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Google Maps is now mapping the indoors. I saw an ad for this while passing through MSP yesterday (given how much time I spend on the Internet, it's strange and a little embarrassing to learn about new things on the Internet from airport billboards), since one of their initial targets is the infamous Mall of America.
Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available. The familiar “blue dot” icon indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on. All this is achieved by using an approach similar to that of ‘My Location’ for outdoor spaces, but fine tuned for indoors.
Thoughts about this:
- Okay, having a map of Ikea or an airport on my phone might be kind of nice.
- Shouldn't they have launched this years ago when people still went to malls?
- Shouldn't they have launched this at least earlier in the year, in time for people to know about it and have it before the one time each year when people who don't go to malls still maybe go to the mall?
- How does it know where you are, when cell and GPS so often don't work in these places? "fine tuned for indoors" is a very mysterious phrase. Based on nearby access points?
- Is your location also being transmitted if you use this service? In other words, will Google now know which stores you shop at, how many times you use the restroom, and whether you were actually shopping for gifts for other people?
- Relatedly, will this be free software? Or will it rely on proprietaryness in order to do things users would prefer it didn't do? (Answer: It's proprietary software, part of the existing proprietary Google Maps mobile application.)
- Will they sell data to the stores and malls?
- Will they start indicating various promotions on the maps?
- Will these promotions be targeted based on your past meandering behavior?
- Are they mapping less-commercial spaces, like museums?
- Are they making the map data available for others to use? Especially for truly public spaces?
- How do we get the functional part of this into OpenStreetMap?
- Is Google secretly working on computer-piloted mobility scooters?
- Where am I?
Title from John Ashbery
Anonymous
December 20 2011, 05:28:22 UTC 2 month ago
And inside your home too?
I imagine Google will sell all sorts of data (anonymized and not, and we all know how poorly anonymization works) under contract to any business or government who will pay the fee for Google's spying. I also think that such contracts are likely to be secret, much like the details on Google's contract with UMG that allows UMG to take down YouTube videos under certain conditions. As far as I know the specific language of that contract is unavailable to the public, despite the adverse effect on the public who chooses to host their videos with YouTube.Location privacy is largely unknown to most people; it's not a concept people have seriously discussed outside of the ahead-of-the-curve folks like EFF, FSF, etc. So here's another question to add to your list: How will Google pitch indoor mapping to the public so as to induce the public to divulge the current layout of their home? I imagine many organizations want to know what's in your house, where it is, when you move it, and when you dispense with it. Gratis quota-less email/DB/etc. services lure the public to their services. I'm sure there's some mild convenience Google can pitch to the public that would convince some of them to let Google scan their house with a webcam (or similar device) and identify something that might ordinarily require a court order.
December 22 2011, 15:53:18 UTC 2 month ago
Re: And inside your home too?
Hm, yeah -- I guess the in-home mapping will come as part of the "Internet of Things". I hear there are already refrigerators running Android in South Korea.Anonymous
December 20 2011, 16:56:42 UTC 2 month ago
finding the location
Funny, I read a New Scientist article about this this week. According to that there are three approaches: statically map every position from WIFI and cellular signal strengths (what Google are doing), use cheap bluetooth identifiers installed in buildings, or use WIFI and cellular signals again but with phones additionally reporting information so that maps can be updated (when routers are removed or large metal objects are repositioned). Oh, and accelerometers might be used soon too.Thing I'm least sure about is how the maps are created in the first place — maybe only possible by statically building maps. Not sure I'd expect an open-source or community-mappable version soon based on what I read, but who knows.
Anonymous
December 23 2011, 09:37:31 UTC 2 month ago
For open location indoors we probably need improved plugins for geoclue, and perhaps improved data sources. OpenCellID has cell data, OpenBMap has cell and WiFi. I don't know of an open bluetooth beacon map. Ideally these should be able to work with a local data file, both for when no net connection is available, and so you aren't constantly disclosing your location to some API somewhere if you don't want to.
To spot a change of floors you probably need a barometric sensor, though bluetooth beacons may be sufficiently short range to do it (you can see beacon A, so you must just have gone up escalator Y to floor 3).