Please for the love of open source, someone make a plugin for OSMAnd that has community contributions for things like construction, traffic, police, etc.
It’s the only thing Open Street Maps is missing from my point of view.
Even if I had to pay a few bucks a month to connect to whoever is hosting the community contributions I would gladly do it.Non-tech comment, but for those who have not been to Malaysia the capital, KL, makes American mid-sized cities appear very walkable. Driving is essential for Malaysia.
Looking for an alternative to Google, this reminded me to look into Waze. And, wtf, I was not aware of the history of waze. I feel like I’ve caught an unregulated Wikipedia edit, too.
Waze started as FreeMap Israel. Of 3 founders, one has a wiki page, and is self-identifying as atheist and zionist. Meanwhile, Uri Levine’s page’s description of waze is “a traffic and navigation app that is meant to steal personal data from users”. Is this something confirmed or is it just describing crowd-sourced data collection in a demonizing way? All 3 founders were in Israeli Unit 8200 cyber warfare, so certainly sounds concerning. I get that crowd sourcing has mixed opinions and keeps proving to be surveillance mashed with convenience, like tracking links or Pokémon go.
Google recently messed with the UI around the same time it changed the lake name, so I’m actively looking for alternates now. I tried mapquest knowing it’s not the original mapquest group, but found it lacked a bit of functionality. Biggest issue is not being able to search along route. Is there anything else decent?
Looking for an alternative to Google, this reminded me to look into Waze. And, wtf, I was not aware of the history of waze. I feel like I’ve caught an unregulated Wikipedia edit, too.
Everything else aside, did not Google acquired Waze in 2013 ?
They did. Given light of recent events showing how deep and far back the ties go, I’m not going to be convinced it’s a clean break. It’s a subsidiary, and seems to still be based in Israel.
Maybe a state-lecel investment is what it will take to get a true alternative off the ground. I finally mostly left Google maps this year as part of de-googlimg my life but live traffic is essential for many and will be a tough wall to climb without critical mass. Maps took years to improve their navigation and it’s good because so many use it.
Genocide is a damn good reason for someone to get nav moving in a non-fascist, non-profit direction.