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Google Tricycles To Map Footpaths For Street View
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue May 19, 2009 12:42 PM
from the hope-they-are-well-insured dept.
from the hope-they-are-well-insured dept.
CNETNate writes "To advance its Street View service this summer, Google is poised to unleash the unstoppable power of human legs. Google will deploy pedal-powered tricycles — the company calls them 'Google Trikes' — mounted with 360 degree Street View cameras to map areas inaccessible by its fleet of Street View cars." The article indicates that the trikes will first see use in the UK, to map out public walking paths, but one anonymous commenter said: "This must be bogus — you are not allowed to cycle on public footpaths in the UK, I can't believe Google would have overlooked such a fundamental fact. Not to mention that the vehicle pictured wouldn't fit down most paths." PC World features the trikes in Rome.
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Good job kdawson! (Score:5, Funny)
"The article indicates that the trikes will first see use in the UK"
He then goes on to link to pictures of them actually being used in Rome. Did the UK annex Rome?
History lesson (Score:5, Funny)
Did the UK annex Rome?
No, it was the other way round. Rome invaded Britain in 43AD. I think they've mostly gone home now.
Parent
Re:History lesson (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but what have the Romans ever done for us?
Parent
Re:History lesson (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Good job kdawson! (Score:5, Insightful)
Put cameras on everyone's cats.... You'll get a lot more than a "street view".....
Parent
Re:Good job kdawson! (Score:4, Funny)
Put cameras on everyone's cats.... You'll get a lot more than a "street view".....
Especially the view from Ceiling Cat.
Parent
Re:Good job kdawson! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Next up: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next up: (Score:5, Informative)
They already did [google.com]!
Parent
Pretty soon ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/108/261905722_d2912c0465.jpg It's already been done!
Re:Pretty soon ... (Score:5, Funny)
Me: Honey, where did I put my car keys?
Her: I don't know dear, just fucking google it.
Me: OK, according to Google they are on the keyhook next to the door... WTF? They aren't there!
Her: Oh, that's right, dear, the Googol Housecrawling Spiders of Doom haven't been through since last Tuesday. That's where they were then.
Me: Fucking useless GoogleHouse app. At least they helpfully recorded the combination when I unlocked my safe.
Parent
Re:Pretty soon ... (Score:5, Funny)
There's always Google's cached copy of them...
Parent
Re:Pretty soon ... (Score:5, Funny)
Shortly after I showed Google Earth to my Mom, she came to me with a question. A friend of hers wanted to know if I could get photos of someone who broke into her house. That's right; satellite images of a specific time (at night!) that were good enough that you could actually identify the people in them, on google, for free. Now, maybe the CIA can do this....
I remember being amazed at what was offered on Google Earth when it first came out. It is always surprising when someone else thinks that a technology can do something that is insanely more complicated than what I was amazed by.
Parent
Re:Pretty soon ... (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't tightening them be more appropriate?
Parent
Re:Pretty soon ... (Score:5, Funny)
Considering the scale bars at the bottom are set to 200 miles, then I would say its a pretty big flat.
There would be no problem seeing it from orbit, the coffee table is 100 miles by 200 miles just by itself, and the rug is a massive 700 miles square.
Your brother must be rich to afford a flat that big!
Parent
google + scuba = ? (Score:4, Interesting)
gooba? scoogle? scooble?
just attach cameras to aquatic lifeforms and let us swim the depths of the oceans from our computers... no chance of being stabbed in the heart by a stingray, either!
Re:google + scuba = ? (Score:5, Funny)
Self-contained underwater Google app.
Parent
Re:google + scuba = ? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh great. Sharks with frickin' Google cams.
Parent
LIDAR? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:LIDAR? (Score:5, Funny)
By attaching it to their masts.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First of, that are likely four LIDARs. Two horizontal (forward-backward), two vertical (left-right).
My semi-educated guess:
- Horizontal: Kind of SLAM [wikipedia.org]: Creating a map and improving the own position accuracy (as initially determined by GPS) through a map.
- Vertical: 3D surface-reconstruction.
This is all well and good... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is all well and good... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
I can just imagine (Score:3, Insightful)
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/1731231
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/13/0055234
I can just imagine what these guys riding around on bikes will meet up with - Can anyone say moving target?
Re:I can just imagine (Score:5, Funny)
I imagine they'll have plenty of evidence to help the police identify their assailants.
Parent
Re:I can just imagine (Score:5, Funny)
5 acres away? If you planted those 250 yards with zucchini, how many neighbors could you bother over the next furlong?
