"Google Satellite" To Be Launched This Week 280
Lord Satri writes "Well, almost. Google signed an exclusivity deal with GeoEye regarding GeoEye-1, the most advanced high-resolution, civil, remote-sensing satellite to date. This must be annoying for other high-resolution, remote-sensing data users since Google already has an exclusivity deal in place with DigitalGlobe, the other major civil satellite imagery provider. From the CNet article: 'Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery... in its Google Maps and Google Earth product. And as a little icing on the cake, Google's logo is on the side of the rocket set to launch the 4,300-pound satellite in six days from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters... Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50 cm because of the terms of GeoEye's license with the US government.'"
Gee I should have had a.. (Score:2, Funny)
Google Chrome and now GeoEye. Wow, I could have had Google Stock instead of all those V-8's ! I should have..
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Tomato soup doesn't have nearly as much salt.
I still guzzle V8 when I have it around. I can go through half-gallon bottle in a day easily, so I usually don't buy it because it's expensive to drink $4 worth of beverage in a day. (Milk and unsweetened iced tea make up the vast majority of what I drink.)
Re:Gee I should have had a.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gee I should have had a.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the evil corps predicted to rise in the future by all the cyberpunk and sci-fi writers. I'll bet you not one of them was named "Google"
Re:Gee I should have had a.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Then we can all say "back in my day Google was just a search engine, not a military force that had every bit of information on each human on earth. All hail Page Brin."
The jury's still out (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The jury's still out (Score:4, Interesting)
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The only reason it's evil is because it ultimately relies on copyright law. This exclusivity agreement would be worthless if Google couldn't prosecute people using the images they display to provide a competing service.
Re:The jury's still out (Score:4, Funny)
Google bought outer space?
Re:The jury's still out (Score:5, Insightful)
The less friendly side of their stated goal, which they don't state as explicitly, is that all the worlds information should be available only through them
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I know there's a lot of problems involved with getting the public free access to journals, but google has a lot of clout and coudl make a big difference there.
The publishing of scientific journals is a business. No amount of "clout" is sufficient to convince the folks that run these journals that they should give it all away free and go make money working at a hot dog stand or something.
Re:The jury's still out (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The jury's still out (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrariwise, there would be anti-competitive elements to an open agreement as well. There would be basically no opportunity for satellite competition, due to massive barrier to entry and smart pricing schemes by GeoEye. An exclusivity deal means lower resolution satellite data still has buyers, and google competitors could support the launching of another satellite.
Honestly, it is hard to trade things like this without exclusivity. You wouldn't want to buy rights to have Michael Phelps on your cereal if he also said he would appear on every other brand of cereal for whatever price they were offering. It would be worth basically nothing to everyone, whereas, with exclusivity, it is at least worth something to someone. Likewise, there is no point in google or anyone else throwing billions at GeoEye to become the highest resolution online map service if GeoEye then licenses the same data to everyone. It may be that the value of the data in such a scenario is not even enough to finance the satellite launch, in which case, the possibility of exclusivity is definitely a beneficent aspect of the market--giving consumers a product that would simply not exist without it.
Anyway, one really must debate the merit of anti-competitive policies concerning something google is giving away for free. It's not as though the market is going to drive down the price of "free."
Re:The jury's still out (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The jury's still out (Score:4, Funny)
You hack into the satellite and change the coordinates. I'll break into Page's and Brin's houses and set up the giant popcorn tin.
(That's a Real Genius [wikipedia.org] reference for those who were out of geek culture class that day)
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Not evil if anyone can buy imagery from anywhere on the globe for the same rate and that all purchased imagery is published on the web
Re:The jury's still out (Score:5, Funny)
Do you mean.... Dr. Evil??
Johnson: [Noticing Dr. Evil's spaceship on radar] Colonel, you better have a look at this radar.
Colonel: What is it, son?
Johnson: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant--
Jet Pilot: Dick.
Dick: Yeah?
Jet Pilot: Take a look out of starboard.
