Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Google Street View

I read an article in the Journal Sentinel yesterday that outlined one of Google's newest technologies available in Google Maps, Google Street View.  This system is a newer, more in your face version of a previous satellite image technology, Google Earth.  Google Street View used to be available to only a few big cities in the U.S. such as Los Angeles and New York, but it has recently expanded to reach over 30 cities.  Milwaukee was just added to the system this month.  After checking it out, I must say that this imagery system is somewhat creepy, but at the same time, very addicting.  I read in the Journal article that most of the images of Milwaukee were taken within the last year or so.  With this in mind, I typed in my old address to take a look at my neighborhood.  Sure enough, here was a detailed picture of my old house, even with my car sitting out front!  After checking out some more street views of the East Side, I proceeded to fly around Milwaukee a little bit, checking out some close ups of Miller Park and the Lakefront area.  Everyone should check this site out and see for yourself just how crystal clear the images of the city are.  The question I have is how long will this mapping system be available before people start complaining about a lack of privacy?  Although none of the street views allow you to zoom in far enough to see through windows or anything like that, people can still report images to google that they find intrusive.  By and large, it appears that Google is coming closer to achieving its goal of taking over the world.  What's next?

No comments: