Google Debuts Street View and Mapplets 157
Today at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Google unveiled two new map features. An O'Reilly blogger describes Street View, which uses 360-degree street-level video from Immersive Media to enable neighborhood walk-throughs in (for now) a few selected areas. The other new feature is Mapplets, which let you embed Google Maps mashups in any Web page. Much more coverage is linked from TechMeme.
Exit Numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats all great and stuff, but when will they add exit numbers? It's a pretty basic thing along the lines of labeling road names as far as I'm concerned.
Awesome - any landmines? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are there any potential privacy laws google could break by making these photos so readily available online?
Yahoo Ad in Times Square (Score:5, Interesting)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&sll=37.8488
I know Google themselves didn't collect the data, but it's still kind of amusing.
Re:Microsoft Couldnt Do This In a Million Years (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Couldnt Do This In a Million Years (Score:1, Interesting)
I can see my dog. (Score:1, Interesting)
Got stuck in traffic in brooklyn (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Awesome - any landmines? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How is that the norm at all? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Uh Oh (Score:4, Interesting)
No matter how you look at it, this is a loss of privacy. 20 years ago, you could expect to walk in a public place, and there would be no record of you ever being there. Now, in places like the UK, you are captured all the time, and these recrods can be kept for a long time. So we have lost privacy going out in a public place. The next step is some form of recognition software that can track individuals, everywhere they go.
So where do you draw the line? When do YOU start to get upset. Or are you one of these people who are happy for the government and private industry to know where you are at all times? If that doesn't bother you (whether you never do anything wrong or not), then you have a problem. If that doesn't bother most people in this world (and I think it won't), then we all have a problem.