OpenStreetMap is celebrating its 20th anniversary today. It was originally created in response to restrictive Ordnance Survey licensing in the U.K., in a context that seems unrecognizable today. Founder Steve Coast writes about the anniversary (mirror link). “Allowing volunteers to edit a map in 2004 was simply anathema and bordering on unthinkable. Map data was supposed to be controlled, authorized and carefully managed by a priesthood of managers.”
Category: Web Mapping
Remembering MapQuest
The tenth installment of James Killick’s “12 Map Happenings that Rocked our World” series focuses on a company James actually worked at: MapQuest, which grew very, very rapidly between its launch in 1996 (James outlines its antecedents) to its IPO and acquisition by AOL a few years later. And then:
The new management seemed to have very little interest in anything to do with MapQuest, particularly as it related to product road map and strategy. And with the layoffs and hiring freeze there weren’t enough resources to do anything substantial even if there was a good plan.
I tried to make matters clear and pleaded with the powers that be: MapQuest was a site built on map data but it didn’t make maps. In fact 98% of the map data was licensed from third parties. I knew MapQuest had to build a moat around the product otherwise someone else could swoop in, license the same data and build a better product.
And you won’t win any prizes for guessing who did.
Previously: Remember MapQuest?
Apple Maps on the Web
Apple announced yesterday that Apple Maps is now available on the web as a public beta. Prior to this it was mostly available through its iOS, iPad and Mac apps, except that developers have been able to embed Apple’s maps on their websites through the MapKit JS API for several years now. Those embedded maps can now point to the web version, “so their users can get driving directions, see detailed place information, and more.” Limited browser and language support for the time being.
Indian Residential Schools Interactive Map
The Canadian government has launched an interactive map of former Indian residential schools. “The Indian Residential Schools Interactive Map allows users to visualize the location of the 140 former residential school sites recognized in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement as well as provide information on the current status and historical context of the site. The map has a search, filter, measurement and imagery slider to help users with analysis.” The map makes use of historical aerial photography to pinpoint the locations of schools that are no longer standing; many of the sites have since been redeveloped.
The purpose of the map is grim: to determine the potential locations of additional school gravesites. Generations of Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools in Canada: many were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, and thousands died of disease or neglect. In the past few years, unmarked graves have been found at several residential school sites across Canada, and searches are under way at many others. This map makes available to searchers imagery that was otherwise difficult to access. (The imagery is also available as a dataset.) More at the CBC News story.
OpenStreetMap Is Dealing with Some Vandalism
It seems OpenStreetMap has had to deal with a wave of vandalism attacks lately. If you see some nonsense on OSM, this post on their community forum outlines what to do about it (it may have already been taken care of even if it’s still appearing, so check for that; also, don’t post screencaps, because propagating the nonsense is what the vandals want). The OSM ops team provided this update on Mastodon today: “OpenStreetMap is now stronger with improved monitoring, automatic blocking, and respectful limits on new accounts. The default osm.org map is now quicker at fixing large-scale vandalism. Offline actions are also progressing.”
Online Maps Roundup: April 2024
Custom route creation and topographic maps are rumored to be coming to Apple Maps in the next iOS release, iOS 18. Google Maps has had custom routes since approximately forever; on Apple Maps we’ve had to choose between Apple’s generated routes without being able to edit them.
Google Maps announced updates focusing on EVs (EV charger search, nearby chargers in the in-car map, suggested charging stops, forecast energy consumption) and sustainability (lower-carbon travel options rolling out in 15 cities, estimated flight emissions). Also, Street View came to Kazakhstan last month. Meanwhile, Ben Schoon at 9to5Google says that while Google Maps on Android Auto is “a pretty solid experience,” it’s a different matter when you use Google Maps via Apple CarPlay, an experience he calls “a bit of a dumpster fire.”
Google-owned Waze announced updates last month that include roundabout assistance and notifications for the presence of emergency vehicles, speed limit changes, and things like sharp curves, speed bumps and toll booths [TechCrunch].
Vector Tiles Are Coming to OpenStreetMap
On the OpenStreetMap blog, an announcement that vector tiles will be coming to OSM later this year. This is a significant, if belated technical change: other map platforms moved to vector mapping years ago (Google announced the change in 2013). But there are reasons for the delay:
Vector tiles have become industry standard in interactive maps that, unlike openstreetmap.org, don’t get updated often, and where you can simply recalculate your whole database occasionally.
But the map displayed on openstreetmap.org are quite uniquely different! They get updated incrementally and constantly, a minute after you edit; it’s a critical part of the feedback loop to mappers—and how the author of this blog post got hooked in the first place. This is why we have to invest in our own vector tile software stack.
The switch to vector tiles, the post goes on to say, will enable all sorts of dynamic changes to the map: “3d maps, more efficient data mixing and matching and integration of other datasets, thematic styles, multilingual maps, different views for administrative boundaries, interactive points of interest, more accessible maps for vision-impaired users, and I’m sure many other ideas that no one has come up with yet.”
