Apple testing mysterious camera-equipped vehicles in the Bay Area

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 98
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post



    15 cameras vs 12 cameras? Looks like Apple loses ("looses" in trollspeak) the specs race again. /s



    Yeah, but the cameras totally have Focus Pixels. <img class=" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />

  • Reply 22 of 98
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Geospatial View Post

     

    Google can't claim that they did it first.  


    This is the original Street View... 1978... invented by MIT and paid for by (D)ARPA

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map

  • Reply 23 of 98
    konqerror wrote: »
    This is the original Street View... 1978... done by MIT and paid for by (D)ARPA
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Movie_Map

    I don't count proof of concepts as being first when we're talking about a shipping product.
  • Reply 24 of 98
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,056member

    Clearly can't be a Steve Jobs project. It has license plates on it. Steve would never do that.

  • Reply 25 of 98
    citycity Posts: 522member

    Deleted 

  • Reply 26 of 98
    Here's a thought: they're grabbing ground level images to improve 3D flyover when zoomed in to ground level.
  • Reply 27 of 98
    eightzero wrote: »
    Clearly can't be a Steve Jobs project. It has license plates on it. Steve would never do that.

    Does it park in the handicapped spaces without proper tags?
  • Reply 28 of 98
    It basically looks like a standard data collection vehicle. Not sure who designed or built the system but they are using the Velodyne HDL-32 as the LiDAR sensor. It is a different configuration then I have seen in the past as most applications have two sensors on the rear aimed so they can cover both sides of the road and minimize shadowing. They may be using a combination of LiDAR and photogrammetry. It could be for a street view of buildings but the system is powerful enough for the creation of autonomous vehicle base map data. Google uses the older HDL-64 on their self driving cars. Nokia Here, Microsoft and Mandli Communications use the HDL-32.
  • Reply 29 of 98
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    nagromme wrote: »
    Street View is awful. You jump from node to blurry, lens-flared, slow-loading node in the most tedious way possible. You think you'll be able to read street-level signs, but the one you want is rarely readable.

    If Apple's Flyover, with it's fast, smooth-scrolling 3D, no constant re-loading of the same street, and no special "mode" you must enter, can be brought a bit lower down to the street, now that would be the best of both worlds! It's already more useful than Street View--in the limited number of cities (like mine!) that have it.

    And no lens flares hiding the signs!

    Respectfully disagree that flyover is more useful than street view. Flyover is smooth, but less practical IMO.
  • Reply 30 of 98
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    Rob Enderle...how can someone claim to be an analyst and not see what this is ?
    High res street view imagery applied as textures is coming to maps.
  • Reply 31 of 98

    I'm wondering if "Street-Level Flyover" via drones is in the works, to photograph those hard to get areas, better 3D compilations of buildings, & photograph that which would be otherwise impossible without trespassing on private property.

     

    [On a side note: Based on recommendations in this forum, I deleted flash from my MBPro. In the above article, there is a place which says that I am missing the the flash plug-in, so I don't know what I am missing. A little surprised that AI would insert 'Flash-required' content.

  • Reply 32 of 98
    Who says it's not an autonomous street mapping car?
  • Reply 33 of 98
    I predict five to fifteen new troll accounts whose only posts regard Google “doing it first” regarding street-level photography.
    Just imagine how it'd be on here if it were the other way around. People would probably be calling for the murder of all the engineers involved.
  • Reply 34 of 98

    While Google Streetview is a bit of a gimmick it does have some value at looking around to get your bearings somewhere new. However, the real benefit and true purpose of these camera cars is to get accurate local ground truth such as junctions, intersections, sign placements, speed information, point of interest locations etc. If Apple took on more data from OSM and combined with their existing data from TomTom and their own ground truth vehicles their maps could easily match the quality of Google. Surpassing them though would require significant investment and a very speedy rollout. It's not good only having it in a handful of major US cities. Streetview is everywhere, it's going to take years for Apple to reach everywhere they have been.

     

    Rolling out the business POI website is another part of this puzzle and points to Apple taking mapping incredibly seriously.

  • Reply 35 of 98
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member

    I don't think street view is a gimmick. If you have to go to a building you haven't been to before, it can be good to know what it looks like.

     

    When we start seeing people walking around shopping malls with 12 cameras hanging off their bodies, we will know indoor mapping has started.

     

    Some people are saying it's a mapping car and others are saying it's a driverless car. In a few years, why not both? Mapping drones will just become a fact of life.

  • Reply 36 of 98
    I really do hope this is a Street View type data collection. Integration with Flyover would be neat, I'm afraid I see the current Flyover as a gimmick, very clever but of little practical use. Couple it with a Street View type database and I'd change my mind.

    I have long felt that there are two major things lacking from Apple's Maps if they are to compete with, never mind overtake, Google's (excellent) product. One is Street View and the other is a search engine; I can't see how anything less than a fully-fledged search engine can match Google's (excellent) location-aware, spelling-aware, domain-aware understanding of what I mean when I type and hence hence its ability to find what I was thinking of. It's not easy.

    I have included the 'excellent's in the above because Apple's Maps always remind me of Steve Jobs' comment about skating to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now. And Google has set a very high standard. Sadly, with Maps, Apple skated to where conventional standalone (non-connected) Sat Navs were. The app is great but the system and its database are sorely lacking.

    So which search engine should Apple buy?
  • Reply 37 of 98
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member

    If the street view images can be post-processed to read shop names from signs, that could help with searching. It could also have a database of known corporate logos to look for.

  • Reply 38 of 98
    command_f wrote: »
    I really do hope this is a Street View type data collection. Integration with Flyover would be neat, I'm afraid I see the current Flyover as a gimmick, very clever but of little practical use. Couple it with a Street View type database and I'd change my mind.

    I have long felt that there are two major things lacking from Apple's Maps if they are to compete with, never mind overtake, Google's (excellent) product. One is Street View and the other is a search engine; I can't see how anything less than a fully-fledged search engine can match Google's (excellent) location-aware, spelling-aware, domain-aware understanding of what I mean when I type and hence hence its ability to find what I was thinking of. It's not easy.

    I have included the 'excellent's in the above because Apple's Maps always remind me of Steve Jobs' comment about skating to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now. And Google has set a very high standard. Sadly, with Maps, Apple skated to where conventional standalone (non-connected) Sat Navs were. The app is great but the system and its database are sorely lacking.

    So which search engine should Apple buy?
    You think having flyover was skating to where the puck was? Nothing like flyover was mass deployed at the time.
  • Reply 39 of 98
    freediverxfreediverx Posts: 1,423member



    "Analyst Rob Enderle"

     

    LOL

  • Reply 40 of 98
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,255member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ElectroTech View Post



    This article had some credibility until they added the 'interview' with Rob Enderle. He has got to be one of the most clueless people when it comes to Apple and their products.



    I had a similar thought. If he says it's a self driving car, then it almost certainly isn't. 

     

    Street view makes a lot of sense, but I like to think that it's just a decoy to lead people away from the secret location where Apple is developing a stylish new hat that reads your thoughts and sends commands via bluetooth to your iPhone. 

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