Race for Digital Geographic Data

Article (link no longer working) from CNN.com on the competition between companies like Navteq and Tele Atlas to gather the largest and most accurate amount of geographic data for GPS navigation systems and online mapping. Focusing on Navteq, the article looks at the amount of labor needed to constantly update geographic dating covering 12 million miles and 69 countries which Navteq accomplishes by using data from 100,000 different sources ranging from satellite images and aerial photography to maps issued by local governments and commercial companies. Most of all, the companies has 700 employees who spend a significant amount of time gathering data from their cars. The article quotes Navteq CEO Judson Green,

“I would say that 80 to 85 percent of the effort that we put into making a digital map is from that very labor-intensive driving that we do. We cannot find the quality, accuracy or richness of the information from all these other sources unless we go do it our way.”

Source: CNN – Race for Digital Geographic Data (page not longer available)