Happy Birthday to the most important tool or application useful for an eternal traveller like me – Google Maps. Google Maps is 19 years old today – 08 February.
Logo of Google Maps
Created in Sydney, Australia by a company called Where 2 Technologies consisting of 4 creators - 2 brothers from Denmark – Lars and Jens Rasmussen and 2 Australians – Noel Gordon and Stephan Ma.
Lars Rasmussen
Jers Rasmussen
Noel Gordon
A help to trace it will be highly appreciated.
They developed a web mapping platform; clubbing inputs from Satellite Imagery, Aerial Photography, Street Maps, 360 degree interactive view with real time traffic conditions and route planning by foot, car, bike, train, air and public transportation. It also includes businesses, landmarks, buildings, geographical features and many such inputs of information in real time.
Pune (India) - The City of my present residence. The Google Map showing the city at a scale of 1 Unit - 2 Kms.
The City Centre of Pune (India). Pune Railway Station - Shaniwar Wada - ISKON Temple, Camp - the city centre.
As of end of 2023, Google Maps is used by more than 1 Billion people every month, including me. The company was sold off to Google in October 2004 and became Google Maps that we know of today, on 8 February 2005. The services of Google Maps are accessed across 220 countries in 74 languages, maintained and updated by its team of 3000+ personnel across the world along with users uploading nearly 13 million photos every single day about places and things all over the world.
Using a variant of the traditional Mercator Projection to plot and map the Earth used by Geographers, the latest maps are in 3 D Globe and 2 D formats. The cell phone or mobile application that most of us use was launched in 2006. The maps are regularly updated by the data inputs from the NASA satellite LANSAT 8, launched in 2013.
Thank You to yet another My Guru of life – Google Maps, for making my life so easy. As a Geographer by academic education, I salute the great work by these 4 gentlemen and the subsequent development by Google, in guiding each one of us properly to our desired destination, every single time.
And... How can one forget the voice on Google Maps that guides us all the time....Many like me call her - Google Aunty. The voice of Google Maps – Australian American Singer, Voice Over Artist, now a Motivational Speaker – Karen Jacobsen alias The GPS Girl. By the way...Ms. Jacobsen also happens to be the voice of Siri!
Google Aunty - Karen Jacobsen - Also the voice of Siri
Click on this link below.
Karen Jacobsen
Happy Birthday to you - Google Maps.
Not only informative, but it is a fine gesture of thanks from a user to the great technological work that helps people every day.
ReplyDeleteWell said. We all owe so much to these wonderful inventions that have made our life so easy. Thanks for appreciating my writing.
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