothered to reach out and try to make it happen. Instead, some dork in PR wrote some thinly veiled demagoguic rhetoric to try to poison the well against their legitimate competition in what passes for marketing these days. TomTom has no advantage because they haven't worked for it, and if they want recognition, they need to earn it the right way, by using their resources wisely.
But is the difference in speed between an African or an European Swallow greater or less than 10kmh +/- 310% ?
While it is up to the individual postmasters to decide how they organize the last four digits of a 9-digit zipcode, there are some typical standards employed for them. The first five digits of the postal code usually (but not always) designates a specific post office.
For some zip codes, the last four digits are simply the post office box number (10k boxes is usually more than enough). For some larger post offices, the PO boxes get their own 5-digit zipcode separate from the rest of the city they are in.
For more residential areas, the 6th and 7th digits represent the "carrier route" number, in other words it indicates which individual postal worker is actually hauling out the mail. In those cases, the 8th & 9th digits are usually block numbers in that route, or major postal stops in the case of larger commercial customers or an apartment complex.
There are also some high volume mail customers who get their own 5-digit zip code (usually bulk mail printers and clearing houses for mail-in offers). In a case like that, the last four digits are mainly an internal code to help separate the mail between clients or internal categories of mail and can be very arbitrary.
Regardless, the full 9-digit zip code can get you to within a few hundred feet of a street address in most situations.
Redmond, WA. Why do you ask?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Correctly does not show? Surely a good map shows you what's actually on the ground, and the 'gated off forest roads' are nevertheless roads which (If you have a key to the gate, or else a bicycle) you can actually use. It should show it as what it is - a track, without necessarily public access, but nevertheless there.
To each his own. If the road is inaccessible, I'd prefer my gps not to list it.
...that GPS is a one-way system, right? There's no link back from your TomTom to the government's satellites or the corporate mothership.
0 1 - just my two bits
I have a cache of Paper Maps.
So do I. It's a nice backup, but a worse backup than an offline smartphone map.
But it's always there
While you are on foot? When you transferred into someone else's car or on a metro?
I don't think so. Paper maps are an OK backup, but again not nearly as valuable as an offline mapping app on a smartphone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Which is why you cache the data beforehand if you know you are entering such an area.
Even IF you are so prescient, AS I SAID you lack the ability to search for anything while you are there.
If you drive around the U.S. much at all outside major cities this is NOT a theoretical concern.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I find it doesn't matter anyway, because the places were you find you've know data are usually the same areas that you don't need detailed instructions in - e.g., highways through rural areas.
If you are visiting someone in a rural area THAT is where it matters most. Because the roads al wind and are not in an easy to decipher grid like a larger city.
It's exactly going through rural areas that I have made the most use of offline mapping apps, for search and just simply to get me to where I was going.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
P.S. I realize now you might have been talking about hiking. In that case I still use the smartphone as a GPS but yes I do always carry paper maps with me if I'm going anywhere there's any possibility of getting lost...
I'm just talking about everyday use when traveling around.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Great use of strategic ellipsis. You conveniently cut the sentence that speaks directly to the point you're making, so you can accuse them of hypocrisy by not addressing it.
The VERY NEXT SENTENCE after your selective quote: "The result is a map that makes extensive use of community input – but community input that’s moderated and controlled by specialists."
Which is the difference between curated collaborative content and open collaborative content. But by all means - ignore it if it makes your snarky point.
Anytime you read a comment and it is by someone who has never posted before and he supports Microsoft it is someone who is being paid to post that.
Who knows if it is true or not, the person posting doesn't care, he just wants a paycheck.
The clue to the accuracy and detail is "Ordnance Survey Map" right in the top left corner of the map.
So the credit goes to these http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/ and not Microsoft.
What I have noticed as well is that closed source maps tend to be woefully out of date compared to OSM. I was doing a mapping project and was using Google maps to try and verify against to make 100% sure on some features, and entire apartment complexes that have existed for 5+ years were not on the maps.
TomToms problem with open maps is that they can't charge for them, and they compete with their product. This is just marketing BS AKA lies.
My thoughts exactly. In fact, my old TomTom One used to have a "crowdsource" feature where I could correct the maps and download changes from other users. Their issue with 100% crowdsourced mapping is that it competes with their normal product, and their extended products... and nothing more.
The parent is part of Slashdot's new marketing deal with Microsoft. The pattern goes: 1. New user account is created and immediately gets first post on a story, posting pro-Microsoft propaganda. 2. Some registered user with an actual posting history points this out, but they are immediately chastised by ACs claiming that the user account number that was used to create the first post doesn't matter. Rinse. Repeat. You can go back and find evidence of it in story after story. The only conclusion is that /. is getting money for these posts. Keep modding them all down.
