Location technology failed me

[mikea]

Yesterday I needed to find the township assessor's office.

I put the address into Google maps. Hmmmm...OK, I know where that is. Never noticed the office there.

Get into the van and mount the Nuvi. Put in the address. After I made the first turn it wanted me to turn entirely the wrong way. So I told Karen to shut up and drove to where Google said it was.

Google wuz wrong. Where the map showed it is a field in front of an apartment building.

So I try looking up the township office on the Nuvi. The address it finds is close to the one I had. It's 2 miles away. I decide to trust Karen.

Karen got me to the right place.

It turns out the address I had is the other door of the township hall.

Now that I think about it, it's possible the Nuvi was right in the first place and it was trying to get me to drive around the block.

 

[Ted]

GPSs don't always tell you the best way to get somewhere - they just tell you a way to get somewhere. I don't know how they come up with the algorithms that determine what the "best route" is. Ultimately, I'm pretty impressed that they've figured out how to do it as well as they have. It's not like airplane GPSs where it's nice and simple.

I've found it's not uncommon to get bad info from GPS or Garmin, sometimes both. It's always gotten me in the vicinity, but there have been times when I've had to figure out the last bit myself. For example, on my street they say my house is about halfway up the road, as opposed to at the very end. That one's easy. What's a bit more confusing is when you're on a major road, and they get you to the right road, just a few miles off.

GPS in the plane hasn't failed me yet, though!

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Recently some of the internal propaganda at work was raving about some of the new built in navigation stuff - there was a picture of the navigation screen that showed a restaurant located on a main street approximately on a bridge where there are no buildings at all. Checking the address of the restaurant, I see that they have the address listed as being on the main street when it is actually in a nearby mall.

In fact, looking it up on google maps I find the same thing:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...744,-83.221532&spn=0.003269,0.009356&t=h&z=17http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...815,-83.208046&spn=0.052302,0.149689&t=h&z=13

"D" is a Mickey D that is actually in the mall north of the indicated location.

Aviation content:

Scroll about a mile south and you get to Ford's Dearborn test track - the property was originally an airport, but the latest renovations removed all of what was left of the original runways. One of the buildings along Oakwood Blvd. as originally a hanger - the sliding doors are still there but are "paved" closed. The Dearborn Inn across Oakwood was built by Henry Ford to serve the airport.

 

[infotango]

GPSs don't always tell you the best way to get somewhere - they just tell you a way to get somewhere. I don't know how they come up with the algorithms that determine what the "best route" is. Ultimately, I'm pretty impressed that they've figured out how to do it as well as they have. It's not like airplane GPSs where it's nice and simple.

[SIZE=-1]Dykstra's Algorithm![/SIZE]

 

[Geico266]

So I told Karen to shut up and drove to where Google said it was.................I decide to trust Karen.............Karen got me to the right place.

You don't need a GPS you have Karen.

You actually told her to shut up? ......... I ain't buying that and I don't even know Karen!

 

[mikea]

You don't need a GPS you have Karen.

You actually told her to shut up? ......... I ain't buying that and I don't even know Karen!

I have given Karen an Aussie accent but she gets too many street names wrong.