Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[Sykotyk]

Indeed.  I was using Google Maps to try to find parking in Saratoga Springs last week and found a lot that was claimed to allow all day parking on the internet, but there was some sign that I couldn't read at the entrance, so I thought I wouldn't be able to use that lot.  Thankfully, someone who knows the area better claimed it was all day, and when I got there, it turned out the sign said "48 hour parking".  The blurring is defeating the point of even having street view.

[jakeroot]

Privacy trumps all. In every scenario. Street View is no different (hell, Street View is a textbook example of how privacy concerns can, to an extreme degree, hinder the usefulness of a product). The blurring you (vdeane) and the rest of us see is likely the result of an extremely complex algorithm confusing parking signs with other text such as licence plates, which is considered private information, and as such, is blurred automatically by the server. I'm sure if Google knew how to blur exactly what should be blurred, and not blur what shouldn't be, they'd have implemented said changes by now.

tl;dr: Google also doesn't like blurring stupid stuff like road signs, but the servers aren't smart enough to tell the difference...yet.

[vdeane]

But is street view a huge invasion of privacy?  It's just a snapshot, no different than if you observed someone on a street (or are we all now going to get eye implants that blurs out faces and licence plates of people who aren't our friends?).  It's not like they offered the ability to search for someone's image or aggregates where you're going all the time (which is where the problems come in... it's not the little pieces of information, it's what they can add up to if aggregated; however, as long as aggregation is impossible, as it is in street view, it's not an issue).  It's amazing how people are so paranoid about street view and then happily uses Facebook's new "reactions", which are basically a way for Facebook to analyze how you think so they can sell the data.

[Sykotyk]

But is street view a huge invasion of privacy?  It's just a snapshot, no different than if you observed someone on a street (or are we all now going to get eye implants that blurs out faces and licence plates of people who aren't our friends?).  It's not like they offered the ability to search for someone's image or aggregates where you're going all the time (which is where the problems come in... it's not the little pieces of information, it's what they can add up to if aggregated; however, as long as aggregation is impossible, as it is in street view, it's not an issue).  It's amazing how people are so paranoid about street view and then happily uses Facebook's new "reactions", which are basically a way for Facebook to analyze how you think so they can sell the data.

I think Google's intention on blurring faces wasn't anything to do with privacy but rather just courtesy so someone's face isn't permanently emblazoned on Google, especially in instances where they're in front of their house (and a good reason for license plates to be blurred when in residential areas where it would be easy to mark a house to a license plate without driving by yourself.

In the end, Google does as they always do... go too far.

[vdeane]

I think it also had something to do with the EU, maybe even an attempt to placate Germany (which ultimately banned street view driving).

[bandit957]

I think it also had something to do with the EU

So they did it for the wrong reasons.

What's next? Are they going to do what Yahoo did and please Red China by turning in journalists?

[bandit957]

Lately I've noticed that at the top of the map, there's this skinny horizontal blue bar that continually "shoots" across the screen. What is this for? It is annoying, and has to go.

[freebrickproductions]

Lately I've noticed that at the top of the map, there's this skinny horizontal blue bar that continually "shoots" across the screen. What is this for? It is annoying, and has to go.

I think it's Google's "loading" image. IDK why it doesn't go away though.

[jakeroot]

Lately I've noticed that at the top of the map, there's this skinny horizontal blue bar that continually "shoots" across the screen. What is this for? It is annoying, and has to go.

I think it's Google's "loading" image. IDK why it doesn't go away though.

Yes it's the loading bar. It appears to be a glitch. I see it too. Driving me nuts. Goes away if you refresh. 

[Sykotyk]

Lately I've noticed that at the top of the map, there's this skinny horizontal blue bar that continually "shoots" across the screen. What is this for? It is annoying, and has to go.

I think it's Google's "loading" image. IDK why it doesn't go away though.

Yes it's the loading bar. It appears to be a glitch. I see it too. Driving me nuts. Goes away if you refresh. 

When I see it, it won't let me do anything other than move the map around and gives a 'ding' sound. Only solution for me is to close the window (or back out of the page) and try again. It won't show up the Earth tab, zoom won't work, and the SV icon won't show up. Nor will it show you the directions if that's what you were trying to get, or info, etc.

