Tag: Google Earth

‘Geospatial Trust Is Hard to Win and Terrifyingly Easy to Lose’

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Ed Parsons, who used to work at Google, has some words about the Google Earth AI image generation debacle. “Veterans of the Geo organization understood an unwritten rule that took decades to build: Geospatial trust is hard to win and terrifyingly easy to lose. Google Earth is relied upon by human rights investigators, journalists, emergency responders, and courts of law as a baseline truth layer of our planet. Once you train the public to accept that the satellite view can be whimsically altered by typing a prompt about a ‘lakeside cabin’ or a ‘futuristic metropolis’, you destroy the integrity of the platform. If anything on the screen can be AI-generated, then nothing on the screen can be trusted.”

Previously: Google Earth Goes Nano Bananas (which has been updated a few times since first publication).

Google Earth Goes Nano Bananas

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

It’s been possible to use 3D models in Google Earth for decades. But Google’s announcement yesterday its AI image generation model, Nano Banana 2, can be used to create custom images and 3D rendering inside Google Earth is getting some pushback, and not necessarily just because it’s AI.

Henk van Ess is concerned that realistic AI-generated images in the context of Google’s satellite imagery layer will be weaponized in a way that undermines our ability to determine the truth.

Google spent twenty years building the reference the world checks against. Today it added a button that makes things up. […]

Google’s own description of the “fun feature” is that Nano Banana “creates concepts grounded in the real world.”

Grounded in the real world means the invented thing is welded to genuine coordinates, drawn on genuine imagery, often in the same colours and the same light and at the same angle as the picture beside it. […]

A government official wants a strike to look bigger than it was. A faction wants a hospital to look flattened, or intact, depending which one is holding it this week. A troll wants forty thousand reposts before lunch.

This morning all three needed a screenshot, a second browser tab and a little patience. Tonight they need a sentence.

Van Ess’s point is that while it has always been possible to falsify satellite imagery, it just got a lot easier. He also discovered that Google’s safeguards against creating images on harmful topics did not prevent him from doing so.

Update: 404 Media: “Google sent 404 Media a statement saying it was ‘rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.’”

Update #2: Google’s blog post has been updated:

We know that people uniquely trust Google Earth for a reliable view of the world. We’ve seen geospatial professionals using this feature for a range of useful purposes, however we’ve also seen people sharing screenshots of generated imagery that appear to violate our policies. So we’re rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails. It’s important to note that generated images didn’t appear in the main Google Earth experience for others to see and were watermarked as AI generated.

Update #3: Engadget coverage.

Update #4, 3 Aug: See also BBC News coverage, in which BBC Verify tested Google’s AI checkers against the AI-generated Google Earth images and discovered that “it was possible to circumnavigate these checks and trick Gemini into saying these fake Google Earth images are real. Tests using external AI detection tools also in some cases failed to identify the Google Earth AI-content.”

Some Google Maps Updates

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google Maps imagery updates include improved satellite imagery thanks to an AI model that removes clouds, shadows and haze, plus “one of the biggest updates to Street View yet, with new imagery in almost 80 countries—some of which will have Street View imagery for the very first time.” The web version of Google Earth will be updated with access to more historical imagery and better project and file organization, plus a new abstract basemap layer. [PetaPixel]

Meanwhile, The Verge reports that Google Maps is cracking down on business pages that violate its policy against fake ratings and reviews.

Michael T. Jones, 1960-2021

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Keyhole co-founder Michael T. Jones died January 18th at the age of 60. He’d been undergoing cancer treatment. Geospatial World: “Words can’t describe the contribution and impact of Michael Jones’s work on democratizing and personalizing maps. He is to be credited for not only launching Keyhole in 2000—the original version of Google Earth, quite accidentally as he put it in a conversation with Geospatial World—but also for his years of work on improving on it as the Chief Technology Advocate of Google after its acquisition by the IT giant.” Last year the Royal Geographic Society awarded him the 2020 Patron’s Medal.

(To be honest, between Jones, John Hanke and Brian McClendon I’m not sure who did what at Keyhole and Google Earth: the company history isn’t quite as ingrained in computer lore as, say, Apple’s is.)

New Google Earth Launches

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

A new version of Google Earth launched today. Unlike previous versions, the desktop version runs in a web browser rather than a standalone app. Also unlike previous versions, it’s no longer cross-platform: for now at least, the desktop version only runs in Chrome, and the mobile app is Android-only.

Frank Taylor has been covering the new release at the venerable Google Earth Blog and has a first review.

For my part, I’ve poked around in it in Chrome a bit and I found it fairly responsive and easy to use. If it runs this well in the browser I can see how a standalone app would be redundant; this is a better delivery method. I would much prefer it, though, if it also ran on platforms that didn’t belong to Google.

Update, 21 April: Coverage from AFP and Geoawesomeness focuses on the features, which I gave short shrift to above.

Ottawa and Gatineau’s Growing Suburbs

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Meanwhile, the Ottawa-Gatineau urban agglomeration (which is, as urban areas go, the closest to where I currently live) has, according to the census, grown by 5.5 percent since 2011, to a total population of 1.3 million. Much of that growth has occurred in suburbs that barely existed even when I moved to the region in 1999. This CBC Ottawa feature uses the Google Earth engine’s timelapse video function to chart the growth of seven of those suburbs. (Above: the Gatineau suburb of Aylmer.)

Google’s Cloud-Free Mosaic Gets Updated

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google’s low- and medium-resolution satellite imagery has gotten a comprehensive update with new imagery from the Landsat 8 satellite. It’s the first such update to its seamless, cloud-free mosaic in three years. The Atlantic has detailed coverage (that helpfully points out, among other things, that this doesn’t apply to the highest zoom levels: those images come from DigitalGlobe satellites and aerial photography).

Online Map Updates

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Yesterday’s updates to Apple Maps include four new Flyover cities, traffic data for Hong Kong and Mexico, public transit data for Los Angeles, and Nearby search for the Netherlands.

Google Earth Blog reports on the mid-January imagery update for Google Earth.

Google Earth Blog also reports that version 1.0 of ArcGIS Earth is now available. Announced last June and previously available as a series of public betas, ArcGIS Earth appears to be aimed at filling the gap left by Google when Google Earth Enterprise was discontinued last year.

Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, is now in Street View.

Map Anniversaries

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Apollo 14: Mitchell Studies Map

Google Maps turned 10 years old on Sunday—a milestone observed by Samuel Gibbs in the Guardian. See also Liz Gannes’s retrospective at Re/Code. My reaction on launch day was pretty effusive—I was blown away mainly by the user interface. But it wasn’t immediately dominant: it took roughly four years for Google to surpass MapQuest in traffic.

Meanwhile, the Pro version of Google Earth, which used to cost $400/year, is now free. Google Earth itself launched in June 2005, so is approaching its own 10-year anniversary, but it began its existence a few years earlier as Keyhole EarthViewer 3D.

Speaking of map anniversaries, National Geographic Maps is marking its centennial.

The photo above marks another anniversary: It shows Apollo 14 astronaut Ed Mitchell consulting a map during his second lunar EVA on February 6, 1971. Apollo 14 returned to Earth 44 years ago yesterday.