Editorial Droider decided to celebrate the anniversary of Google Maps, which is February 8 "knocked" for 10 years and offers a look at some interesting information about the wonderful service.
Mapping service Google Maps, thanks to technology Street View, allowing users to virtually "wander" on the three-dimensional projection of the city or a private street. This functionality is achieved by photographing a circular area with special equipment in real time. During shooting, the unit automatically detects the flat surfaces. For example, the facades of buildings. That is why in Street View and present the possibility of choosing a more successful angle for viewing the object.
To create a card, Google uses a 65-megapixel camera with 15 lenses. When the service was being developed, the team packed several computers in the trunk of a car and the camera optics and GPS-navigator - on the roof of an SUV. In this way and created Google Maps.
In the history of Google Maps Street View cars drove 8 million kilometers, which is equivalent to about 200 orbits around the Earth. In addition to cars, to create Google Maps uses snowmobiles, special tricycles and animals.
If you ever wondered how much "weigh" Google Maps, here's the answer: The server stores 20 petabytes of data, which is approximately 21 million gigabytes or terabytes 20,500.
In Google Maps are available 20 zoom levels. The minimum level is limited to 10 meters, maximum - 10 000 km.
Maps are updated every 2 weeks, but the Internet giant is no clear timetable update due to factors such as the weather or traffic jams.
It's no secret that Google complies with all the requirements of the security services to close the secret facilities. Edition of IT Security published a long list of such places in the material under the name . Believe me, there is something to look at.
In November 2009, one of the British members came in on Google Maps in Lancashire, north-west England. Experts suggest that Google could specifically put on a map of the "ghost town" to track attempts to copyright infringement. Also, there are cases where cartographers specifically placed on the scheme invented the street.
Every day, all users of Google Maps and Google Earth spending more than 1 million hours watching geographic materials.
resource ZDNet, 2012 Street View feature is available to users in more than 3,000 cities in 35 countries.
For a long time in vector format of Russian cities Google Maps users were shown only the map of Moscow and St. Petersburg. As of 2013, when there are about 200 maps of Russian cities.
In the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada, Ireland and the Netherlands, using Google Maps, you can virtually visit 156 museums and other public places.
April 1, 2012 as a joke developers was added 8-bit mode viewing maps. In addition, the YouTube video was posted with the presentation of Google Maps for NES.
Pegman - Guide to Google Street View - usually visible to the user in the form of a yellow man. But sometimes it may appear in a different guise. For example, in Legoland, a city built from Lego, he appears as a man konstruktornogo. Hawaii - as a surfer, and in Antarctica - in the form of a penguin. On the route of the most famous and prestigious of cycling "Tour de France" Pegman moves on a bicycle.