warner25
10 hours ago
I see the same suspicious lack of aircraft on the ground. It's really interesting. I see one Qantas aircraft taxiing onto runway 09R, and a Saudi aircraft taxiing into parking from 09R, and that's it. Also interesting is that I see a bunch of trucks on both ends of runway 09L. The Google Maps imagery of other major airports, and even military airfields, shows many aircraft on the ground.
warner25
7 hours ago
I've found a few references around the web to an effort by Google Maps, about five years ago, to remove non-static objects likes cars and pedestrians from the satellite views. The algorithm is cool, but I guess there's nothing more interesting to this than that.
As an aside, when I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011-2012, I worked on an airfield and forward operating base that got hammered with effective rocket and mortar fire on a daily basis. I was... annoyed to discover that Google Maps satellite view showed our footprint in perfect detail; like I could see the tent where I slept, where every one of our aircraft parked, etc. It's not like anything about it was secret, but the imagery could certainly provide good targeting information for whoever wanted to shoot at us. I wish things had been removed from the imagery back then. It stayed that way until 2021 or 2022, long after we'd abandoned that place.
jfoster
3 hours ago
I hope they do that for Street View.
Actually, I would like it to be a toggle. Sometimes I might want to know if a place is likely to be busy or not. Sometimes there's a bus blocking the storefront that I want to see.