Dick: Oh my God, it looks like a huge--
Bird-Watching Woman: Pecker.
Bird-Watching Man: [raising binoculars] Ooh, Where?
Bird-Watching Woman: Wait, that's not a woodpecker, it looks like someone's--
Army Sergeant: Privates! We have reports of an unidentified flying object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with--
Baseball Umpire: Two balls.
[looking up from game]
Baseball Umpire: What is that. It looks just like an enormous--
Chinese Teacher: Wang, pay attention!
Wang: I was distracted by that giant flying--
Musician: Willie.
Willie Nelson: Yeah?
Musician: What's that?
Willie Nelson: [squints] Well, that looks like a giant--
Colonel: Johnson?!
Johnson: Yes, sir?
Colonel: Get on the horn to British Intelligence and let them know about this.
Re:The jury's still out (Score:4, Informative)
No, I have a computer from the 'future' First you search google, then you "View source", copy, and paste.
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OMG, with a resolution of 41cm, I better keep the curtains closed... :-)
Precisions on the summary (Score:5, Informative)
Some precisions on my summary. DigitalGlobe is obviously not the only other remote sensing data provider, but it's GeoEye main competitor in civil high-resolution multispectral remote sensing. GeoEye is itself the merging of two other previous major players on the same playing field, OrbImage and Space Imaging [slashgeo.org].
As for my claim of an agreement between DigitalGlobe and Google, see this two years old entry [slashgeo.org]. The original archive for the DG message is here [osdir.com] (the link on /geo does not work anymore).
One of the obvious questions that comes to mind is to which extent these exclusivity deals have negative impacts on other remote sensing imagery customers, small or big.
Another question is; does Google really needs such a deal to provide the best webmapping and virtual globes-related tools?
Re:Precisions on the summary (Score:4, Interesting)
I keep hoping that Google will start releaseing some of their data into the public domain/GPL/Creative Commons.
That Google spy van must be gathering data like speed limits, which streets are one way. Maybe even which are paved and not.
One place missing GPL application is a really good navigation system.
Data sources and GPL NavSystems (Score:3, Informative)
I keep hoping that Google will start releaseing some of their data into the public domain/GPL/Creative Commons.
That Google spy van must be gathering data like speed limits, which streets are one way. Maybe even which are paved and not.
You're right for StreetView (you can still use Google's StreetView data in OpenLayers.org [openlayers.org] for example), otherwise, Google Maps/Earth licenses data from others (Tele Atlas/NAVTEQ/DigitalGlobe/GeoEye/etc), so they are not the ultimate geodata owner (yet? ;-).
One place missing GPL application is a really good navigation system.
Yes but... do you really need this? When you'll buy your GPS-enabled navigation system (e.g. from Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, etc), you'll be given appropriate software that works with the hardware you just purchased (even the iPhone [slashgeo.org] has (in dev) it's turn
Re:Precisions on the summary (Score:4, Interesting)
Exclusivity doesn't make Google's mapping products any better, it just makes their competitors' products worse. Sounds anti-competitive and "evil" to me.
Re:Precisions on the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the satellite company wouldn't afford a satellite if it didn't sell exclusive rights to the pictures.
I'm not saying the whole thing isn't evil, it's just a little more complicated than you make it appear.
Re:Precisions on the summary (Score:5, Informative)
If Google did front most of the costs, then it's not anti-competative to ask GeoEye to agree to only allow Google use of the photos. If GeoEye fronted all of the costs themselves, then how do they plan to make money off a multi-million dollar investement by simply licensing use of the photographs to a single entity?
Satellites are not vital infrastructure like telephone lines. As such, I doubt there is any legal standing to say what GeoEye can and can't do with their own satellite (especially if Google DID provide some initial funding).
Oh, I just RTFA, and apparently Google is the only "online mapping company" allowed to use the photographs. I guess Google just paid a lot for those rights. Kinda like how Pepsi is the official soft drink of the International League of Woman Voters (though no one considers this to be legally anti-competative to Coke or Royal Crown Cola).
