Google Maps in the News

[James Kelly]

Hi everyone,

You may have recently seen several articles in the news about Google Maps' project "Ground Truth" which is our internal name for the project to build base maps in several countries. Several of the Ground Truth ('GT') countries have now been opened in Map Maker too, and members of the Map Maker engineering team, including myself have been working for months to make this happen (and here's a tidbit - we haven't finished yet). Recently we were able to Launch Map Maker in 'GT' country New Zealand, so a big welcome to our Kiwi friends. I have had the pleasure of visting New Zealand a couple of times and its a joy to see the maps getting better with your local knowledge.

Here's a summary of some of the recent coverage in leading English language media.

"The Atlantic" talks about how Project 'GT' works, and includes an interview with Manik Gupta a Map Maker team alumni:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-google-builds-its-maps-and-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-everything/261913/

The "New York Times" highlighted the contribution of RER Matthew Hyland helping keep neighborhood boundaries in New York up to date:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/nyregion/amateur-mapmakers-reshape-new-york-neighborhoods-online.html

Finally BBC talks to Brian McClendon (our Boss!) who touches on the next phase of Ground Truth. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19536269

Jayanth and I are working closely with the GT team to make sure that this next phase smoothly integrates your contribution with that our our internal teams to rapidly accelerate maps coverage in many important parts of the world.

All in all, we are delighted to give you further glimpses of how we make our maps, hopefully I will see many of you in Lyon

James

Product Manager - Google Map Maker