“Google rolled out its new Maps design…from a navigational tool to a commercial interface and offers the clearest proof yet that the geographic web—despite its aspirations to universality—is a deeply subjective entity.”

Source: www.slate.com

Google Maps was updated over the summer, and the updates don’t make them more impartial, but that isn’t a bad thing.  Google Maps now highlight ‘Areas of interest,’ which are created with algorithms designed to reveal the “highest concentration of restaurants, bars, and shops.” The algorithms aren’t ‘objective,’ but are fine-tuned by human engineers to reflect what they consider ‘Areas of Interests’ should look like.  Maps are never as objective as they appear to be, and that can often be a great thing. 

 

Tags: google, mapping, geospatial, cartography, visualization.