June 7, 2007
GMaps Street View Coming to D.C.?
If you're anything like us, you've been experiencing major geek covetousness ever since Google Maps launched its Street View functionality late last month. The feature (which may seem similar to past users of Amazon's A9.com) shows street-level photos of locations. Users can move smoothly from spot to spot, rotating their view and taking in the sights.
Unfortunately, Google Maps' coverage of D.C. doesn't feature any of the blue outlines that signify Street View-equipped roads. But that may be changing: Google Blogoscoped brings word (and a picture) of a tricked-out VW bug in downtown D.C. It's hard to tell from the picture, but their correspondent reports that it boasted a camera on its roof and the logo of the company that's taking the Street View photos for Google. From the looks of it, the car was parked along the 1600 block of M Street, right by the National Geographic Society.
So does this mean D.C. will be digitized in short order? It's hard to say. Maybe Google was just putting on a demo for somebody in the area. Still, now might be a good time to put something in your front yard for future Google sightseers.
Eddie Kim and Andrew Wiseman contributed to this post.
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well, i can give you a definite YES on your question. i'm one of the people standing there in that blurry image of the car. a former NGS employee is now working with immersive media, and she stopped by to give us a tour of their VW bug. they're working on many, many cities (in addition to the few that have been rolled out on google's website).
Damn, now I gotta stop picking my nose in public for the next few weeks.
Did you get the idea for this story after watching Lewis Black's "Back In Black" report on creepy technologies during last night's Daily Show? Not saying it's a bad story...more coverage can't hurt our chances of getting DC coverage sooner.
So far, Google Street View is live for NYC, SF, Vegas, Miami, and Denver. So let's get out onto our lawns/sidewalks and give DC's facades some last-mintute personality for the Google Beetle's cameras. How about some signs reading "the residents of this building have no representation in Congress." Or maybe a giant mirror at street level might be cool. Let's have some fun with this!
man, they're going to kill me, but here's another tip. they're going to do most of their coverage of downtown over the weekend, when there are less people on the street, so if you want to get a message in, head downtown and sit around all day saturday, or try to hunt the beetle down. just don't pick your nose. :)
indiecognition: nope, I didn't catch the Daily Show last night. But the idea of Google Sightseeing has been around for a bit -- BoingBoing's done a number of posts on it, for example.
Great! By the time homesickness overtakes me while cruising Miami in streetview and I head back, I'll be able to visit the district via streetview! Then I'll miss the city and hop a flight back! It'll be an endless cycle!
Definitely getting interesting! Hundreds of privacy invasions shown here:
www laudontech com
FWIW, I have it from someone at Amazon that they were actually confronted by special federal police when taking street-level pictures of DC. Apparently those guys (the police, that is) aren't too fond of cameras attached to cars taking a picture of everything there is to see at street level.
That said, it didn't stop A9 from getting the images, and it probably won't stop Google. But it's a fun story for the Amazon folks and a reasonable explanation for why DC wasn't included in this first look at the Google technology (which is AMAZING and I'm totally jealous of the pilot cities).
i asked my friend about whether they had any issues with police, and they said that before coming to DC, they were in contact with the police to make sure that there would be no issues with their photography. that's not to say that every officer has been told from on high that things are cool, but there shouldn't be any institutional problems.
This is really bad news, the VW bug with the camera went by while I was out with two coeds while the wife was out of town. If she clicks on that street I'm f*cked.
well i can confirm that i saw one of those bug's with the company logo on it around alexandria/shirlington. i don't remember seeing the camera on top of it...but i am sure i saw the car :) it'd be nice if they covered parts of northern va and md as well..but maybe that's wishing for too much..
I saw the Google VW pulled over by the Capitol Hill police in front of the Capitol on Wednesday. Don't know if they got into trouble for filming or for driving too slow.
I'm buying the boingboing cite. Although I'll also admit that Colbert Report was where I first heard of StreetView, despite my crush on Google (how could I not love a company that I trust enough to outsource so much of my thinking? ;)
Anyway, if you like tech news like this, check out http://www.svextra.com/blogs/gmsv/ now and then. Good for news, gossip, and daily off-topic links to geeky fun. And of course, Wired.com has some pretty cool blogs, too.
I added here the most amazing Street View.