I was searching for a location this morning on Google Maps and I came across the "popular times" chart that many of you are probably familiar with. It shows you how busy the location you're looking at tends to be throughout the day. But this time around, I noticed a pulsing "live" dot and it got me wondering: How live is live?
Google collects this data from of our phones.
It is aggregated and anonymized Location History data from anyone who has opted in on their Google Account. If you're using Google Maps and have your location services set to "always", you can actually see a timeline of the places you've visited -- even if you haven't explicitly navigated to them (see above).
So the short answer is that the live data is really live. If there's a spike in the busyness of a particular venue -- one that doesn't match historical busyness patterns -- the Google network can pick it up.
I'm fascinated by this kind of city data because I see it as part of the future of city building. Why not use more data to inform the way in which we plan and build our cities. Retail data, traffic data, migratory patterns, population densities -- all of this and more is now available to us.
Google Maps recently introduced a new feature that allows you to search for electric vehicle charging stations by plug type. Here's what it looks like when I tried it here in Toronto:
While helpful, it demonstrates two things. One, there are too many plug types and that's a problem for EV adoption. Nissans and Mitsubishis use CHAdeMO, BMWs use CCS, and Tesla has its own proprietary plug, for example.
Two, this is one the main reasons why Tesla is so far ahead when it comes to EVs. They've been very purposeful in building out an expansive network of charging stations so as to avoid what is very clearly a chicken-and-egg problem. You need great EVs and then places to charge said vehicles.
As of January 2021, Tesla operates over 2,105 Supercharger stations worldwide with over 1,094 stations in North America, 589 in Europe, and 423 in Asia/Pacific. This is how you start to compete when there are over 160,000 gas stations in the US alone.
I noticed this week that Google has started to overlay augmented reality-type place markers onto Street View. The markers are designed to help surface the kind of local business information that you might otherwise find in search -- phone number, hours of operation, and so on. Apparently not everyone is seeing them, but the feature is starting to roll out in certain cities. Above is a photo of Dundas Street West in the Junction.
This transforms Street View into even more of a wayfinding tool, but it also offers up a glimpse of how the world might look with augmented reality. But to make this ultimately happen, you really do need to figure out how to get people to start wearing smart glasses. Lots of companies, including Google and Snap, have been trying. None of their products have really stuck -- though
I was searching for a location this morning on Google Maps and I came across the "popular times" chart that many of you are probably familiar with. It shows you how busy the location you're looking at tends to be throughout the day. But this time around, I noticed a pulsing "live" dot and it got me wondering: How live is live?
Google collects this data from of our phones.
It is aggregated and anonymized Location History data from anyone who has opted in on their Google Account. If you're using Google Maps and have your location services set to "always", you can actually see a timeline of the places you've visited -- even if you haven't explicitly navigated to them (see above).
So the short answer is that the live data is really live. If there's a spike in the busyness of a particular venue -- one that doesn't match historical busyness patterns -- the Google network can pick it up.
I'm fascinated by this kind of city data because I see it as part of the future of city building. Why not use more data to inform the way in which we plan and build our cities. Retail data, traffic data, migratory patterns, population densities -- all of this and more is now available to us.
Google Maps recently introduced a new feature that allows you to search for electric vehicle charging stations by plug type. Here's what it looks like when I tried it here in Toronto:
While helpful, it demonstrates two things. One, there are too many plug types and that's a problem for EV adoption. Nissans and Mitsubishis use CHAdeMO, BMWs use CCS, and Tesla has its own proprietary plug, for example.
Two, this is one the main reasons why Tesla is so far ahead when it comes to EVs. They've been very purposeful in building out an expansive network of charging stations so as to avoid what is very clearly a chicken-and-egg problem. You need great EVs and then places to charge said vehicles.
As of January 2021, Tesla operates over 2,105 Supercharger stations worldwide with over 1,094 stations in North America, 589 in Europe, and 423 in Asia/Pacific. This is how you start to compete when there are over 160,000 gas stations in the US alone.
I noticed this week that Google has started to overlay augmented reality-type place markers onto Street View. The markers are designed to help surface the kind of local business information that you might otherwise find in search -- phone number, hours of operation, and so on. Apparently not everyone is seeing them, but the feature is starting to roll out in certain cities. Above is a photo of Dundas Street West in the Junction.
This transforms Street View into even more of a wayfinding tool, but it also offers up a glimpse of how the world might look with augmented reality. But to make this ultimately happen, you really do need to figure out how to get people to start wearing smart glasses. Lots of companies, including Google and Snap, have been trying. None of their products have really stuck -- though
However, last month Google did announce that it had acquired Canadian smart glasses company, North. I was invited to try out a pair of North Focals 1.0 glasses, which I wrote about over here. They were exceedingly cool, but definitely not ready for mainstream and daily usage. The sides were thick and you had to wear a ring joystick in order to navigate through its menus. Too much work. Too nerdy.
But that's okay because Google didn't buy North for the Focals product. They bought them for talent, patents, and for probably a bunch of other things. They bought them to help Google invest in its "hardware efforts and ambient computing future." The little markers you might now be seeing on Google Street View are likely part of that.
However, last month Google did announce that it had acquired Canadian smart glasses company, North. I was invited to try out a pair of North Focals 1.0 glasses, which I wrote about over here. They were exceedingly cool, but definitely not ready for mainstream and daily usage. The sides were thick and you had to wear a ring joystick in order to navigate through its menus. Too much work. Too nerdy.
But that's okay because Google didn't buy North for the Focals product. They bought them for talent, patents, and for probably a bunch of other things. They bought them to help Google invest in its "hardware efforts and ambient computing future." The little markers you might now be seeing on Google Street View are likely part of that.
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