Breakfast served all day!
The funny thing is, Google tried to sabotage Open Street maps (like the article notes):
TomTom is clearly referring to the case where OpenStreetMap caught Google contractors vandalising OSM.
What was offtopic about that? Looks like a Googler drove by with mod points. Remember Googlers: don't be evil. Your trust based business model depends on it. And know that some of you are indeed evil:
Two OpenStreetMap accounts have been vandalizing OSM in London, New York and elsewhere from Google’s IP address, the same address in India reported by Mocality. The most obvious vandalism started around last Thursday last week from these particular users however it may take us some time to do a full analysis. In fact over the last year we have had over 102 thousand hits on OSM using at least 17 accounts from this Google IP.
The report seems credible. If you want to kill your business model, just keep doing that. And to put the icing on the cake, just keep astromodding Slashdot.
Oh wait, it couldn't possibly be Googlers doing it, Googlers possess a moral spine as everybody knows. So it must be Microsoft just trying to discredit Google. Oh wait. It must be Apple. Never mind, you're all made of the same moral stuff it would seem.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Has anyone pointed out that most hardcopy map publishers include thousands of very small "mistakes" in their maps, as a way of tracking copyright violations. Aside from the software to display the maps, the map data itself is the most valuable part of the system, and once you have that data you can copy it like free speech, errors and all. And when publishers introduce "newly corrected" editions, they simply change the mistakes around.
I didn't know the finer details. It was explained to me the way I laid it out but then I would admit that that is just fairly simplistic.
Time to offend someone
The problem is that the claim was "Google tried to sabotage Open Street Maps" and, once the facts are shaken out, we discover that it wasn't actually Google, it was a few rogues and Google couldn't have possibly known about it. IIRC it was something like, a couple of wireless users at the Googleplex decided to vandalize OSM. You can't blame Google for the actions of a few of its employees, when Google wasn't even aware of it.
Are there GPS units that use OpenStreetMaps data?
"a virus took over my computer and held it hostage"
looks like the executable was windows. it was warning you about itself.
"When I arrived, they, with tears in their eyes, told me that the virus was so awful and merciless that they were unable to remove it."
Again windows is THAT awful.
You paranoid tin-foil nuts see patterns where there are none. Fix your own defective brain before pointing at others. The sad part is you probably believe in this conspiracy theory. Oh well.. I bet the aliens also really probed your anus.. (oh wait..)
other people take a look at their work to check that it's all correct and valid,
lol, don't kid yourself. For Wikipedia - its amateurs with free time (mostly student types or old farts) correcting other amateurs. Sure you can get a good copy paste job going from actual texts, but if I am an expert at something, the last thing I want to do when I get home is go on fucking wikipedia and type a bunch of text that can at any time be changed because some random person thought it was wrong. And now (1) I have to waste time "joining" (wasting time) the discussion and convince them that I am not actually their peer, but their superior when it comes to that topic or (2) just move on and realize that my time investment was useless.
Sure Wikipedia works when you want some superficial knowledge about something. But its useless if you want to be sure that whats written is reliable AND is also the consensus of people who are experts and knowledgeable in that field.
. Peer review, powering open data and academic work both alike ;)
Please tell me you're kidding. Don't be an idiot and compare actual scientists peer-reviewing work with amateurs randomly editing shit just because they found a "citation". There is no way to enforce quality. Its merely the consensus of the hive. Believe me.. looking at what kind of lunatics get elected things based on popular vote, I'm convinced the population is mostly retarded. If we had "open" books in schools and all the citizens of my lovely town participated we'd have a bunch of Jesus shit in biology and some other nonsense in most of the science curriculum.
Counterexample: I live in a loft in an industrial ZIP code, and since there are very few residential customers in my ZIP, digits 6 and 7 of my +4 are the eLOT sequence for my address, and digits 8 and 9 are the floor number of my unit in the building.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
lol, don't kid yourself. For Wikipedia - its amateurs with free time (mostly student types or old farts) correcting other amateurs. Sure you can get a good copy paste job going from actual texts, but if I am an expert at something, the last thing I want to do when I get home is go on fucking wikipedia and type a bunch of text that can at any time be changed because some random person thought it was wrong. And now (1) I have to waste time "joining" (wasting time) the discussion and convince them that I am not actually their peer, but their superior when it comes to that topic or (2) just move on and realize that my time investment was useless.
If you're an expert in a subject, you realise that you are not right simply by dint of being an expert, and can easily be shown to be wrong by someone with far less experience. You join the discussion, because you very well know that discussion is what demonstrates one thing to be right and another to be wrong, and is the entire basis of the scientific method.
