House panel: Why did Google 'airbrush history?' Wow, I never thought Google would be so uninformative as to mislead so many people about something so tragic.
If he means Google Maps (and I can't see why he should lump in the main search engine) then The House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight chairman Miller is a fool. A large part of the Earth's surface is showing mapping many months, sometimes several years, out-of-date. He sounds like the guy on Google Earth forum who was annoyed that he couldn't keep an eye on his property, a free surveillance camera system. As for "airbrushing history" most people are aware Katrina happened, it was on TV. Does it really matter if they see New Orleans as it was? The tendency is to improve mapping resolution rather than bring them more up-to-date, the two don't always go hand-in-hand. He's playing to the gallery.
Read the article. It says that there used to be maps of post Katrina, but they took them down and put up the old ones.
As cpemma says - it's about putting up the best maps and the best maps just happen to be pre-Katrina. What's the big deal? I'd rather see a high detailed picture that's out of date than a blob that was only taken yesterday.
The real point - why is the Congress bothering about something as trivial as this and Google is a civilian run company so they're not breaking any laws?
Google is not the only source of satellite imaging. For god's sake, if they don't like it, go elsewhere.
Hey! The Bullring shopping mall in Birmingham (UK) is still a building site on Google Earth! The Bullring should sue them! Fools, damn fools and politicians...