Re:Precisions on the summary (Score:4, Informative)
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Excuse me but competition is defined as somebody winning and somebody losing. Google is winning and doesn't appear to be cheating, how can that be anti-competitive? I wish you people would figure out that a monopoly isn't evil, it is the goal of all companies. Illegally suppressing your rivals is anti-competitive, cornering the market is not.
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"anti-competitive" is defined as anything that is against competition. Exclusive contracts with suppliers is exactly that.
Re:Precisions on the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
My biggest concern as a consumer of GIS data has always been access to the high-quality, tax-payer funded data (which is usually aerial, not satellite). Exclusivity deals are fine as long as any data gathered from the instruments for tax-payer funded programs remains accessible without restrictions.
I'm not sure how deals such as Google's will affect this, but as the parent pointed out, there are already many sources of high-quality data from government sources.
If there is something to fear from Google Maps/Earth, it's the spatial imagery mono-culture developing around consumer and media GIS applications. Google's approach is by no means the best approach for all geospatial data, it just happens to work well for navigating large data sets. But, as we've learned from Microsoft, if enough people are using a solution, the level of technology present in dominant solution becomes the "state-of-the-art" even if it isn't.
-Chris
why the (Score:3, Interesting)
50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??
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Re:why the (Score:5, Interesting)
I can think of a few loopholes around this regulation.
What about taking many low resolution images of the same area and combine them later using super resolution [wikipedia.org]?
Re:why the (Score:5, Funny)
50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??
Everyone knows WMDs are only 49cm across.
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50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??
Everyone knows WMDs are only 49cm across.
I know a few gentlemen in my favorite streaming video web sites who should be worried that google can take pictures of 19 inch monster appendages :D
Re:why the (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you really think that the difference between 41cm and 50cm, when it comes to satellite imagery, is going to hide that much?
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I don't think that there's much of a difference, but if there's going to be a line in how high resolution they can distribute, they have to draw it somewhere. They can't let things go by just because it's "only a little bit better" than what's allowed, or else there might as well not be a line there at all.
Re:why the (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, I'd be inclined to bet that it will hide precisely 9cm!
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You'd be surprised, you're not going to hide an object like that.
But if you're limited to 50cm, that means that you're not going to be able to accurately identify a number of things. You'd be able to pick out a book on a table, but you'd not know what it was. You might be able to tell that that lady is sunbathing in the nude, but not actually see anything.
It also makes it more difficult to tell objects apart from each other.
Re:why the (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you're limited to 50cm, that means that you're not going to be able to accurately identify a number of things. You'd be able to pick out a book on a table, but you'd not know what it was. You might be able to tell that that lady is sunbathing in the nude, but not actually see anything.
50cm is like half a meter. Most people are under 2 meters tall, and between 50cm and 100cm wide. So if you had a resolution of 50cm, you wouldn't see a 'lady sunbathing in the nude' you'd see 1x4 to 2x4 block of colored pixels. Try to draw a 'woman sunbathing in the nude' using 8 pixels. Now using 4-8 pixels draw each of 'borat wearing a g-string', a pig, a camel, a litter of cocker spaniels, a beige hammock, and a cardboard box and explain how to tell them apart.
For comparison the 'mario' in the original Nintendo "Super Mario Brothers" was around 400 pixels. And they had to dedicate the entire top 3rd to his head just so that he'd have a discernable eye, nose, and moustache.
Re:why the (Score:5, Funny)
50cm is like half a meter.
It's precisely half a meter.
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You sir, are one sick puppy. You need to make another appointment with your therapist and go over this stuff.
Re:why the (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people are under 2 meters tall, and between 50cm and 100cm wide..
100cm Wide? I know a third of Americans are Obese, but 100 cm is massive. I'm about average and only 45 cm wide
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Maybe the difference between an F-15D and and F-15E.
My guess is that anything better is really too useful.
