Russian Town Puts Giant Smiley On Google Maps

Toramir writes "Citizens of the Russian town Chelyabinsk calculated when the satellite, QuickBird, which takes images for Google Earth and Google Maps, would cross above their city and used people to make a giant smiley face. A rock concert on the main square attracted many people and everyone got a yellow cape. It looks like someone at Google was quicker than usual to put up the new data. Maybe Google likes the idea of an entire town working hard to get its 15 minutes of fame. The article has a screenshot of Google Maps and images taken directly at the event."

You know what...

In Soviet Russia, satellite smiles at you!

Google will have to remove the pic

or the copyright owners of the smiley face will issue a DMCA take down notice.

Whether that would really happen or not, the news has become so much like the Onion that I kind of expect asshattery like that.

Re:Google will have to remove the pic

the copyright owners of the smiley face will issue a DMCA take down notice.

In Soviet Russia, smiley face owns copyright on DMCA!

In future Soviet USA, they skip take down notice. Instead send you straight to a DMCA Forced Work Camp in Alaska. Where you will transcribe entire works of Disney, by hand.

In soviet Russia..

In soviet Russia, we know when the American satellites are coming!

ÐzÑÐнÑOE Ñ...&

ÐÑо? ÐÑ Ð½Ð ÐонÐмÐÐÑÐ Ðо-ÑÑfÑÑÐÐ? ÑмоÑÑÐ Ð google ÐÐÑÐÐоÐ! ÐоРWow, seriously no cyrillic on slashdot? What is this the 90's?

It's a bad photoshop

Compare these two:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IeJHb-2CVGM/SNUFiyTlEHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/shQMNh5h89o/s1600-h/smiley-1000.jpg [blogspot.com]
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=tscheljabinsk+russland&ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=iceweasel-a&t=h&ll=55.160037,61.403425&spn=0.004793,0.011179&z=17 [google.com]

The cars on all the side streets and all the shadows are exactly the same. Someone just photoshoped out the cars on the main street and put in the smily. Nothing to see here.

Mad

Very creative. But were they going for the Alfred E. Neuman [wikipedia.org] look? Probably should have put the stage below the chin. Still love it. Perhaps more with the missing tooth.

In sovied russia, tech.slashdot is the new idle

I had hoped idle would stay confined to idle. This is not technology.

This ... is ... IDLE!!! </300>

hmm

Obvious Photoshop job. For punishment, I think we can all work together and put him over his bandwidth cap.

In Soviet Russia...

... Google searches for YOU!

Overcast and that's not how it works

There's about 20 "I don't see it in Google Maps" and "It was photoshopped!" posts that don't mention any of the basic reasons why this didn't work.

1. Google Maps isn't realtime, some areas have photos updated every few years. My house is a picture from over a year ago, for instance. Just because the bird goes overhead doesn't mean the content goes into Google Maps, and even if it did, it would only go in for a few days until the next pass, so... concept fail.

2. Did anyone actually LOOK at the photos taken on the ground at the event? It was OVERCAST. These are not magical Star Trek satellites with super inverse polaron field vision that sees through clouds.

Why aren't other folks touching on these VERY BASIC FLAWS with the clever premise?

Re:Where exactly?

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=55.166667,61.4&ie=UTF8&ll=55.159688,61.402395&spn=0.005522,0.013089&t=h&z=17&iwloc=addr [google.com] Not there now?

Re:Where exactly?

Way to frown on the happy parade! :(

Re:Where exactly?

It's worth mentioning that if you zoom in on Google maps and compare the two pictures, it seems that the parked cars and traffic from outside of the immediate smiley area are exactly the same. It appears as if the smiley was photoshopped in or out of one of the pictures.

Hmmm.

Re:Where exactly?

For those who absolutely refused to read the article, here is an artist's impression

: )

Re:Where exactly?

A new breaktrough in loseless image compression, what really matters of that image in just 2 bytes.

Re:Where exactly?

I disagree. I can provide a better artist's impression: :D

Re:Fake images

Furthermore the fake screenshot depicts the very exact same thing as the rooftop picture. What's more pathetic, that they actually did it but not for when Google would actually shoot (is there even any way to actually know that?) or that the Slashdot "editors" didn't even see that coming.

I guess that's Journalism 2.0, in which it's the user who does the editor's job of spotting the bullshit.

Re:Fake images

I guess that's Journalism 2.0, in which it's the user who does the editor's job of spotting the bullshit.

Is this really a bad thing though? I first watched CNN during the first gulf war. They were kind of dumb, but they had people on the ground in Baghdad and those people stuck their cameras out of the window and sounded scared but enthusiastic. Every time there was a crisis they'd fly someone out there and broadcast anything cool they filmed. There wasn't much attempt at analysis, but it was still pretty interesting

Now when I watch CNN they seemed to have far more stuff back home. Every half our or so they run an advert for CNN "Eco Solutions" which is the opposite of journalism - they know the story before the leave the office and select reports that fit it. There are far more talking heads back in the studio repeating conventional wisdom from the US. Frankly this is boring - I don't care what middle class Americans believe is happening.

I'd much rather just see a stream of images from what is actually happening and make up my own mind. There less editorial control the better.

Re:Fake images

I'd much rather just see a stream of images from what is actually happening and make up my own mind. There less editorial control the better.

Perhaps you've forgotten that the purpose of news isn't to inform, it's to coerce opinion.

Re:Fake images

Never mind the fact that they say they timed when the satellite would come over, but it's an aerial photo.

Also, they did a similar thing on James May's 20th Century, where he made a giant space invader to be captured on a satellite image.

Yes, Lenina

If a town or a street got renamed during the Soviet period, after 1992 its name was in most cases restored to the pre-revolutionary version. However, if the street was built during the Soviet period, of course it would not get renamed, since it never had a pre-Soviet name in the first place. Renaming a street just because its name is no longer politically fashionable is akin to rewriting history, no better than what the Soviets were doing.

That's nothing

You should see how many things in the U.S. are named after Ronald Reagan!

Re:Lenina?

Some do.

Anyway, almost every city in Russia still has Sovetskaya street and the Lenin square (complete with a statue). My own home town, Tambov, also has Karl Marx street, Komsomolskaya street etc. Some streets that were named after the more odious figures were renamed in the 90s (one was named after Antonov-Ovseenko, who was the commissar in charge of suppressing the anti-communist Tambov peasant rebellion in 1920s, and personally signed the order to use poison gas against the rebel), but most of the "generic" names were left untouched.

Re:Where is it?

No... wait... I see it! You kind of have to focus your eyes on a point behind the picture.