Please tell me you're kidding. Don't be an idiot and compare actual scientists peer-reviewing work with amateurs randomly editing shit just because they found a "citation". There is no way to enforce quality. Its merely the consensus of the hive. Believe me.
I do believe you –what you seem to be missing is that the same is true for academia, the opinion output is just the opinion of the hive of academics, and anyone can become an academic if they want, simply by submitting papers to conferences and journals.
If we had "open" books in schools and all the citizens of my lovely town participated we'd have a bunch of Jesus shit in biology and some other nonsense in most of the science curriculum.
So just like reality, and academia, luckily the majority of society is not insane, and in general, in academia, as in wikipedia, logic, reason, etc wins out.
Correct. When their own mapping efforts because good enough, they in fact became the third major cartographer company in the world.
They still lag behind navteq and tele atlas quite badly though.
Correct, and nokia bought navteq just some time before. However these function as fully independent daughter companies that do the exact same work as they used to.
As a result, tomtom's biggest competitor garmin also uses tele atlas mapping data.
Mono, that's a blast from the past! About 1993 for me in fact, one of the few cool things accessible with VMS PAD. Wonder if my old account is still on there...
TomTom has excellent customer service. Google has none, and can lead to numerous deaths:
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/26/137646147/the-gps-a-fatally-misleading-travel-companion
OpenStreetMap suffers for the same reason, customer service is self serve. That's actually a step above Google.
Joseph Elwell.
known as copyright easter eggs (in osm community, at least) - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs
Rich
I have learned quite a lot about them from the History Channel
Hey, me too! Did you know Hitler had wolverine ghosts trucked out to bury in space aliens' pyramids for the sacrifice?
This is reply to TomTom FUD
TomTom: from PND to FUD
http://www.systemed.net/blog/index.php?post=23
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sorry but you NAV was made in Thailand... its a He/She!
How do we know it was rogues and not Googlers? Why could it not have been rogue Googlers?
100,000 site desecrations from a Google IP just does not sound like your garden variety rogue. It would require compelling evidence to make me think otherwise.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Ah, please excuse me, it was 100,000 hits from the Google IP including 12 desecrations. Not nearly as bad, but bad all the same.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I have added some POIs myself but I found it a bit limited. I found no way to add a phone number to a POI or a website which seems a bit silly.
Actually, adding phone numbers and website links is relatively straightforward. A search in the OpenStreetMap documentation wiki gives you:
If you are using Potlatch, the Flash editor embedded directly on the OpenStreetMap website, adding arbitrary attributes such as these is supported by the "advanced" view. Other available editors make this even more obvious.
I assume that you were thrown off the track by the "simple" view of the Flash editor, which only lists a selection of frequently-used attributes and for some reason does not include pre-defined fields for phone and website data.
The Broadcon firmware error should have been caught by quality control at TomTom.
You clearly did not pay attention to the documentation for your Tomtom then. GPS overall can take three minutes or so to find your location(getting the info from satellites and then calculating your location, but also not knowing where the satellites are can take a few minutes). Tomtom has a download(if you actually hook your GPS up to your computer with the software installed) where you download the locations of the satellites, and this will reduce the time it takes to calculate your location down to under a minute.
When I don't bother to update my GPS for several months, it takes a few minutes to figure out where I am. That is when I know I need to do the update, and the problem goes away.
My wife used to work for a well known map company. She was told that it was common practice to deliberately insert errors so the company could tell if its maps were being copied (I guess they could easily release the lawyers that way).
I wonder how many errors there are in the maps used by GPS. Maybe since it is more controlled, there are less errors ... maybe.
That is interesting. One of my Garmin GPS units sometimes identifies business locations as being on the wrong side of the street. This in spite of the fact that it lists the proper address number and that the number, odd or even, indicates the proper side of the street. I often wondered if Garmin did this to watermark their map.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
The real reason Google wants to be able to "edit" the map has little to do with user input - they want to embed business names ("Starbucks," "Cinnabun," etc.) in the map images. They are the only online map provider that does this (Bing, Yahoo, MapQuest are only allowed to float pushpins over the map images).
Take a look at a major metro area in Google Maps when you zoom down to the street level. You'll see all these business labels baked into the map. Now you've got people cued up to go do a search on something they might not have thought they were going to search on (e.g. I went to a look for a restaurant but I saw a vinyl record store and now I want to search on that business name to find out more); more searches means more revenue for Google.
Those are helpful, though - it's nice to be able to punch in an address and see not only the name of the business, pinned in the correct location on the correct side of the street, but also seeing all the businesses around it. It will help you find it when you get there, and you might want to stop at more than one store, if they're within walking distance of each other. You can even click and see if the business has any helpful reviews.