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For God's sake, this is a wang joke waiting to happen. Won't somebody stand up?
fixed
Re:why the (Score:5, Informative)
50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??
For once the government is protecting our pivacy (a side effect of portecting its own, no doubt). 50cm resolution hides the identity and activity of individuals, which is for the best.
Re:why the (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know why you're marked troll. You shouldn't be.
Anyway, above a certain threshold, it starts to get a military-grade function, and therefore it's not something they want the general public to have. The general public includes America's Enemies.
It's the same reason why commercial GPS shuts down above 60,000 feet or faster than [can't remember the units].
I'm sure an American will point out that their 2nd Amendment grant the citizens rights to GPS-equipped military hardware.
Re:why the (Score:4, Informative)
Although, oddly enough, the law is more permissive than that; the GPS can work above 60,000 feet or faster than that velocity, but not both at the same time.
Not that there aren't firmware hacks to get around that, at least for older hardware.
Re:why the (Score:4, Informative)
electronics background (Score:3, Funny)
Like doctors.
IAAMD and let me tell you that, indeed most of us doctors could manipulate a soldering iron (except maybe for psychiatrists). You just have to realize that it's mostly like routine work, except that this peculiar patient has less tendency to bleed.
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"50cm restriction? do they have something to hide??"
Roseanne Barr's favorite nude beach.
Kewl (Score:4, Funny)
Shiny new browser that can do everything and fancy new satellite. The only thing missing is my new RFID implant.
Re:Kewl (Score:4, Funny)
I have mine already! It is still beta and therefore limited availability for pre-registered users.
Extra! Extra! (Score:2, Funny)
Google starts plans for Moon base and Mars base, right after the space elevator is completed, and the new high power laser defense system the army is working on gets better than 19% efficiency. (to combat alien intruders) Oh, and they need the flying cars as well to round out the high tech glory.
Plus new Mars and Moon search services will be launched. Find your future lost relatives on Mars or the Moon.
Meanwhile at microsoft HQ (Score:2, Funny)
Monkey boy is yelling and smashing chairs against the wall again:
"I'm gonna f**king KILL google!!!"
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But now with this new satellite we'll actually be able to see the chair carcasses scattered across the Microsoft campus.
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for once - and only once - in my life, I am actually on monkey boy's side.
google has too much power and this only worries me. I see no good coming from this.
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50cm? That barrier is gonna fall soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Within 1-2 years other countries will have civilian spy satellites that break 50cm, putting American companies at a disadvantage.
The USA will have 3 choices:
Shoot the birds down, literally.
Shoot the birds down, politically - bully the other countries into imposing similar limits.
Lower or eliminate the artificial limit.
Anyone remember when encryption software was considered a munition? Apple and other companies had to go through hoops to export it, putting them at a distinct disadvantage over non-American companies.
50cm? How about 10? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, either my understanding of satellite photo resolution is wrong, or Google can already go to 10cm, and possibly even 5cm resolution.
Re:50cm? How about 10? (Score:5, Informative)
Google uses aerial photography for the views of major cities - so those 10cm resolution images are not from satellite.
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Re:50cm? How about 10? (Score:5, Funny)
They use aerial photogr.... wait a minute, *FOUR* other people have said this already.
Don't you wish that everyone would read the whole freakin' thread before replying.
Jesus.
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Bah, it happens all the time on Slashdot. There's no netiquette.
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Aerial photograp... what??
This was predicted three years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
resolution for satellite like digital cams? (Score:2)
...it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters... Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50 cm...
I'm not really sure how this breaks down in terms of what I can actually SEE. Since current imagery lets us sorta see people, I'd like to know how much further along are we to seeing _a person_.
Can anyone provide a little more detail, maybe a good example.
And please - no examples using libraries of congress worth of hogsheads of dat tape traveling in the back of station wagons or any somesuch..! ;)
Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams? (Score:5, Informative)
It means a car shows up as 4 pixels by 12 pixels. The top of your head is part of a single pixel along with a square foot of sidewalk.
