Showing posts with label taiwan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taiwan. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Google vs China

Many people might recall reports of conflict between Google and the Chinese government.

During the summer of 2011, I happened to be using Google Maps and entered instructions to get driving directions from "China" to "Taiwan."  GM produced some surprising results, which I was sure would disappear at sometime in the future, so I took a screen-shot to preserve the moment.

Below is the screen-shot which I have preserved for posterity. Point A is the start which is Bejing, the capital of China and point B is the destination "Taiwan."

I've annotated the surprise in this version … as you read it keep in mind that these are supposedly driving directions.  Click on the image to see the whole thing.


If you try this today you'll get a note that says:
"We could not calculate directions between China and Taiwan."  

Some reports of this in the summer of 2011, called the original result shown in the screen-shot an "Easter Egg," however, the fact that there isn't even a route now calculated might suggest that it was something else.