(Yeah, yeah, so I'm not all that great with jokes about improperly used units.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They see me roll on
My Google Trike
And I know in my heart
They think I'm ridin' nerdy
Just saw one of these.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Forget street view, how about decent maps (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My guess is that it will give Google access to the many urban streets which only allow taxis, public buses, emergency vehicles, and bicycles during the day. This is extremely common.
I think you're correct there. For instance, most of Oxford Street (London) isn't on Streetview because it's buses/taxis/cycles only.
They can also do public squares, pedestrian/cycling-only streets etc. They can even do no-cycling areas if they wheel the tricycle.
There's a few businesses and the like... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, extending StreetView to things off the street makes sense to me, for certain values of "things off the street" - there's a few businesses and the like I'd like to see mapped.
Example: I'd like to see my local zoo [scz.org] or one of our local museums [oldcowtown.org] set up so that I could use my GPS to find my way around - and being able to see some of the exhibits would be a bonus.
If *I* ran those places, I'd be begging Google to scan my site!
Re:There's a few businesses and the like... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:There's a few businesses and the like... (Score:4, Funny)
They have but the problem was the naming. "Google pervert" just wasn't marketable so they scrapped the entire project.
Parent
An April Fools Day joke in May? (Score:3, Funny)
Next thing you know they'll be reporting that Lister has been hired to peddle the thing around London. They tried to hire Cat but he was afraid being outside in the summer heat and humidity would ruin his fantastically perfect hairdo.
Mapjack.com already does this (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless of whether Google is going to use Tricycles, they're not the first to market with this feature. http://www.mapjack.com/ [mapjack.com] already has many many trails mapped out, things that bicycles may even have a hard time on.
Google Bike Path, Foot Trail, and River would be.. (Score:4, Funny)
awesome. To the best of my knowledge, GPS's will show rivers, but if you are paddling on one, it won't give you a great ETA. Google Rivers, on the other hand, could record average current speed and all the bends in the river to a genuine geocoded object instead of a dumb jpeg. That would be pretty sweet.
Profit!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Google - OK! Gov't = Big Brother (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it ok in the public eye for google to do this, but when the gov't does this it's BigBrother and 1984 all over again?
The path less googled (Score:4, Funny)
I shall be twittering this with a sigh
On someone's blogs and blogs hence:
Two paths diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less googled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--RFrostie1977
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry...What!?
That has to be the most retarded comment I've ever heard. No one should be limited to rights just because of how "Big" they are.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That has to be the most retarded comment I've ever heard. No one should be limited to rights just because of how "Big" they are.
So what you are saying is that a monopoly shouldn't be regulated?
Maybe you should rethink your position.
The poster is asserting that what should be in-alienable rights for an individual at the individual level do not implicitly work at massive scales. The meaning of those rights transform as they scale up.
I should be allowed to exhale carbon dioxide; nobody would ever dispute this.
Re:Rights Do Not Scale Up (Score:5, Insightful)
I think rights should scale up. I really don't see a problem with that.
Oh, I see, you seem to have drunk the kool-aid and accepted that corporations are people who have rights. That's where the fault lies in all your examples, not with any inductive scaling.
All that said... in this particular example, I do want my house on Google. Or, to be specific, I want other people's houses on Google -- many times I've made use of the Street View pictures to see what my destination will look like. And I can see other people wanting the same when I give them directions to my house. And I don't mind the pictures being up, and I certainly don't intend to take up a hypocritical position on the matter.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The scale. The scale is the difference. Your post is exactly the kind of argument that I object to.
What you say is correct. It is legal for you to take a picture of my house, and many other house. It is legal for you post those pictures online. It is true that everyone else can legally do so t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why they didn't buy a bunch of Segways for it, is beyond me.
Trikes are cheaper to buy than Segways which start at $2,400.
Trikes are cheaper to maintain than Segways.
Trikes are easier to maintain than Segways since all you need is a regular bike mechanic that can be found in any good bike store.
Segways require electrical power just to stand up, that kind of power costs money. Trikes don't use any power when standing up because they've got three wheels.
Segways require electrical power to operate, trikes don't and hence have a lower carbon footprint.
Segways have to be
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One could even argue that not designing the project to allow disabled individuals to perform the work is job discrimination.
I suppose one could, but one would be wrong. The job description is for someone to pedal this bike around so it can take pictures. Therefore, being able to pedal said bike is a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ). Your idea is interesting, but failing to implement it is not discriminatory on Google's part, at least not in any legally recognized way.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here is an example of a typical countryside UK footpath. I would defy one to navigate it on a tricycle: http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk/footpathexample.html [beenthere-...hat.org.uk]
or this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mapmakermike/1029015477/ [flickr.com]