phrenic
Mar 26, 2009, 10:18 AM
...is coming to Halifax. I can't wait to start looking for weird things they photograph.
Google gets ready to film Canada's streets
Get ready for your close-up as search engine puts photos of big-city roads and homes on the Web
OMAR EL AKKAD
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
March 25, 2009 at 9:39 PM EDT
If you feel the urge to spit, disrobe or commit some other social faux pas on a public thoroughfare, you may want to hold off for the next few weeks, lest your actions be caught on camera by the world's most popular search engine.
Google will soon be scouring Canada's public roads – cameras in tow – to bring its popular Street View maps feature north of the border. Street View, which is available on Google's map applications, gives users a pedestrian's-eye view of major cities by projecting images taken from street level onto the corresponding street in the map. Use the feature on New York, for example, and you can get a pretty good sense on your computer monitor of what it's like to stand in the middle of Times Square.
“Using Street View, users can preview holiday accommodation, find meeting spots, explore neighbourhoods and properties, and look up driving directions,” the company said in announcing Street View's Canadian version.
Over the next few weeks, Google employees will be snapping pictures of 11 of Canada's biggest cities, including Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary. The search giant had previously collected some Canadian street data, which it plans to make public soon. There's no word yet on when data from this coming round will be released.
The Street View photo car tends to be an unassuming sedan, equipped with a very conspicuous roof-mounted camera rig.
In addition to U.S. cities, the popular service is already available for parts of several countries, including Australia, France and Britain. Street View has drawn criticism from some privacy groups, who argue that the photos can constitute an invasion of privacy – for example, in the case of Street View images that show people walking in or out of adult stores.
Indeed, Google has implemented several privacy measures in the tool.
In advance of taking to the road in Canada, the company consulted with federal and provincial privacy commissioners.
Images of people's faces and licence plates are automatically blurred out, and users can request any offensive images be removed.
But such images have also become the basis for a popular Internet pastime: searching for bizarre sightings on Street View.
Many a Web page is now dedicated to finding gems such as accidentally documented street fights, crimes in progress and, of course, people walking in or out of adult stores.
Google gets ready to film Canada's streets
Get ready for your close-up as search engine puts photos of big-city roads and homes on the Web
OMAR EL AKKAD
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
March 25, 2009 at 9:39 PM EDT
If you feel the urge to spit, disrobe or commit some other social faux pas on a public thoroughfare, you may want to hold off for the next few weeks, lest your actions be caught on camera by the world's most popular search engine.
Google will soon be scouring Canada's public roads – cameras in tow – to bring its popular Street View maps feature north of the border. Street View, which is available on Google's map applications, gives users a pedestrian's-eye view of major cities by projecting images taken from street level onto the corresponding street in the map. Use the feature on New York, for example, and you can get a pretty good sense on your computer monitor of what it's like to stand in the middle of Times Square.
“Using Street View, users can preview holiday accommodation, find meeting spots, explore neighbourhoods and properties, and look up driving directions,” the company said in announcing Street View's Canadian version.
Over the next few weeks, Google employees will be snapping pictures of 11 of Canada's biggest cities, including Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary. The search giant had previously collected some Canadian street data, which it plans to make public soon. There's no word yet on when data from this coming round will be released.
The Street View photo car tends to be an unassuming sedan, equipped with a very conspicuous roof-mounted camera rig.
In addition to U.S. cities, the popular service is already available for parts of several countries, including Australia, France and Britain. Street View has drawn criticism from some privacy groups, who argue that the photos can constitute an invasion of privacy – for example, in the case of Street View images that show people walking in or out of adult stores.
Indeed, Google has implemented several privacy measures in the tool.
In advance of taking to the road in Canada, the company consulted with federal and provincial privacy commissioners.
Images of people's faces and licence plates are automatically blurred out, and users can request any offensive images be removed.
But such images have also become the basis for a popular Internet pastime: searching for bizarre sightings on Street View.
Many a Web page is now dedicated to finding gems such as accidentally documented street fights, crimes in progress and, of course, people walking in or out of adult stores.
