Apple Cupertino headquarters not removed from MSN Visual Earth

Jul25

Apple Cupertino headquarters not removed from MSN Visual Earth

Search/Windows Live

There has been a rumor floating around this morning that Microsoft intentionally removed Apple's current headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop from their satellite imagery of Cupertino. It's not true.

The satellite photograph used by MSN Visual Earth is from U.S. Geological Survey and was taken on October 30, 1991. I called Apple's Public Relations department and confirmed the current headquarters building was not built at this time. U.S. Geological Survey also has a photograph of the area from February 27, 2004 but it looks incomplete.

If you look at the pictures you will notice what looks like a construction center near the 280 freeway.

Conspiracy theory? No. But it does look like Microsoft and Google have different sources of satellite imagery. Bloggers should do more research instead of defaulting to conspiracy theories!

Tags: 1infiniteloop, apple, microsoft, visualearth

Posted at 10:02AM
Updated at 10:57PM
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Commentary on "Apple Cupertino headquarters not removed from MSN Visual Earth":

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Dave Goodman on July 25, 2005 at 11:54 AM wrote: #

"Do not attribute to malice that which is best attributed to stupidity." :)
Angsuman Chakraborty on July 27, 2005 at 8:33 AM wrote: #

Microsoft found a great way way to compete with Google, with 14 year old satellite imaging data. I am impressed. That surely makes their mapping service very relevant.
tweedledopey on July 29, 2005 at 5:43 PM wrote: #

This was entirely unsurprising, and was indeed what I first thought. If you look at it, the area looks under construction in the MS photo. Furthermore, MS bought Terraserver a long time ago (pre-1998), and that hasn't made a lot of news recently. Google on the other hand, bought the satellite company Keyhole. It's not unlike MS to go ahead with second-rate technology and try to corner the market. Problem is, this time they can't out market-Google.