Big Brother is watching us...

[Munky]

..and they're using Google Street View.

I just had a co-worker show this to me, I can't believe I had never seen this before.

Google maps is now taking actual pictures of pretty much every street in every town, to make an online virtual map. Indianapolis was apparently the first city mapped.

If you look in my first picture, you can see Indianapolis in street view mode. Any streets that are highlighted in blue are already mapped.

(Right click, view image)
http://www.crookedh.com/munky/streetview1.jpg


Here is Street view zoomed into my town of Noblesville. You can see the little orange guy that you drag around to see the streets.


http://www.crookedh.com/munky/streetview2.jpg


Okay, lets drag him to where I live. This is an actual picture of the house I live in, and it's about six months old, because the Volkswagen broke down about 5 months ago and is now in the driveway. You can click the white arrows to travel down the street as if you were walking down the sidewalk, and zoom in enough to see individual houses. You cannot see license plates, which is good.


http://www.crookedh.com/munky/streetview3.jpg


Click on the actual picture and drag it around, and you can see the actual van used to take the pictures.

http://www.crookedh.com/munky/streetview4.jpg

And my neighbors are even captured in this little gadget, washing the car.

http://www.crookedh.com/munky/streetview5.jpg


How long do you think before our enemies use something like this against us?

[SuperGLS]

Yeah, I think Keyan posted something about this a while back.

Google is awesome.

[Munky]

Here's a picture of my BMW sitting in my friend's driveway. He let me park it there until I got plates, and that was only a few months ago.

http://www.crookedh.com/munky/streetview6.jpg

Isn't there some sort of law stating that images like this on the internet have to be a certain age? I heard that all the satellite images on Google Earth have to be at least 2 years old or more to be published, but I know this picture isn't even 6 months old.

[NovaResource]

I've know about this for about 4-5 months now. Most large cities are being photographed.

Look for gaps in the pictures. I know there are pictures taken where one picture was taken on a bright sunny day and the picture right next to it was overcast and the cars parked on the side of the street are all different.

[SuperGLS]

This (http://books.google.com/help/maps/streetview/) link gives you a tutorial on how to use it.

This (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.09024,-95.712891&spn=47.167389,92.8125&z=4&om=1&layer=c&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-google-svn&utm_medium=ha) link shows all the available Street View cities. It'll be cool when it comes to DC.

[OPZ]

They started doing Pittsburgh with it. They even came up and did ****ty lil' Butler, but true to form, as I was goin through town, EVERYONE was looking at the van with a "WTF!?" face.

I love my city.

I wonder how much you get payed to drive around a giant camera...

[kylemorg]

They haven't done Bellvue (just west of Pittsburgh) yet. They did do the dead end street where the place I work is in the west end of Pittsburgh, though...

[theWorst]

This (http://books.google.com/help/maps/streetview/) link gives you a tutorial on how to use it.

This (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.09024,-95.712891&spn=47.167389,92.8125&z=4&om=1&layer=c&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-google-svn&utm_medium=ha) link shows all the available Street View cities. It'll be cool when it comes to DC.

i think that'll be funny... since DC is filled with surveilance trucks all the time anyway..

note: beware of dark blue florist vans in dc where the driver is a late 20's early 30's white male and stays on the same block through out the day.

those are FBI. you'd think the FBI would be smart enough to use asians or hispanics. (i'm both... hint hint.. i need a job)

[kennef]

I'd like to see the Google van try to drive down Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm sure that would turn out well.

[xdforme22]

hahaha, can you just imagine the headlines that would generate! Also, bridges would be a problem. I read about some tourists who got arrested because they were filming the George Washington Bridge while on their trip.

[vsolo]

My son was in Philly when the camera car went by, his first impression was to stick his finger in his nose for the camera. Lucky he didn't but he found out they ended up not using the pictures they took that day. I think it is pretty cool, you can see a 3D version of people walking by on that day... Like a moment in time... I guess we are safe in Baltimore LOL

[smileymattj]

lol, my area is too poor to afford cameras

[SuperGLS]

Well, it's all up to Google, and Google can afford anything. But, unless you live in a big city this doesn't really matter, at least for a long time.