For a while I thought GM was finally improving, and then this happens.

[jakeroot]

When I see it, it won't let me do anything other than move the map around and gives a 'ding' sound. Only solution for me is to close the window (or back out of the page) and try again. It won't show up the Earth tab, zoom won't work, and the SV icon won't show up. Nor will it show you the directions if that's what you were trying to get, or info, etc.

For a while I thought GM was finally improving, and then this happens.

Perhaps we need more input from the rest of the users. None of the things you are describing, short of the continuous loading bar (which has actually gone away for me, now that I'm skipping around Google Maps) are things that I have experienced.

I suspect this is a simple code error, and will be fixed in a timely manner (like I said, the problems have already been solved on my end, so perhaps they're already on top of this).

[freebrickproductions]

When I see it, it won't let me do anything other than move the map around and gives a 'ding' sound. Only solution for me is to close the window (or back out of the page) and try again. It won't show up the Earth tab, zoom won't work, and the SV icon won't show up. Nor will it show you the directions if that's what you were trying to get, or info, etc.

For a while I thought GM was finally improving, and then this happens.

Perhaps we need more input from the rest of the users. None of the things you are describing, short of the continuous loading bar (which has actually gone away for me, now that I'm skipping around Google Maps) are things that I have experienced.

I suspect this is a simple code error, and will be fixed in a timely manner (like I said, the problems have already been solved on my end, so perhaps they're already on top of this).

I'm the same as you jakeroot. Other than the loading bar, I ain't noticing any issues like what Sykotyk is describing.

[vdeane]

Is it true that it never finishes loading or are people just not giving it a chance?  I've never had one get stuck, but while you're panning the map, it won't be working on loading the interface not matter how fast that blue thing moves.  You have to let the map sit still for a few seconds to let it finish loading (it does seem to take a bit longer; the blue thing must be chewing up the browser's processing power).

[jakeroot]

Is it true that it never finishes loading or are people just not giving it a chance?  I've never had one get stuck, but while you're panning the map, it won't be working on loading the interface not matter how fast that blue thing moves.  You have to let the map sit still for a few seconds to let it finish loading (it does seem to take a bit longer; the blue thing must be chewing up the browser's processing power).

I didn't notice any correlation. I let it sit numerous times for 10-20 seconds, and it just kept zooming across and zooming across, over and over and over...you get the point.

But like I said, I don't seem to have the issue anymore. Hell, I can barely get the loading bar to show up at all. On first load, if I immediately slam on the directions button, it'll zoom across once or twice, but then immediately goes away.

[Sykotyk]

Is it true that it never finishes loading or are people just not giving it a chance?  I've never had one get stuck, but while you're panning the map, it won't be working on loading the interface not matter how fast that blue thing moves.  You have to let the map sit still for a few seconds to let it finish loading (it does seem to take a bit longer; the blue thing must be chewing up the browser's processing power).

I've let it sit and sit and sit. Open a new tab to google and search the same thing and it loads fine while the original tab is still in 'flying blue loading bar' mode. Once it decides to start up the loading bar, that tab is shot. It will not load google maps properly in that tab no matter how much you want it to.

[US 41]

What happened to all the roads in South Korea?  None of them are showing up. Is anyone else having that problem?

[jakeroot]

What happened to all the roads in South Korea?  None of them are showing up. Is anyone else having that problem?

I was browsing around the Incheon area yesterday, and couldn't help but notice how blurry everything was. Turns out, the Korean government has pretty stringent mapping laws. Google (plus every other mapping organization) is pretty limited in what it can map. There are no directions, and the maps must be intentionally blurry.

As to the roads themselves, G:Maps in South Korea is basically limited to two or three things: a map, which is blurry, and a crappy satellite mode, with no overlay. There is Street View, which is a nice surprise, but that's about the biggest luxury there is (the imagery is, however, quite old, and there are no street names)

[Duke87]

I think it also had something to do with the EU, maybe even an attempt to placate Germany (which ultimately banned street view driving).

Not just the EU. Many other countries in the world (including the US) have a concept in intellectual property law called right of publicity - basically, if Google (or anyone) uses your personal image without your consent, you may have legal grounds to sue them and make them take it down.

