It's not Saab the auto manufacturer but Saab the defense & aerospace company. They're two different entities, or rather this Saab used to be the parent company of the automobile Saab but they sold it to GM in 1990.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
C3 Technologies' 3D Maps Also Offer Street Views and Interior Views
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's not Saab the auto manufacturer but Saab the defense & aerospace company. They're two different entities, or rather this Saab used to be the parent company of the automobile Saab but they sold it to GM in 1990.
KnightWRX
macrumors Pentium
Let me guess : "I'm going to ****ing destroy C3 technologies" and "Stop stealing our stuff". 😉
----------
Just don't buy a house where the real-estate agent did this, if they even allow it. Google seems to be only targetting places of business for this feature and are doing it in an opt-in way (your business needs to contact them to arrange the interior photoshoot).
Anyway, not sure why you're worried now about this, I've been home shopping with "Virtual tours" for the last 10 years here in Canada. 3D panning shots and all. This is not some wonderous new development, real-estate has already been like this for ages.
Thetonyk123
macrumors 68000
Piggie
macrumors G3
Well you better delete Google Earth and stop using Google Maps then.
Perhaps Google should never have created both those products for everyone on the planet to use. We should of waited for Apple to set about mapping the world and allowing everyone in the world, no matter what platform or product they are using to be able to access the data.
But then again, they (Apple) wouldn't do that would they?
KnightWRX
macrumors Pentium
I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself here. This is about backend technology to drive a mapping engine, not the frontend Maps application on iPhone and much less about navigation.
C3 Technologies CEO Mattias Astrom, CFO Kjell Cederstrand and Product Manager Ludvig Emgard are now listed as working at Apple on their LinkedIn profiles.
Article Link: Apple Did Acquire 3D Mapping Company C3 Technologies
This is really good stuff but it would seem like that to run really smoothly, this is going to take some serious processing power and a chunk of RAM.
I think one of the flaws of iOS devices today is how it handles multi-tasking or rather actually closing an app that you aren't using any more. Most people don't even realize that they have like 50 items held in state in the background. These are all probably using a little RAM and/or processing power. The point is, these C3 maps will run great in today's hardware environment if they are one of the few things actually running, but if they are the 51st app open, maybe not so much.
As Apple has proved so many times in the past, the key is the user experience. If this can be implemented so that zooming in and "walking" down a street is seamless (visuals don't take 3-5 seconds to resolve when you look left or right) it'll be a big hit.
I think one of the flaws of iOS devices today is how it handles multi-tasking or rather actually closing an app that you aren't using any more. Most people don't even realize that they have like 50 items held in state in the background. These are all probably using a little RAM and/or processing power. The point is, these C3 maps will run great in today's hardware environment if they are one of the few things actually running, but if they are the 51st app open, maybe not so much.
As Apple has proved so many times in the past, the key is the user experience. If this can be implemented so that zooming in and "walking" down a street is seamless (visuals don't take 3-5 seconds to resolve when you look left or right) it'll be a big hit.
It's different because Google and (to a lesser extent) Bing actually have some data to sit behind the pretty pictures.
Something that there's no evidence this company, Apple, or anyone who'd sell it to them does
The logistics of something like this means that if you want to offer something even close to the ubiquity of Google Street View as it is now, you'll need at least three years of cars driving down streets everywhere. So if this is supposed to launch before 2014/2015, where are the cars? Where are the business databases on Google's scale?
Phazer
KnightWRX
macrumors Pentium
So it's different because it's less useful and incomplete ? 😉
Seems like Apple is suffering from some "Not Invented Here" syndrome in this case.
koobcamuk
macrumors 68040
Google maps does the UK, Japan, America and many other of my top destinations. How about this? I won't consider switching over until more than North America is covered.
----------
Agree entirely.
----------
Agree entirely.
Agent OrangeZ
macrumors 68040
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)
Apple has been very smart with regaurd to the Maps application on the iPhone. On the phone it has never been called "Google Maps".... Just "Maps". This should keep backlash to a minimum when they give Google the axe an move to this. The iOS 6 preview event next spring/summer will feature this as a new feature. "We have an upgraded Maps application!" - Scott Forstall.
Apple has been very smart with regaurd to the Maps application on the iPhone. On the phone it has never been called "Google Maps".... Just "Maps". This should keep backlash to a minimum when they give Google the axe an move to this. The iOS 6 preview event next spring/summer will feature this as a new feature. "We have an upgraded Maps application!" - Scott Forstall.
ChristianVirtual
macrumors 601
Down the Colorado I think you need to very stable stabilizer ... But yeah, would be fun, too.
I don't think Apple would replace Google Maps with an inferior product. It bought Placebase in 2009 and now C3. Consider that they've been working on this stuff internally for a long while now. I expect C3 is the imaging front end they intend to use for their maps application.
Many companies can provide mapping data. Google didn't invent maps you know! Presumably Apple will buy in mapping data and use the tech aquired from C3 and Placebase, along with any internally developed technologies, to create the services they will layer on top of this data.
Many companies can provide mapping data. Google didn't invent maps you know! Presumably Apple will buy in mapping data and use the tech aquired from C3 and Placebase, along with any internally developed technologies, to create the services they will layer on top of this data.
why are people so "blown away" by this? am i missing something? just seems like another company that is stepping into google maps territory. they do all of this already. all i care about is that the iphone gets a native navigation system or allows us to choose a default one to be integrated in to the os. maps app is useless beyond just searching for places.
Look like fabulous technology but I guess it will take years of data gathering to use this to it's full potential.
I am sure that if it is Apple's plan to replace google maps with this, we will see a basic version first then additional features added over time - like Siri maybe.
I also suspect that we won't see Apple cars running up and down the streets but they will contract it out like they do for manufacturing. Shame really, it would be cool to see little Apple cars buzzing around the neighbourhood 😀
I am sure that if it is Apple's plan to replace google maps with this, we will see a basic version first then additional features added over time - like Siri maybe.
I also suspect that we won't see Apple cars running up and down the streets but they will contract it out like they do for manufacturing. Shame really, it would be cool to see little Apple cars buzzing around the neighbourhood 😀
Could be Awesome!
This feature looks really cool. If it can make a 3D version of google streetview (which is flat and odd looking) that will be SO AWESOME! I'm really excited to see this in some future apple products. 🙂
This feature looks really cool. If it can make a 3D version of google streetview (which is flat and odd looking) that will be SO AWESOME! I'm really excited to see this in some future apple products. 🙂
maybe it varies by location but i don't find google street view odd looking. it looks the same as if i went outside and took a picture of something
