I’m fascinated by Google Street View. Like so many Google toys, it’s both exceptionally addictive as a time-sink and slightly creepy. Because what one does with Google and all Google toys is ego surf, I of course drove virtually down my street. I was gratified to discover that (a) neither I nor any of my neighbors was captured on camera, and (b) that you can’t see my house or car from the street, on account of the many trees in my front yard.
After ego surfing, I started geeking out… next I wondered what platform Google used to take these images. And lo and behold, if you swivel the camera down you can see the car they drove around, or most of it anyway. There’s a rather large blind spot, presumably the camera mount. The car looks like your basic Camry-or-equivalent, with a weird mount on the roof that looks like it’s made of tie-downs and PVC pipe.
Click for full-size images:
2 Comments
Terrell
This is a company they’ve contracted with…
http://www.immersivemedia.com/
From http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2008/02/six_new_cities_with_google_street_v.html pointing to a post from August here: http://www.tonyspencer.com/2007/08/19/google-street-view-is-coming-to-raleigh/
PomeRantz
Thanks to Terrell, I can see that I’m mistaken… apparently it’s not a Camry-or-equivalent, it’s a new VW Beetle.
And now I’m feeling peer pressure to figure out when my street was Street Viewed, or whatever you’d call it. All I can tell is that it wasn’t a Tuesday, because no trash cans or recycling bins are out on the street.