Google Streetview

StreetView is a new integrated service with Google Maps. Google has commissioned folks in several large markets (New York, Los Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and others) to run around town with a 360-degree camera, taking street pictures at ground level. The following is an example of New York’s Flanders Square:

Using the service, anyone can drag an icon across mapped streets and zoom in to StreetView. You have about four levels of zoom control and limited panoramic control of the image, but you can rotate it on a single plane to the right or to the left.

As you might imagine, some interesting images have been immortally captured by this service. Women sunbathing in bikinis, men exiting adult shops and strip clubs, at least one person picking their nose, and a staff attorney of the Internet privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Kevin Bankston sneaking a cigarette and walking to work. “Sneaking” because Bankston was supposed to have quit smoking.

Again, Google redefines what a tool like an online map is by allowing for emersive interactivity. If taken to a logical extreme, it won’t be long before all of our homes and businesses will be viewable – not just from an arial shot but from street level – and in doing so, Google continues to challenge our society’s notions of privacy in the name of technical capability.

R

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