Blurred

March 25, 2006 11:24 PM

In Google Local, this area is heavily blurred. In Live Local, it doesn't even exist, but the area next to it is shown in clear detail. Does anyone know what this is about? (Gulf of Ob, northern Siberia, zoom in and out to see what I mean)
posted by Termite to Grab Bag (21 answers total)

It looks like just a marshy area in a river.
posted by bshort at 11:30 PM on March 25, 2006

Some bodies of water seem to be rendered like this. It's not consistent. Probably whatever image wrangling they do for land, they skip for (some bodies of) water. You can follow your water south and it does the whole thing like that.
posted by cps at 11:35 PM on March 25, 2006

It doesn't appear that there are any submarine bases up there, unless they're seekrit.
posted by prettyboyfloyd at 11:49 PM on March 25, 2006

Can you explain a bit better what we're meant to be seeing? It looks exactly like I'd expect water to look and doesn't behave any different to say, the Thames Estuary when you zoom in and out or switch services.
posted by cillit bang at 12:18 AM on March 26, 2006

The Russian Northern fleet (of nooclear vwessells) is located at Zapadnaya Litsa, with is several hundred miles to the east (on the northern, Russian, side of the Scandanavian peninsula.) Probably just an area where there aren't any high-res maps available yet.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:16 AM on March 26, 2006

It's water. In Live Local, it's black, but it does exist.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:21 AM on March 26, 2006

Are there areas of Google Local that are deliberately missing for security reasons? I haven't checked any compelling spots, but surely there must be a thread (or twelve) for this by now.
posted by mykescipark at 4:29 AM on March 26, 2006

several hundred miles to the east

Er, make that West.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:21 AM on March 26, 2006

Maybe they don't want you to see how polluted it is?
posted by Suparnova at 6:23 AM on March 26, 2006

FWIW, you can see a number of "sensitive" sites in the US on gLocal, gEarth, etc. Might be worth pointing out that the imagery on these places is a long way from being current, and so not the issue it might be re: security.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 6:49 AM on March 26, 2006

Mutter. The above was supposed to be a sat image of Ft. Meade, MD, where No Such Agency is located. I should just go back to bed.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 6:56 AM on March 26, 2006

mykescipark, the roof of the White House used to be blurred out on Google Maps. But apparently they've put it back? Hmm.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 7:25 AM on March 26, 2006

Count Ziggurat: It's not that they "put it back", but rather they got new imagery for DC and the area right around it. And they, it appears, didn't blur out the White House (they also forgot to blur the Capitol, and the Pentagon. But they remembred to blur the Navy Observitory. So I'm not sure how they decided what to blur in Washington.)

The NSA doesn't appear to be blurred (at least, I think that's the NSA). Nor is the CIA
posted by skynxnex at 7:53 AM on March 26, 2006

Let me see if I've got this straight. The official residence of the president is not blurred but the official residence of the vice president is blurred.
posted by rdr at 8:03 AM on March 26, 2006

I think the "Navy Observatory" has something pretty significant to do with the DHS, and the name is just a lame cover.
posted by borkingchikapa at 8:41 AM on March 26, 2006

That particular region is right on the boundary of where Google has high-res images and where it doesn't.

Instead of just showing the "We are sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region." error, Google shows a combination of the high-res images they do have and an enlarged view of the low-res images that they have.

Being low-res, the zoomed in view looks terrible, and that's why there's the blur.
posted by nmiell at 10:55 AM on March 26, 2006

Are there areas of Google Local that are deliberately missing for security reasons?

Looking at Brussels, Belgium (about the only high-res area in Belgium at the moment), the NATO headquarters are clearly visible, though a Belgacom/IBM datacenter isn't, strangely enough. It looks as if someone painted over it in MS Paint (check the totally unrealistic white roof, it looks like they put a blanket over the building.)
posted by lodev at 11:02 AM on March 26, 2006

The Naval Observatory is the Vice President's Residence. If they hadn't blurred it, Dick Cheney would probably have shot them in the face, then cooled off with a caffeine-free Sprite.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:37 PM on March 26, 2006

D'oh.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:37 PM on March 26, 2006

Seems to me that would be the most likely thing they are doing, Dasein. Anyone proficient in Photoshop could remove AA guns or snipers from a bland rooftop like that, especially considering that the imagery exhibits a large amount of artifacting initially.
posted by zhivota at 5:20 PM on March 26, 2006

Response by poster: It looks exactly like I'd expect water to look and doesn't behave any different to say, the Thames Estuary when you zoom in and out or switch services.

Good point.
posted by Termite at 9:40 PM on March 26, 2006