My colleague Wille Marcel looked at Overture’s data quality, specifically considering the confidence score that is included in the data:
This analysis shows that the Overture Places dataset can be quite useful when filtered by a 0.6 confidence threshold. The main quality issues we observed are the inaccurate location of many items and outdated places.
This matches my experience with the data. In my area, the location accuracy could be better; many businesses are located outside their buildings, in the middle of the road, the backyard, some even on the beach. And the data includes some businesses that have since closed.
Ahead of Google Cloud Next 23, the company announced new map data sets available through the Google Maps API.
Now we’re expanding our sustainability offerings with new products in Google Maps Platform. These products apply AI and machine learning, along with aerial imagery and environmental data, to provide up-to-date information about solar potential, air quality and pollen levels. With this technology, developers, businesses and organizations can build tools that map and mitigate environmental impact.
The SolarAPI helps building owners and developers estimate potential energy savings by leveraging solar power. Using imagery, LIDAR data and 3D models, the data provides insights on the solar potential of a building and aids the design of solar systems. The data covers 40 countries.
While data from the Solar API can help tackle the causes of climate change, the Air Quality and Pollen APIs help humans mitigate its effects.
Based on a model that takes in land cover, climate data, pollen-production rates from various plant species, the Pollen API provides estimated pollen counts for 15 plant species in 65 countries. The Air Quality API combines data from various sources, including “government monitoring stations, sensors, models, meteorological data, satellites, land cover, and live traffic information,” to create a air-quality layer covering 100 countries.
James Killick collecting some damning anecdotes about the quality of crowdsourced data on Google Maps.
There are unregistered Taxi services listed at Heathrow airport.
Upon that I was shown a Google map of LHR Terminal 5 with an icon for “Bob’s Taxis” right there in the middle of the arrivals area. Not good.
[…]
Yes, dear readers, the dreaded unlicensed taxi cab service is still there. It’s no longer called “Bob’s Taxis” and it now sounds a lot more official, but hey — I pity the poor passengers that fall for this.
After a minute the line broke up, but they called me back… from the number +33-4-56-38-67-82 (French number that came up as DTI Publishing in Caller ID). First Red flag. He had a very strong Indian Accent (Red Flag), and was overly eager to help me
I usually try to find critical information on the business’ website instead of Google Maps; not because of scammers but because I don’t trust that businesses update their information on Google Maps.
I’ve been using Apple Maps for a while now for my personal way finding needs and I’ve had only positive experiences. So far I’ve never encountered incorrect information and the map is less littered with irrelevant data.
Chris Holmes announced the imminent finalisation of the GeoParquet 1.0 specification with the release of the 1.0 release candidate.
Our objective is to launch GeoParquet 1.0.0 at the beginning of September, unless we hear any critical feedback. So this is a great time to try it out and make sure it works with your tools. Please do let us know if you add support to a new tool or make a new GeoParquet dataset, so we can add you to the 1.0.0 release announcement.
Stamen won’t be hosting their iconic and very popular map tiles any more. Instead, Stadia Maps will host Stamen’s maps tiles going forward:
We’re partnering with Stadia to move our tiles to their servers, and working closely with them to make sure that our beloved map styles keep running well into the future, and better than ever. They’re experts in running well-maintained map serving infrastructure. For most users, switching over will be as simple as setting up a Stadia account, and changing a few lines of code. For most non-commercial customers, there’ll be no service disruption, no tracking, and the price tag will continue to be free.
Stamen’s tile service will be discontinued in October; until then existing tile URLs will redirect to Stadia’s servers.
What this means:
You’ll need a Stadia Maps account.
You need to point your application to the Stadia URLs by October.
You might have to pay if you’re application serves more than 200,000 tiles per month or if you’re using the tiles with a commercial application.
All Stamen map designs will be ported to Stadia, and most styles are now available as Vector tiles too.
Considering Stadia’s generous free tier this is a fair compromise. Stamen generously made their tiles available for free for a very long time. Running a tile service needs people and the infrastructure costs money, and we can’t take it for granted that a small cartography shop provides an essential service for free forever.