19 July 2012

Google Maps-Indoors

The guys from Google were on the campus where I teach last night. Before this, I was unaware that Google Maps was working on indoor locations. I guess I just always assumed that people didn't get lost indoors.

They only surveyed public areas of our campus, so hopefully a picture of the inside of my office doesn't show up on Google. The mapping was done with the permission of our administration and the Google Guys (they were only men).

The Google team were given PDF maps of our college campus and are mapping the general structure and location of public areas and rooms. Each of the Google guys had a cell phone of some type and they took quite a few image shots. They reminded me of the Secret Service men we had on campus when President Clinton came to the college many years ago.

The Google Guys weren't overly friendly. They were in my part of the building at night where I was teaching my evening class. There are only two classes in my part of the building and I simply wanted to make certain they were the "Google Guys" and not something else. I asked one of the guys if he was with the Google Group. He muttered "yes," grabbed the badge which was affixed to his waist and "wagged" it, and went back to work.

Apparently he's not too good at Google Talk.

The video below has a brief overview.