OpenStreetMap
The popular game Pokemon Go now (Dec 1) is using OSM for the base map in the game for (all) the world.
Expect to get a massive increase in the users registering and editing OSM in the coming days/weeks.
Things to look out for:
People adding new roads and paths. People editing/deleting existing roads and paths, especially the small driveways, etc as they lump the mall together in their rendering and look ugly and cluttered so I expect people will be changing these to the wrong type or deleting them altogether so they can veiw there map
So roll up and begin casting an eye on the swarm of edits.
I, for one, welcome our new Pokemon editor overlords..
Discussion
Comment from -karlos- on 1 December 2017 at 08:24
Didn’t it do that already? What parts of (all) the world are new?
Comment from DevonshireBoy42 on 1 December 2017 at 08:57
They now mention OSM in their licencing page. This morning there are new buildings in the UK whose outlines I recognise as OSM
Comment from AkuAnakTimur on 1 December 2017 at 13:38
I also keep an eye on small playgrounds and/or gardens to be marked as parks (!). Last time, these players were not able to do so (in Malaysia), because there’s only two imagery layers to trace stuff (Bing and Mapbox satellite). Some places were out of date, or do not even have a good coverage,
Now, it’s anyone’s game: three new, updated imagery layers which covers the most populous places.
@ -karlos-
They did, only for the map of South Korea first. Rumour has it, that the developer has used OSM, around the world, to determine what type of monster that could spawn.
Comment from naoliv on 1 December 2017 at 13:39
Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/7gqrrt/compilation_thread_of_visual_map_skin_update_to/
Comment from alan_gr on 1 December 2017 at 13:40
@-karlos- I believe that until now they used OpenStreetMap for the display map in only a few countries such as South Korea - everywhere else was based on Google Maps. They have probably been using OSM worldwide for some underlying game mechanics (e.g. to identify parks), but until now that was not directly visible in the in-game map.
Comment from Hjart on 1 December 2017 at 15:01
I was wondering about new footways etc suddenly showing in the game. So this why.
Comment from lcat on 1 December 2017 at 17:45
Also Ingress now use OSM maps