Facebook, Apple and Microsoft Are Contributing To OpenStreetMap (theodi.org)

At the recently concluded State of the Map conference in Milan, teams from Microsoft, Apple and Facebook presented their projects, describing how they are working with communities. From a report: The Microsoft Open Maps team has recently released open data on building footprints in the US. Microsoft was among the first to release satellite imagery for use by OpenStreetMap and the images are now integrated into the default editor. It also has a community of mappers directly contributing to OpenStreetMap in Australia. Apple has an internal volunteer programme that has around 5,000 staff contributing to Missing Maps, they've released building data for France and Denmark, and are engaged with data improvement projects around the world. Facebook is exploring how artificial intelligence-assisted tracing can help to improve the quality of OpenStreetMap data in Thailand.

DigitalGlobe has made its satellite imagery available under a licence that will allow it to be used by the OpenStreetMap community to improve their mapping efforts. Telenav launched OpenStreetCam to help collect openly-licensed street imagery and has now released open data and code to explore how machine learning can enable the images to be used to improve OpenStreetMap with stop signs and turn directions.

Comments

Competition is good

[gavron]

It's good that someone wants to compete with Google Maps. It will make both products stronger. With industry leaders like Microsoft OpenStreetMaps may one day be useful.

Re:Competition is good

[mark-t]

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

Three words:

Terrestrial virtual presence.

Knowing what a place actually looks like from the ground is often just as useful as knowing where it is on a map. Otherwise, regardless of what other mapping system a person is using, they are just going to go check on Google Maps for its Street View anyways... and at that point, one might as well just do everything right there.

Re:Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

"hmm, this hotel is cheap" *checks street view* "Oh... that's why it's cheap"

Ancient Proverb

[ArhcAngel]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Google dominates with Google Maps and Waze. Their own offerings are languishing on their respective platforms while Google pulls away. They are now more concerned about the long term effect of their overall business if Google monopolizes the space. So they all decide to back OpenStreetMap in hopes it can mount a challenge. We'll see. It would take a lot to get me to switch from Waze but Google's shenanigans of late have me looking.

Apple Maps

[perry64]

I've used Apple Maps. I'm not sure OSM should want their help.

Re: Hopefully OSM can get it correct?

[dead_user]

My neighborhood only has one entrance and exit. There USED to be a road that ran behind a few businesses and cut through to the mall. Hundreds of cars a day streamed through back of the otherwise quiet neighborhood to use the secret shortcut to the mall that only they knew about.

The City placed a gate on the road, blocking it off. 18 years ago.

It is effectively rusted shut at this point. I reported this to both Google Maps and Waze through the app numerous times. After several years, I and all the delivery guys in my neighborhood still have to ignore the directions on the GPS until we are on city streets again. It's irritating as fuck but so is repeatedly submitting an edit request that is completely ignored.