[rickycook]

i dunno; their “street view” vans are purportedly far more advanced than the google cars, and their privacy features seem pretty damn excellent.

the article mentions being able to create a 3d, textured world and do some pretty interesting localisation (street signs that look like local signs, fonts that match local fonts etc) that shortens the gap between the real world and the map.

id say that from a UX perspective (even if their core data isn’t quite as good, which we really can’t comment on yet) they’re doing a lot of interesting things that google isn’t doing.

that’s not even to mention that they’re doing it all while respecting their users’ privacy... something that google will likely never do any more than obligatory hand waving toward.

it think they’re doing quite a lot better than google maps, but it’s just not data related.