Gadgets Blog » Google Maps

While the project is still a ways off from hitting the market, Google Android head Andy Rubin gave members of the public and the press at the Dive Into Mobile conference a sneak peek at a buttonless tablet computer running on the Android operating system.

The pad looks comparable in size to Apple’s iPad, but it has no buttons. This is a departure from previous Android hardware, which included four buttons, and Rubin said this change was intentional. The pad orients itself regardless of which end is up. A button would make this confusing, so they went without it.

The tablet runs on a new version of the Android operating system and may include video conferencing and chat abilities, simplified menus and a three-dimensional version of Google Maps. Android and Motorola are developing this iPad killer.

This is the first time Google has given the public a glimpse of this much-anticipated piece of hardware, and it was just enough to whet their appetites for more. No date has been set for release, other than to say “sometime next year.”

In Google’s wide array of free products, none is more impressive to me than Google Maps. With countless businesses and locations trackable both on a traditional map as well as with satellite imagery, it’s a navigational tool, a phonebook, and a time-sink all in one. The size and scope of Google’s project makes it impressive that everything works with such regularity, and that fewer instances like today’s story occur. In spite of their best efforts, a recent CNN article took a look at how Google “lost” a major United States city, thanks largely in part to a minor computer error.

The city in question is Sunrise, Florida, a city of about 90,000 located on the east side of the panhandle in roughly the same area as Miami. Searches for the city, up until yesterday, brought up results in Sarosta, FL, 200 miles away on the western side of the state. The algorithms powering Google’s search tool simply didn’t function correctly, with all businesses and addresses in Sunrise not appearing if searched for. In the past, Google has lost several other cities, including two in the greater Los Angeles area, thanks again to issues with the algorithm. These disappearances aren’t anything serious, at least to the casual observer, but other people closer to the incident don’t feel so neutral.

In their stunning number of remarkable free services, Google has undoubtedly revolutionized the way we think about Internet technology. Everything from blogging to image searching to collaborative work projects have been covered via their products. Yet for me, the most impressive Google feat has always been Google Maps.

With their spectacular satellite images of our planet combined with a navigation system better than just about any out there, finding a location anywhere in the world has never been easier.

But the crowning jewel of the entire thing? That would have to be Street View, the remarkable ability to see what an address looks like as though you were standing there in person.

For a company that has become as ubiquitous with the Internet as Google, the firm has maintained an air of moral purity that is rare in the modern business world. Unlike a company like Microsoft, which made plenty of enemies during its rise to the forefront of the technology world, Google has kept a public image tailored to being the good guy in the 21st century. Many of their best products are released for free, and they generate finances not by charging their users, but rather by engaging in ingenious advertising sales. Some services, such as Google Maps, offer not only a practical application, but also continually wow users with the impressive array of information available.

However, in an article from the “Los Angeles Times Blog,” it seems there’s a concern growing about one facet of Google Maps: the fantastic Street View feature allowing us to see a staggering number of locales from the ground level. According to the article, Google allegedly collected information from unsecured WiFi connections while filming the street. Google recently unveiled a feature allowing for users to see WiFi hotspots, many of which were not supposed to be accessible to the public. Google, since 2007, has allegedly picked up 600+ gigabytes of data from these unsecured WiFi points.