It's also nice because you can punch in the address, click more information, and see things like the business's phone number and hours. I added the hours for one local business, since they weren't listed and the place had odd hours (only open Wed-Sat). Which reminds me, another place that opened not too long ago is not open on Mondays (I think)... I wonder if Google has that listed. Apparently not; it has a business listing but no hours are shown. I'll have to double-check the hours and submit the edit.
Really, it's over all good for everyone.
Sounds to me like there was an unofficial "contribute to OSM while your code compiles" kick. I'd be willing to believe that a couple of rogue Googlers submitted bogus information just to be obnoxious. And they all came from the same IP because they're all behind the same public-facing IP. I don't blame Google, I blame a couple of trolls who worked there.
All nuvis in the US use Navteq maps, and most globally do. The US maps do incorporate some USGS data, and it is shown on Garmin's website what level of verification has been done to compare Navteq's data with the US Government data.
The OEM navigation systems in most cars and bikes are crap because the routing, map matching, map rendering, operating system, user interface, and hardware are all crap. They usually have the same map data as a nuvi, but they lack the technical ability to *do* things with all of that data.
Go check out the new Navteq True initiative. Its like Google StreetView on steroids. I met one of the drive teams last week, and they are going to have a hell of a product pretty soon.
Hummm Shouldn't it be made even simpler to add POIs than RTFM? Think about it? Things like phone number and website should be far more automated when editing than that. After all people are adding this for free when they feel like it. It is not exactly a fun hobby.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What compelling advantage to TomTom devices have over Android Phones with Google Maps?
That depends. How much do TomTom map updates cost compared to $30/mo for a data plan?
since they need the phone subscription anyway
Not all phone subscriptions are smartphone subscriptions. The price difference between my current Virgin Mobile USA phone subscription and the cheapest subscription for an Android phone (with a data plan) is about $30 per month. I use a dumbphone on a $15 per 90 days payLo plan, and the cheapest Beyond Talk plan is $35 per month.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:winter_road
But it seems currently not that well established. Would be clever to check out countries with that map feature or roads.
You talking about the easter eggs topic, uh? http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Easter_eggs
UK postcodes are just a grid 1km I think, I am on the wrong computer to check. You can always import that leaked Postcode db into a mapping software to see what I mean. This normally translates in to a part of a street.
Not a grid, and their size does vary, but they are generally only a few hundred yards across; Google Maps will do an outline of the approximate area that a postcode covers, but as a rule of thumb a postcode covers an average of 15 properties.
Oh, and forget using any 'leaked postcode db'. The Ordnance Survey made available a CSV file that maps postcodes to coordinates as part of their OpenData project a few years ago; usage only requires attribution, not payment.
They are a grid on the data that I got from http://wikileaks.org/wiki/UK_government_database_of_all_1,841,177_post_codes _together_with_precise_geographic_coordinates_and_other_information,_8_Jul_2009
**take out the space in the url, I got a filter error trying to post**
The only reason I found that there was a variance was due to holes like parks etc... There are just gaps in the matrix.
The opendata project doesn't have postcodes, I just checked, but it does have some good stuff - thanks.
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
UK postcodes generally identify a particular street, or even a particular section of a street if it's particularly long or has a large number of houses.
UK postcodes are just a grid 1km I think, I am on the wrong computer to check. You can always import that leaked Postcode db into a mapping software to see what I mean. This normally translates in to a part of a street.
Wrong. My postcode covers about twelve square kilometers; down in the village they have three within a hundred metres. It's based on a (rough) number of delivery addresses.
Its not based on a rough number of delivery addresses its a grid see my link above or google wikileaks postcode CSV. There are gaps in the data where there is not a lot about maybe your case covers this. Once you visualise the data it may make sense.
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
Indeed, in a city a Postcode is usually a street, part of a street, or a single block of flats. Out in the countryside a postcode can cover square miles of farmland.
Google Maps sometimes shows postcode boundaries, here's one in Glasgow that's about 200m across
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=G2+4jq&hl=en&sll=55.86512,-4.267604&sspn=0.002071,0.004506&hnear=G2+4JQ,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16
Wheras this one near Inverness is about 1km across
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=IV6+7XN&hl=en&ll=57.528981,-4.470577&spn=0.015852,0.036049&sll=57.529572,-4.536686&sspn=0.253622,0.576782&geocode=CZh9Pqs90U35Fd3rbQMdgOy4_ynT6PPhdwCPSDE0q-qJe8xFvw&hnear=Muir+of+Ord+IV6+7XN,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=15
Postcode boundaries are just the prefix and don't have anything to do with a grid. See the data on the wikileaks download.
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996