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Was Google Earth Stolen?

400 点作者 beirut_bootleg超过 3 年前

32 条评论

AlbertCory超过 3 年前
Great article.<p>I was actually responsible for invalidating another maps-related patent from the 1990s, in Germany. I was in Patent Litigation and I also remember having a &quot;ART+COM&quot; folder in my email, but that&#x27;s about all I can remember. I don&#x27;t think the case was very active by 2014.<p>Anyhow, there&#x27;s something Avi said that I have to comment on:<p><i>The test for patent-worthiness is: “would it be non-obvious to someone who is skilled in the art?” I’d been doing “stupid programmer tricks” like this since high school, as have many others in my field.</i><p>If only it were so simple! You would <i>think</i> that &quot;hey, that&#x27;s just a stupid programmer trick!&quot; would be enough to render something obvious, but you&#x27;d be wrong. That&#x27;s what my paper [1] is about.<p>No, to call &quot;obvious&quot; the combination of references A and B, there usually has to be some &quot;teaching, suggestion, or motivation&quot; in the literature that it would be a good idea to combine A and B. There are nuances to this statement, in case anyone&#x27;s feeling pedantic.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&#x2F;sol3&#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&#x2F;sol3&#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580</a>
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kune超过 3 年前
A Jury in Delaware decided already that Google Earth doesn&#x27;t violate the 1995 Art+Com patent. So the thing is settled.<p>But the fact remains that Art+Com had a working system in 1994 and the Keyhole founders had learned about it working at Silicon Graphics.<p>As it looks like there were multiple teams in the US working on something like or comparable to Terravision. Heck, I wrote a program in 1984 showing the world as a ball with the contours of the continents at the ZX Spectrum. I bet hundred&#x27;s if not thousands of people did that as well, it is not that hard and requires only a little trigonometry.<p>I have no further insights into the story, but folks here should at least respect that a small group of hackers and and artists build a working system a good decade before Google Earth was published. I have yet to see any demonstration or video that comes near to Art+Com&#x27;s TerraVision in 1994. There are papers written at the same time, a DARPA project working for a single military installation and a lot of work done shortly after TerraVision had been publicly demonstrated, but so far I have yet to see a video from 1994 or before comparable to Art+Com&#x27;s TerraVision.
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bbulkow超过 3 年前
This post is quite nice in naming the people who did all the improvements. During this time, I was at a company trying to fit browser tech into consumer electronics, so we had to build the technology to run on actual inexpensive and cheap systems. Which became a core unmentioned technology, now called AJAX. Several engineers went to keyhole right at the time of the Google purchase, and did very well. Also remember Earth did little for Google, it was all maps - which had no flying demo, it was just 2d (ish) and useful.
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ScarletEmerald超过 3 年前
All with no mention at all of Neal Stephenson&#x27;s 1992 novel <i>Snow Crash</i>, which included a quite detailed equivalent of Google Earth (called &#x27;Earth&#x27;, iirc).
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jnsaff2超过 3 年前
I am avoiding those new &quot;reveling&quot; documentaries, especially on Netflix but also elsewhere. There are so many cases where they are painting a picture instead of telling me all the facts (which may be impossible) that I&#x27;m afraid to get a one-sided narrative. They are basically entertainment at the moment and should be considered fiction.<p>Same goes for certain writers books. They are getting paid to write books and then pick something that sells and paint a narrative. And then people think this is true, wholly true or useful whereas it may not.<p>So sad, so scary.
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cycomanic超过 3 年前
This is a great read about the technology and ideas behind Google earth.<p>I have one criticism: the story confounds stealing the idea (in itself a very fishy concept) and patent violation. It&#x27;s a popular misconception that these two things are relatated and to the authors defense it probably is the same in the Netflix documentary. However I think it&#x27;s important to be precise when talking about these things.
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dang超过 3 年前
Recent related threads:<p><i>‘The Billion Dollar Code’: Developers Who Sued Over Google Earth Algorithm</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28900180" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28900180</a> - Oct 2021 (61 comments)<p><i>The predecessor to Google Earth was clumsy, yet powerful</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28626361" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28626361</a> - Sept 2021 (52 comments)
perlgeek超过 3 年前
The part that annoyed me the most about the series is this: it doesn&#x27;t show anything in trial about whether the patent is actually valid.<p>And then in the final verdict, the jury decides the patent is invalid. Of course, if it&#x27;s invalid, nobody can infringe it either, which makes the rest of the decisions obvious.<p>(I&#x27;m also a bit disappointed that it shows the two Germans as being close to the CCC, which was firmly against software patents, but doesn&#x27;t even touch on the tension this must have caused).