It is rather annoying that the algorithm is overzealous and blurs things that don't need blurring, but it's better that than have it be underzealous and not blur things it should. For both legal reasons and because protecting people's privacy is a legitimate concern.

[Roadrunner75]

What happened to all the roads in South Korea?  None of them are showing up. Is anyone else having that problem?

I can see the roads just fine in map view, but not in satellite view (as noted previously).  Meanwhile, North Korea shows up just fine (surprisingly, no Street View though!).  Yesterday I was scrolling along the border in satellite, but had to keep switching back and forth to map view just to see the border line itself.  Just now, however, I checked, and the border is once again showing up in satellite view.

Here's an interesting spot - the Joint Security Area where the two sides have face to face meetings in buildings on the border:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.955861,126.6782779,17z/data=!3m1!1e3?force=lite

[vdeane]

You'd think North Korea would WANT street view; it would be a chance for them to put on the ultimate show for the west where they try to convince everyone they're prosperous.  But maybe Google doesn't want to deal with "the car will show up at place X exactly at time Y under escort so we can show your viewers scene Z".  For that matter, they might not want to deal with North Korea anyways... I remember when the country was just a sea of blank data, without even geographic features that are obvious from the satellite imagery marked.

What happened to all the roads in South Korea?  None of them are showing up. Is anyone else having that problem?

I was browsing around the Incheon area yesterday, and couldn't help but notice how blurry everything was. Turns out, the Korean government has pretty stringent mapping laws. Google (plus every other mapping organization) is pretty limited in what it can map. There are no directions, and the maps must be intentionally blurry.

As to the roads themselves, G:Maps in South Korea is basically limited to two or three things: a map, which is blurry, and a crappy satellite mode, with no overlay. There is Street View, which is a nice surprise, but that's about the biggest luxury there is (the imagery is, however, quite old, and there are no street names)

I wonder if South Korea pulled a Germany and banned Google from completing its street view coverage.  They certainly are strict... all the road coverage disappears near the DMZ.

[jakeroot]

You'd think North Korea would WANT street view; it would be a chance for them to put on the ultimate show for the west where they try to convince everyone they're prosperous.  But maybe Google doesn't want to deal with "the car will show up at place X exactly at time Y under escort so we can show your viewers scene Z".

I think even North Korea knows that might be a stretch, at least as far as getting everything setup and whatnot. It would be a nice PR stunt though!

I wonder if South Korea pulled a Germany and banned Google from completing its street view coverage.  They certainly are strict... all the road coverage disappears near the DMZ.

It certainly seems that way. Seoul and Busan are the only cities in South Korea that have any Street View. And, as I said before, it's quite old. The imagery was published in 2012, so I would guess that they stopped trying to capture imagery.

I did some more reading, and perhaps if Google had some headquarters in South Korea, there might be better maps and Street View. Apparently this law is related to foreign companies mapping vs domestic ones.

[US71]

I did an SCA gathering at Washington State Park north of Hope, AR this last weekend. Google maps said follow US 71 & US 270 to Hwy 27 South.

The actual directions should have said 71 to 270 to 27. If you look at the map, you can see which way to go. If you simply follow the directions, you'll get lost (2 people did).

Of course, AHTD not co-signing multiplexes didn't help (such as 27 missing from the AR 8 concurrency)

[freebrickproductions]

So you can't copy-and-paste the directions on the full version of Google Maps anymore in Google Chrome, great...
Doing the same in IE either crashes Word or pastes a huge mess that I don't want to have to deal with.

[jakeroot]

So you can't copy-and-paste the directions on the full version of Google Maps anymore in Google Chrome, great...
Doing the same in IE either crashes Word or pastes a huge mess that I don't want to have to deal with.

Out of curiosity, why were you copying and pasting directions?

[US 41]

You'd think North Korea would WANT street view; it would be a chance for them to put on the ultimate show for the west where they try to convince everyone they're prosperous.  But maybe Google doesn't want to deal with "the car will show up at place X exactly at time Y under escort so we can show your viewers scene Z".

I think even North Korea knows that might be a stretch, at least as far as getting everything setup and whatnot. It would be a nice PR stunt though!

Google wouldn't do North Korea if North Korea asked. North Korea is a little hellhole controlled by a maniac and you'd have to have an IQ of about 2 to even consider visiting that place.