Google already has higher-res data for populated areas of several countries from aircraft reconnaisance. The satellites are for everything else.
Unfortunately, there is a physical limit [wikipedia.org] to how good an image taken from 400 miles away can be.
Re:resolution for satellite like digital cams? (Score:4, Insightful)
the diffraction effect is not the only issue; but its worked-around.
recently, there were 'multiple exposure' (roughly) algorithms being used to 'look thru' the heat, pollution and general waviness of the sky, in plotting out celestial objects.
and even *with* diffraction, you can overcome it with sharpening. I often shoot my photos 'with too high an f-stop' according to common theory; but my post-processing overcomes the diffraction issues in practice; and I get the nice large depth-of-field that I was after with quite good sharpness, as well.
if you get multiple shots, exposures or angles of a subject, you can 'subtract out' quite a lot of noise and distortion. single shots can't do this but multiple ('high dyn range' or HDR) shooting can.
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Afaict all the google earth images where you can make out individual people are aerial photographs not sattalite images (google earth uses aerial photographs where they are available and sattalite imageary where they are not).
I think with this new satalite you might see a slight difference in pixel color where a person was standing if the background was even but you wouldn't be able to tell it was a person. Another order of magnitude improvement and it would probablly be comparable to the aerial photographs
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and sattalite imageary where they are not).
I think with this new satalite you might
You managed to spell satellite in two different ways in your post, both of them wrong.
Nothing wrong with having trouble spelling, especially if English isn't your first language - but Firefox does have a built in spell-checker these days...
A primer on satellite resolution (Score:5, Informative)
Defining optical resolution from space is a bit tricky, as several generations of optical engineers have discovered.
The main criterion is the telescope's point spread function - this is roughly the angular diameter that a pinpoint star appears to be, as seen through the telescope. We want the smallest point spread function, and it should map onto about one to three sensor pixels. (arguments go here about over/undersampling).
The Fourier Transform of the point spread function is the Optical Transfer Function, which is a graph of the spatial frequencies response of the telescope. It's analogous to a hifi's frequency response ... it's an engineering challenge to prevent high frequencies from getting rolled off.
The main limit for high resolution is the diameter of the primary mirror (All mirrors and optical elements, no matter how perfect, have diffraction effects which spread out the light and reduce resolution. The bigger the entrance pupil, the greater the resolution) For the GeoEye, orbiting at 684Km and a resolution of 0.4m, I roughly calculate the primary mirror is somewhere around a half-meter diameter or so, depending on the wavelength of light it's optimized for.
Other things limit resolution - scattering of light in clear air (Rayleigh scattering) screws up the image, especially in the blue. Dust, haze, clouds and urban pollution are a bother, but not as much as you might think. Naturally, there's lots of image processing software ... quite compute intensive.
A typical human, seen from above and not casting a shadow, is about 20 to 60 cm across. So someone walking down the street should appear on a few (1 to 5) pixels. Not enough to recognize someone, especially since you're looking down on 'em.
Generally, images taken from aircraft have better resolution (they're closer, and there's less Rayleigh scattering). Perhaps airlines will attach automated, downward looking hires cameras to their daily flights.
Launch scheduled for Sep 4 11:50am PDT (Score:3, Informative)
GeoEye-1 is scheduled to launch aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg AFB Sep 4 11:50am PDT. However, unconfirmed reports state that the launch may be delayed because Hurricane Hanna has grounded east coast support personnel.
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I wonder if it will be visible from the Los Angeles area. I've seen rockets from Vandenberg in the sky, but they were night launches, so very easily seen.
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I live about 50 miles north of Vandenberg and can see most daylight, night, and evening launches. The evening launches are spectacular, although I have only seen one. Its pretty cloudy outside right now. I hope it is clear on Thursday.
Courtesy of Google SatWords (Score:5, Funny)
Guy comes out of bar holding a girl's hand while walking home. Suddenly, a targeted ad for condoms is projected on the ground in front of them.
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Someone tell me why the resolution limit ? (Score:2)
resolution of 50 cm?
