MANIK GUPTA: Cartographers in the last have always been focused on getting people from
point A to point B. The maps were built for people who were explorers. People were traveling
from one country to another on a ship, and they needed a map to guide them. But if you
look at what has happened over the past few years, all of us have actually become explorers.
We may not be navigating the world in terms of going on a ship for 6 months and discovering
new worlds, but we are trying to discover these microworlds around us.
PETER BIRCH: Google Maps is really – if you think about it – it's mapping for the modern era.
MICHAEL WEISS-MALIK: The old maps were paper. They were flat. They got folded up and stuffed
into your glovebox. These days a map is dynamic. It's live. It's interactive and it's personalized
to you, so it gives you customized things like directions from where you are to where you want to go.
CHIKAI OHAZAMA: When we came out with Google Maps, it was a technology that really had
not existed before. You don’t have to click and wait to have the map pan. It’s like,
you just drag it and move it around on a web browser. People had never seen that before.
BRIAN MCCLENDON: We called it a slippy map, but it was really the highly-responsive nature
that let people interact with it and this really changed how people used maps. And then
we added satellite imagery it gave people a reason to visit places they had never been
before just so they could see them for the first time.
PETER BIRCH: And we add Street View that really gives you that sense of familiarity for places
that you are going to visit or may visit.
LUC VINCENT: Street View was in fact Larry Page’s idea. The notion was that there was
a lot of interesting information in imagery taken at street level, and he thought that
it might be interesting to put cameras on cars, drive around and then organize this
information. It turned out to be quite difficult. We developed our own cameras and we've been
able to actually improve on this platform substantially.
At this point in the project we have a number of platforms for capturing imagery. The most
common of course is the cars. We also have now snowmobiles. We have the tricycle.
The tricycle we in fact put on boats, and trains, and we recently took Street View technology
into some caves, so we try to go everywhere.
MICHAEL WEISS-MALIK: The trick that Google has is that we do a great job of stitching
it all together and producing one giant picture of the whole planet that you can zoom in and out of seamlessly.
MANIK GUPTA: And our goal is to build a very dynamic map that is changing as the world
changes around it. So we in 2008 actually launched a product called Google Map Maker.
It allows you as a user to edit and contribute map data to Google.
PETER BIRCH: We really rely on our users to help us improve our maps. If a local business
closes, it's the people who live down the street who are going to know that first and we can
make sure that change is reflected for everybody.
CHIKAI OHAZAMA: Maps on the phone has always been something we've wanted to do. It's one
of those things that are obvious. One big part of when you walk out the door is knowing
where you are and knowing where you're going.
MANIK GUPTA: Google Maps on Android for instance has turn-by-turn driving navigation which is really helpful.
SEBASTIAN THRUN: But most of us spend most of our time actually in buildings and not
outside buildings. So in the mapping space, we've been instrumental in making Indoor Maps work.
BRIAN MCCLENDON: We were able to map hundreds of shopping malls and businesses in the United States and in Japan.
And the hope is: at some point in the near future, every single public space in the United
States and the entire world is mapped, and you can localize yourself very accurately
when you walk with your handset inside those buildings.
CHIKAI OHAZAMA: It's pretty amazing to take out my phone out of my pocket and say this
is it. This is what we were dreaming about 10-12 years ago.
PETER BIRCH: We've come a long way in modeling the world, but the reality is we have
a long way to go. Where we're really going – and it may sound crazy – is that we want
to rebuild the whole world in 3D. And we're constantly innovating to make that a reality.
For example, we're now developing technology that allows us to model entire 3D cities from
high resolution aerial imagery. This will not only make our 3D coverage even more comprehensive
but it will allow us to build a more realistic and immersive mirror world.
Obviously, building a map for the modern age is a giant task, but it's one that we're really committed
to and we're making great progress on.