How Does Google Maps Do It?
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Every month, over a billion people open their phones and fire up Google Maps. Its original function—offering driving directions, with real-time traffic tracking—was disruptive enough in 2008, when most people had to pay $10 a month for traffic data. But since that time, it’s become a global business directory, a transit timetable, crowdedness monitor, a Street View miracle—and now, in its newest release, an augmented-reality viewer of the cityscape around you. The question is: How is Google doing it, and why is it free? Meet the man who runs Google’s entire Geo division.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Google Maps offers driving directions, of course, but it also knows all the subway and bus |
| 0:07.4 | schedules and the hours and phone numbers of businesses. |
| 0:10.9 | It's got photos of 98% of the world's inhabited surface and a lot more. |
| 0:16.4 | It's a magical experience and it's so valuable. |
| 0:19.4 | It's just a phenomenal advancement in technology and the utility that really so many people |
| 0:24.7 | just can't imagine living without. |
| 0:27.4 | Google Maps is the guy in charge of Google Maps and my ticket to finding out the answers |
| 0:31.8 | to everything everyone's always wanted to know. |
| 0:35.0 | Which is better? |
| 0:36.0 | Google Maps? |
| 0:37.0 | Or ways? |
| 0:38.0 | How does Google Maps know the traffic speed of every road? |
| 0:41.9 | How does it know how busy a store will be next Thursday? |
| 0:46.2 | Today, we're going to find out. |
| 0:48.4 | I'm David Pogue and this is Unsung Science. |
| 0:57.4 | Hey there, it's Mary Harris and I host Slate's Daily News Podcast, What Next. |
| 1:05.5 | It's a show I made because I was grappling with this question. |
| 1:09.3 | Why is the news everywhere and I have no idea what to pay attention to? |
| 1:13.9 | My Daily Short Podcast is here to help you make sense of things. |
| 1:17.2 | From flushing out new angles to uncovering stories that have largely gone unreported, |
| 1:21.5 | when the news feels overwhelming, I'm here to help you answer what next. |
| 1:25.5 | Oh, subscribe, wherever you're listening, right now. |
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