What's up with that?
Top secret military sites?
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I was going to make a comment about Ron Jeremy, but i'll spare you...
-Taylor
4300 lb? (Score:2)
I'll be honest and admit I am no expert, but a 4300 satellite must be very expensive to launch to that altitude.
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A drop in the bucket for a company worth 150+ billion.
Gooeye? (Score:2)
Is that anything like pirate eye?
Good news (Score:3)
Re:Good news (Score:5, Funny)
Which Orbit? (Score:3, Interesting)
I did RTFA but nowhere did I see any information about which orbit they're going to use.
It can't be geosynchronous because that wouldn't allow them to photograph all of the country at once. In order to cover the whole US, they'll need to have an orbit that passes the satellite over different parts of the country at different times.
The interesting thing is that in order to get such an orbit, it has to pass over other countries. Will Google take footage of other countries? If so, will it use that footage? That would probably require some intense international negotiations.
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The interesting thing is that in order to get such an orbit, it has to pass over other countries. Will Google take footage of other countries? If so, will it use that footage? That would probably require some intense international negotiations.
What?
Of course they'll use those pictures (footage is for video).
If other countries do not want Google to put them online, they'll have to come and say so.
Google has already been asked/told by various countries to lower the resolution of sensitive military installations, because Google didn't do so for non-US/Euro countries.
Long story short: If you don't want something to be visible in satellite photos, cover it up or put it underground. Governments know to do this by now.
Re:Which Orbit? (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting thing is that in order to get such an orbit, it has to pass over other countries. Will Google take footage of other countries? If so, will it use that footage? That would probably require some intense international negotiations.
Actually, it will not. I'm not sure if it's codified anywhere in international law or just by historical precedent, but a nation's airspace does not extend into space. A satellite can legally take photos of anything it can see, and there's little a country can do about it except hide things under cover or shoot it down (which likely would be considered an act of war).
Some countries (like the US) can exert control in limited ways by restricting operations if the imaging company does business in the country, but that's it.
Google has quite detailed satellite photos of Pyongyang, North Korea - I'm sure they didn't really agree to that.
A Sun-Synchronous Oribit (Score:4, Interesting)
Most satellites for earth observation use sun-synchronous orbits. These orbits let the satellite's cameras take pictures ob objects at the same solar time. This means that it will pass overhead at the same local time every day ... so the images will have the same shadow characteristics.
You accomplish this by making the orbit precess exactly 360 degrees per solar year.
These orbits are typically nearly circular, but needn't be; you can put a spy satellite into a sun-synchronous elliptical orbit, so it'll swoops down and photograph near perigee, then waste a lot of time around apogee.
Since this orbit is around 684 Km, it can be shown that it must be pretty close to circular, has an orbital period of around 100 minutes, and its inclination is probably about 96 to 100 degrees (meaning that the satellite is slightly retrograde - 90 degrees inclination is polar, zero degrees is equatorial) In turn, this means that pretty much all of earth will be seen by the satellite, except for 8 degree circles around the poles.
A 96 minute period means that each successive orbit will look down on a place 15 degrees west ... one time zone to the west.
Geosynchronous orbits are pretty useless for this type of work, since they're so far away (you need really big telescopes to get much resolution). Also, you'd only see one hemisphere, and half the year it'd be nighttime over the areas you want to see.
heh (Score:2)
*tags it as theunblinkingeyeofgoogle*
I was just referring to the Chrome logo as that - and then this happened. Serendipity, I say. Heh. Or, at least, synergy.
Re:Competition (Score:4, Informative)
This is the american way of doing business. Competition exists to ensure that customers get the best possible price. That's why we tolerate it. That's why we encourage it. When a company talks about putting up "barriers to entry" and signs exclusive deals with all the suppliers, we don't get the benefits of competition anymore.
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In that case, does safesearch filter out the fat guys? :P
Unfortunately, the US gov only wants you to see the fatties. Why do you think there is the 50cm limit?