I recently read on BBC how Google Maps Street View was facing a block with a very stupid and publicity seeking “Privacy International, a UK rights group, wanting to write to the Information Commissioner seeking a suspension of the service in the UK”. Now I have no doubts about Privacy International’s thoughts here. They don’t care about anyone’s privacy, only just riding on Google’s back and garnering cheap publicity so I will not bother with them or even provide a link to them.
The one good thing this news article did was get me interested in checking out Google Maps Street View for myself and wow does Google blow you away with this awesome tool. For starters Street View on Google Maps is available only in the United States, Canada and now some parts of Europe. Guess we Indians will have to wait a while before we get our own Street View on Google Maps. Anyways I started with the United States and started by checking out a few cities, mainly New York (hoping to catch the Statue of Liberty). Unfortunately, while I did not get the Statue of Liberty, I did get some great snaps of New York City and got to play around with Street View on Google Maps which is an awesome tool and its potential and future uses are unlimited and only left to the imagination. Street View places you bang in the middle of a street or a location virtually with real photographs of the area and then this tool lets you play around the location with zooming in and out, virtually panning around 360 degree views of the entire area, zooming up and then back down again, etc. It’s like you are there with a high powered digital camera and you are zooming in and out and playing around with the camera and checking out the area for yourself. It’s that interactive, realistic and true to life and being Google it’s so responsive and immediate that you begin to feel like you are there. You can even scroll up and down a street i.e. literally travel down a road on Street View. Images are not limited to a fixed position from which they were shot, but you can move 10 yards down the road from your initial position and Street View updates the photographs to the new location and from there you can pan a 360 degree view of the area. I am assuming Google must have taken tons and tons of photos to enable flexibility to this degree. Words cannot describe fully the views so it’s understood that you have to personally check out Street View on Google Maps if you have not done so till now.
Only con is that you are limited to the areas Google Maps Street View has covered. If Street View is not available for an area then you are left with just Google Maps which is great in itself, but not the same without Street View. Imagine what it will be like with the entire world, I mean every nook and corner of our entire world available on Street View on Google Maps. You can enjoy a virtual holiday anytime you want and explore any city or any place at anytime you want and at your own pace and leisure. I cannot wait to visit some places I have yet to visit, though I will be visiting them all physically in the near future, but till then Street View on Google Maps is a great way of checking out that place albeit virtually. Street View is a great tool and I really am at a loss about all the fuss it’s creating in Europe. It has been accepted in the United States, but you got to hand it to the Europeans. Guess they cannot see a good thing when they see one??? The possibilities are endless with Street View on Google Maps and I am not even thinking of advertising or selling virtual holidays with it. Just the thought of checking out new places is fascinating and exciting in and of itself.
Coming to the privacy issues, well Google has gone ahead and used face blurring technology to blur out faces, number plates on vehicles, etc. and apart from this also offers users the option of pointing out images that they want blurred or removed. Whatever the issues or concerns, Street View on Google Maps is a great addition to Google Maps and a great tool that lets you virtually explore and see for yourself a new place and that too from the comfort of your home on your system. It’s a great tool and merits to be checked out and appreciated too.
wow thats seems to amazing :O will it show in india too?!
Not yet Narendra. Only United States and Europe till now. Asia should start after sometime though.
street view is available in australia as well.
Thanks Siddharth for stopping by and also for the update about Australia. I was not aware of it.