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oger超过 3 年前
I remember visiting a stall at the ITU Telecom trade fair in 1995 where I saw such a system demoed. It also had a 3D mouse. It was truly amazing at the time. I think they used it to demo the latest and greatest 155 (?) Mbps ATM lines… I had an interesting chat with the guy demoing it about upcoming VRML. Hah - history!
jeffrallen超过 3 年前
I liked the series, and it told a recognizable story from those years. (I was involved in a small quasi-non-commercial startup in 95 as well, and we saw some of the same conflicts...)<p>I understand that reasonable people differ on their understanding of the truth. If it&#x27;s for entertainment, then no big deal. If it&#x27;s for &quot;justice&quot; then that&#x27;s what the courts are for: to declare one truth more truthy than all the others. And in fact, ART+COM did lose in court, so...
dleslie超过 3 年前
&gt; In 2001 when EarthViewer was first launched, the real “Brians” were still running the parent company, Intrinsic Graphics, doing what Unity and Epic&#x2F;Unreal now have billion dollar valuations to do. The main reason that stalled, IMO, was that most game developers preferred to write their own game engines in 2001.<p>At the time, game developers were using idTech 2 and 3, Unreal Engine, Renderware, Vision and a slew of others. I think Alchemy simply lacked market presence.
neonate超过 3 年前
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.md&#x2F;jSUqI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.md&#x2F;jSUqI</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20211019020004&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;avibarzeev.medium.com&#x2F;was-google-earth-stolen-7d1b821e589b" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20211019020004&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;avibarzeev...</a>
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Marioheld超过 3 年前
More background stories about Google Earth and ART+COM Terra Vision can be found on this Podcast (Episode: 127, Chapter: 6, Language: German): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakshow.fm&#x2F;fs127-the-number-of-the-denis?t=1%3A32%3A17%2C1%3A50%3A39" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakshow.fm&#x2F;fs127-the-number-of-the-denis?t=1%3A32%...</a>
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mxfh超过 3 年前
The half hour companion documentary <i>Making The Billion Dollar Code</i> to the fictionalized miniseries actually comes around mentioning Keyhole by name, well worth a watch by itself. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.netflix.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;81503864" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.netflix.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;81503864</a>
AlbertCory超过 3 年前
It&#x27;s good to see &quot;what is obvious?&quot; is still one of those evergreen topics, like it&#x27;s been for 150 years.<p>Now I have an even better one for you, and I&#x27;ll withhold my (undoubtedly correct) answer until later:<p><i>Wheels on luggage</i>. Why were they so late in coming along? Was it not obvious?<p>We had aftermarket wheeled carriers for strapping your suitcase in, so people recognized the need. The arguments that &quot;people hired porters or trolleys&quot; and &quot;railroad stations had cobblestone floors&quot; do not hold up at all -- no, they didn&#x27;t, and airports had hard floors.<p>You can find articles on this topic. I think they&#x27;re all wrong. Go.
paxys超过 3 年前
&quot;If you were the inventors of Google Earth you&#x27;d have invented Google Earth&quot;
cryptica超过 3 年前
Sadly, the way corporations work, even if Google did steal that concept, that lawsuit would still be dismissed. Corporations are untouchable. I imagine that suing a big corporation must feel like trying to &quot;talk to one of their representatives&quot; to resolve a grievance&#x2F;mistake and being put on hold. Then when you finally reach someone they tell you that there is nothing they can do... And there is nobody in the universe who can do anything about the injustice done against you.<p>As their litigation backlog grows, and as resentment grows, they are increasingly impervious to the law. Too big to fail, too big to sue.
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sova超过 3 年前
I remember announcements of KeyHole joining Google. Surprised this didn&#x27;t come up during the creation of sensationalist documentaries.
ilya_lopukhin超过 3 年前
How can I get full access to this article? It&#x27;s sad that people discuss it so much and it&#x27;s featured on HN but I&#x27;m seeing just the first paragraph<p>I mean, is it okay to feature and discuss paywalled information here and everybody good with it? To me it feels like an ad for medium.com
keithnz超过 3 年前
to me, first time I saw something like that was <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Terraserver.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Terraserver.com</a> Microsoft was involved with it and used it to show off their sql server capabilities for holding large amounts of data ( circa later 90s)
adminscoffee超过 3 年前
patents hold the world back
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betwixthewires超过 3 年前
If you&#x27;ve read Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson there&#x27;s a similar yet much more advanced technology in it owned by the CIA. The concept of a world map on a virtual globe with information embedded is not a very new one.
ceva超过 3 年前
You comment is from your perspective, but you will never know what has happen in background on some higher level. Steeling information is more of an art and google does it and other big companies quite good.
