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Posted on 12/01/2016 10:05:33 AM PST by Enlightened1
Apple is reportedly planning to use drones to improve its Maps app and truly compete with Google Maps, following a problematic launch four years ago. Bloomberg News reports that Apple has been building a team of experts in robots and data capture to utilize drones to quickly update maps. Google and Apple both use fleets of cars and vans equipped with cameras, but drones will allow Apple to examine and monitor roads, street signs, construction areas, and more. Apple is said to have hired at least one employee from Amazon’s Air division to help run its own drone team based in Seattle.
Alongside the drone efforts, Apple is also reportedly developing a new inside view for its Maps app and improvements for car navigation. Bloomberg News claims that the indoor mapping view will let iPhone users navigate through museums and airports. Google Maps currently offers similar indoor features, and Apple has reportedly acquired Indoor.io to help build out the feature for Maps. Apple is also adding better assistance for changing lanes while driving, and both of the new Maps features are said to be planned for a 2017 release.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
This sounds cool enough, but I suspect those drones are going to get annoying.
Yeah how long until we see drones every where like cars?
Just imagine the future where Apple starts using drones to capture “Street View” eye-level pics like the Google cars do today. We’ll be dodging those damnable things at every left and right. The street will constantly sound like a nest of mad hornets.
Sometimes I watch these movies about the future and ask, “what would life really be like if I was one of the general population there?” I find that it’s not that great. It’s one thing I liked about BladeRunner. It showed the dirty side of the “present” no matter when it is.
Where do I buy hunter-killer swarming drones? I little dental floss deployed into the rotors is all it would take to bring down a multi thousand dollar commercial or government drone.
No problem. The drones will be cloaked and you will not see them
Apple maps?
Puh-leaze. My subdivision has been in existence since 2004. Apple maps does not know it. Some 20 or more streets.
Thank God for Google maps.
They'll be perched by the dozens on telephone poles and wires, and on overhead street lamps in intersections. Pigeons and other birds will go berserk and tangle with the drones, with the losers falling onto roads! Who will win, nature or software?
Ping.
“BONK”
What was that?
You mention Street View. My sister noticed that the Google car caught my truck on her street, and my dog at her side gate on their last venture through her city. It’s kinda neat to see, yet creepy at the same time.
I saw my truck in two places on the same map
That’s neat!. I also noticed that when I pull out and up from the view I mentioned, the vehicle on the street becomes a mishmash of my truck and my car!. The truck’s length, but the car’s sunroof and hood. It looks pretty weird, like someone partially melted the two then jammed them together.
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"Here's the last image received from Drone 45:ee:aa:18:3c:08:8a:31:5b:ea"
When nutty ideas like this start appearing it is certain the robot dot com boom has begun. Remember all the nutty ideas during the internet bubble? There will be some huge stock market winners, and a lot of investment insanity.
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