Google Maps Is Adding Generative AI
Uh-oh. Generative AI is coming to Google Maps. Google is using large-language models to give suggestions on where to go based on its vast horde of reviews, ratings and other contributor data. “Starting in the U.S., this early access experiment launches this week to select Local Guides, who are some of the most active and passionate members of the Maps community. Their insights and valuable feedback will help us shape this feature so we can bring it to everyone over time.” Other LLMs have a tendency to push out magnificently wrong answers; it’ll be interesting to see what results Google will get with this specific set of data. (The chances of spectacularity are not zero.)
Montreal’s Interactive Construction Site Map
Montreal has launched an interactive map of its many, many construction sites. Per CBC News: “Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough Mayor Émilie Thuillier says the map will help Montrealers see in real time where a construction site is, what the reason for it is and what company is responsible for it. The map also tells users when the work began and when it’s scheduled to end.” Apparently there are problems with illegal construction barriers and abandoned traffic cones: if they’re not on the map, that will be a tell.
Mapping North Korea in OpenStreetMap
Mapping North Korea in OpenStreetMap is, by necessity, an exercise in armchair mapping—i.e., drawing maps from aerial imagery and other data sources—because on-the-ground mapping is, to say the least, impractical. French OSM user Koreller has created a North Korea mapping guide for OSM contributors.1 See Koreller’s diary entry about the guide, plus their entry about mapping the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
What3Words Confusion Rate Under Scrutiny
The What3Words geocoding service assigns a three-word mapcode to every three-square-metre patch on the planet, the premise being that three words are easier to remember and share than longitude and latitude to the equivalent decimal places. But the main complaint about What3Words (apart from the proprietary nature of its algorithm and database) is that it’s possible to get even those three words confused, especially in contexts where plurals and homophones may not be heard clearly, or where similar combinations of words are close enough to each other that they can be mistaken for each other. There’s actually an entire website dedicated to chronicling errors in W3W.
W3W maintains that their algorithm keeps similar combinations “so far apart that an error is obvious. We also worked hard to remove homophones and near homophones like sale and sail.” They rate the the chance of two confusing combinations appearing close enough to be unclear at about 1 in 2.5 million. But in a new analysis of the algorithm, currently in preprint, computer scientist Rudy Arthur argues that despite W3W’s claims this chance of confusion is far higher, and warns against adopting W3W as critical infrastructure (it’s used by emergency services, particularly in the U.K.) without testing and comparing against available alternatives. [The Register]
Previously: What3Words Hasn’t Had the Greatest Couple of Months: A Roundup.
Engst’s Experience with Mapping Services
Adam Engst of TidBITS: “I’ve been working with mapping services a lot of late and wanted to share some of my experiences in the hope that they’ll help you boost your mapping game beyond simple navigation.” Mostly focuses on fitness-related mapping, but also on how to correct errors on online maps.
What3Words Hasn’t Had the Greatest Couple of Months: A Roundup
The proprietary geocoding system What3words, which assigns a three-word mapcode to each three-square-metre point on the planet, has been getting some grief lately. It’s always been somewhat controversial because it’s a closed system, and because of the steps What3words has taken to protect its proprietary database and algorithms: it’s issued takedown notices relating to the compatible, open-source WhatFreeWords (details here), to the point of threatening a security researcher over his tweets about it last April. Which, you know, got noticed.
It’s also been the subject of several parodies, including what3emojis (emojis instead of words), Four King Maps (four swear words, UK and Ireland only on account of a lack of swear words, which frankly disappoints me) and Maps Mania’s own April Fool’s joke for this year, what2figures, which expresses any point on the globe in just two numbers (I’ll wait).
But more recently it’s come under criticism for having similar sounding word combinations for addresses only a few miles apart: see Andrew Tierney’s blog post (which expands upon this Twitter thread) and What3words’s response. This is especially a problem for first responders trying to locate someone who may have misspoken or mistyped their location, or because of their accent, resulting in rescue teams being sent to the wrong location.
100 Million Edits to OpenStreetMap
The 100 millionth edit to OpenStreetMap was uploaded today, the OpenStreetMap Blog reports. “This milestone represents the collective contribution of nearly 1 billion features globally in the past 16+ years, by a diverse community of over 1.5 million mappers.”
OpenStreetMap’s ‘Unholy Alliance’
OpenStreetMap, says Joe Morrison, “is now at the center of an unholy alliance of the world’s largest and wealthiest technology companies. The most valuable companies in the world are treating OSM as critical infrastructure for some of the most-used software ever written.” Corporate teams, rather local mappers, are now responsible for the majority of edits to the OSM database; Morrison speculates that their participation is about “desperately avoiding the existential conflict of having to pay Google for the privilege of accessing their proprietary map data.” In the end, he argues that we’re in a strange-bedfellows situation where corporate and community interests are aligned. (To which I’d add: for now.) [MetaFilter]
Previously: OpenStreetMap at the Crossroads; OpenStreetMap ‘In Serious Trouble’.