Google Street View

[mister c]

That's mint
I thought this was good a few weeks ago, but that just knocks it for 6.

[RingDing]

What a good find! The wife and I just passed an hour 'walking' around Brisbane and Sydney reliving our holiday of a few years back.

I've used this for an age for US addresses. It's a very very useful tool. I'll explain how useful it is in a minute.

Originally Posted by Tomtoms

although i think i read something to do with out over-the-top privacy laws that it will be delayed in the UK until they sort something out.

that was probably the worst explination of anything ever!!haha

I was in NI a couple of weeks ago, and they had the Google mapping cars around the Coleraine area. I reckon my car is going to be on a fair few of the pictures, as I was driving past them a lot.

Originally Posted by Warthog

Incredible. I can see trees in the middle of nowhere in Australia. What a huge amount of effort for something that is rather useless haha

Not really a huge amount of effort, or useless. Basically, they have a number of cars equipped with 360 degree cameras. Drive the cars along the road and record. Computer processes the image for use on google maps.

It's about as hard as driving a car.

Originally Posted by Warthog

aside from Lozzo finding a pack of ciggies somewhere, what point does it serve if you can walk up and down a street somwhere else?

OK, as already mentionned above, a number of benefits. Personally, I use it in the US (but you know I'm in the UK). The reason being is that in work, we have a very very large number of terminals over in the states (various types of terminal). Pretty frequently, the engineers phone us up with the excuse of "I'm lost, I can't do the job!" - OK, hold up, where are you now? what can you see? I pull up google maps, verify they are where they claim, and give them exact directions. Some of our machines are outside and can be seen from the google Street View, so I get quite pedantic about directions of those.

Originally Posted by Baph

Not really a huge amount of effort, or useless. Basically, they have a number of cars equipped with 360 degree cameras. Drive the cars along the road and record. Computer processes the image for use on google maps.

It's about as hard as driving a car.

Ok you do it. no? Good, then you see what I mean. Yes it is easy to drive a car, but to make the vans, the software, the servers, all over the world, get and army of people to drive them round, the sheer electronic storage space that is needed. Its not exactly a walk in the park. I didn't say it was difficult to do, but it does take a lot of effort to do.

Originally Posted by Baph

OK, as already mentionned above, a number of benefits. Personally, I use it in the US (but you know I'm in the UK). The reason being is that in work, we have a very very large number of terminals over in the states (various types of terminal). Pretty frequently, the engineers phone us up with the excuse of "I'm lost, I can't do the job!" - OK, hold up, where are you now? what can you see? I pull up google maps, verify they are where they claim, and give them exact directions. Some of our machines are outside and can be seen from the google Street View, so I get quite pedantic about directions of those.

Nothing you can't do with plain google earth which I do use a lot. And who would really buy a house without looking at it in person?? You can tell what it is like then quite happily without needing street view.

[Luckypants]

I await the arrival of the cars here with amusement.

Originally Posted by Warthog

Ok you do it. no? Good, then you see what I mean. Yes it is easy to drive a car, but to make the vans, the software, the servers, all over the world, get and army of people to drive them round, the sheer electronic storage space that is needed. Its not exactly a walk in the park. I didn't say it was difficult to do, but it does take a lot of effort to do.

To be fair, the 360degree cameras are commercially made (and just bought by Google). OK, so there's a little work to install the damn thing, but it's a pretty simply bolt on. Other than that, the software to convert the images is done & dusted a long time ago.

So now, it's a matter of drive the car (apparently the cars record direct to hard disk), then plug the disk into a machine that can sort the video feed & upload to the Data Centre.

As for the electronic storage required, Google have already indexed the entire Internet 5 times over (due to redundancy in the Data Centre) - I doubt they're short for space. Their money, they can buy as many disks as they like.

Originally Posted by Warthog

Nothing you can't do with plain google earth which I do use a lot.

Ah, but when you have an anal IT policy that means you cannot have Google Earth installed...

BTW, no doubt the Street View will be further adapted for Google Earth at some point, that way you'll have satellite and ground video/photos. From there, you can work out the height of buildings etc. I like the way the folks at Google think.

I cant wait until they manage to bring the technology to our in car sat nav systems. Image not having a cartoon like map but the real actual image on the screen scrolling as you progress.
Now that will be cool, its only a matter of time now I guess.

[mr.anderson]

I think that this is another big brother thing... they are making sure that they have every bit of your "Personal Space" invaded and recorded.

Also, it may be useful to innocent people like us, but this now means that burglars don't need to stake out a place as much to break in. Its cool, but I don't like it negative use potential.

Originally Posted by mr.anderson

I think that this is another big brother thing... they are making sure that they have every bit of your "Personal Space" invaded and recorded.

Also, it may be useful to innocent people like us, but this now means that burglars don't need to stake out a place as much to break in. Its cool, but I don't like it negative use potential.

If these were surveillance cameras offering a live feed then I would tend to agree. However they are still images that can be anything up to a year an half old! I love to see a burglar staking out a still image. He might have a little difficulty getting your daily routine from that!

And none of the images display private/personal space. They are all shot from the road which is public space and display no more than if you walked down the street yourself. This is just more convenient. Even car number plates are illegible.

Originally Posted by mr.anderson

I think that this is another big brother thing... they are making sure that they have every bit of your "Personal Space" invaded and recorded.

Also, it may be useful to innocent people like us, but this now means that burglars don't need to stake out a place as much to break in. Its cool, but I don't like it negative use potential.

Now actually he is right here, it has reminded me of a case in Belgium (where my parents live) of a gang of youths who used google earth to find houses in their area with swimming pools in the garden and then would jump the fence at night and go for a swim. Possibly funny but with serious connotations!