Andrew_nenakhov超过 3 年前
I wonder if geoscape view from 1993 game XCom would constitute as a prior artm
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sydthrowaway超过 3 年前
Does this mention what the actual game changing algorithm was?
techrat超过 3 年前
TLDR: Nope.<p>&gt; However, I don’t believe anything was actually stolen from, copied from, or even directly inspired by ART+COM.
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sMarsIntruder超过 3 年前
I read a lot of IMO
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jll29超过 3 年前
&gt; there is a much simpler explanation to the story than CIA conspiracies and ...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20130605121646&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessweek.com&#x2F;stories&#x2F;2005-05-09&#x2F;meet-the-cias-venture-capitalist" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20130605121646&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.busine...</a><p>(Source: Businessweek, June 5, 2013 - now part of Bloomberg)
DonHopkins超过 3 年前
I would love to see the video of Stephen Lau&#x27;s 1994 lecture showing SRI TerraVision.<p>CAFC affirms invalidity of geographic map visualization patent asserted against Google Earth:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ipwatchdog.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;25&#x2F;cafc-affirms-invalidity-geographic-map-visualization-patent-asserted-against-google-earth&#x2F;id=89554&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ipwatchdog.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;25&#x2F;cafc-affirms-invalidit...</a><p>&gt;In affirming the district court, the Federal Circuit found against Art+Com’s arguments that Google did not provide clear and convincing evidence that the invention of the asserted claims were put into public use. Google’s argument on this point revolved around a 1994 recording of a lecture given by Stephen Lau, then of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), on a geographical visualization system known as SRI TerraVision. Lau also gave testimony during the Delaware trial on the operation of the SRI TerraVision system. Google also brought an expert witness who gave his opinion that the SRI TerraVision system anticipates the asserted claims.<p>ART+COM INNOVATIONPOOL GMBH, Plaintiff-Appellant v. GOOGLE LLC, Defendant-Appellee:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&#x2F;us-federal-circuit&#x2F;1878050.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&#x2F;us-federal-circuit&#x2F;1878050.html</a><p>&gt;Google introduced several forms of evidence in support of this effort. First, it called Stephen Lau as a witness, who testified that, while he was employed at the federally funded, not-for-profit company Stanford Re-search Institute (“SRI”), he helped develop SRI TerraVision, “an earth visualization application” that “used a co[arse-to-fine] algorithm to retrieve images [sic] data across the network from multiple servers.” Trial Tr. 1029 ll. 9–18. He further testified that SRI TerraVision was part of the “MAGIC project,” an “umbrella federally funded research project” that focused on terrain visualization. Id. at 1030 ll. 9–12, 1043 ll. 5–10. He also testified both that he wrote about 89 percent of the source code underlying SRI TerraVision and that the project was meant to be put into the public domain. Id. at 1030–32, 1151. Lau further testified that SRI TerraVision allowed a user to navigate around a two- or three-dimensional representation of a graphical area and to zoom in and out to different levels of detail, and described how SRI TerraVision drew its image data from a network of multiple servers spread across the country. Id. at 1034–35, 1051.<p>&gt;While Lau was on the stand, Google displayed a 1994 VHS tape in which the narrator walks the viewer through the operation of SRI TerraVision. J.A. 2565. In the tape, the narrator describes how a user can move from a low-resolution picture of a larger geographic area to a higher-resolution picture of a smaller geographic area using a “multi-resolution pyramid.” J.A. 2565, 3532–33. The narrator continues:<p>I did find this video of ART+COM&#x27;s Terravision:<p>T-Vision aka TerraVision (1994):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=fjZ-wh5jykk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=fjZ-wh5jykk</a><p>&gt;This video is (C) Joachim Sauter, ART+COM and Deutsche Telekom. Found it on Joachim Sauter&#x27;s website. Merely sharing it with the world, funnily on a Google platform :D
rnd0超过 3 年前
Probably.
kfprt超过 3 年前
In the piece he links to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;me&#x2F;stats&#x2F;post&#x2F;d4ed11fc629d" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;me&#x2F;stats&#x2F;post&#x2F;d4ed11fc629d</a> which seems to only be accessible to the user when logged in.
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kohlerm超过 3 年前
Yes