Riding Shotgun With the Google Street View Beetle

longacre writes "Popular Mechanics takes a ride in an Immersive Media VW Beetle, one of the six cars that drives around America shooting images for Google Maps Street View. Mounted on the roof is the $45,000 Dodeca 2360 video camera, whose 11 lenses record a 360 degree field of view at 30 frames per second, sucking up as many as 200 miles of city scenes per day. The setup takes up the whole back seat and part of the front passenger seat, and is all controlled with an off-the-shelf Logitech game controller. Includes a cool interactive raw video of a drive through Manhattan."

I'd be more impressed...

[$1uck]

If it didn't require any user control (for the cameras at least). I mean why isn't the recording speed tied to the speed of the car? (or is it?) what need do you have to manipulate the cameras manually. Instead if the car is stuck in traffic, just stop recording. If the car is moving faster, increase the fps.

What purpose does the game controller have? Are the drivers allowed to track hotties? or is it for focusing in on billboards for corporate sponsors? Are they offering street view adwords or something?

Re:welcome to slashdot

[morgan_greywolf]

I must disagree with yours and everyone else's statements that this is an invasion of privacy. What Google records on the public streets is A) protected by the first amendment and B) not a privacy issue because if something is viewable from a public street, then there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Police Dash-Cam 2.0

[Zymergy]

Imagine future versions (with much lower prices) of the "Dodeca 2360" camera used as Police Dash-Cams (but on top of the car).
With the increased Law-Enforcement use of WiFi/Wireless-Data access and the necessitation of Computer capabilities in modern Police Vehicles, this device would make a nice streaming Police roof-cam.
(The quality looks good enough that "Cops" or other 'reality' police shows might just fund the costs for the cameras too.)

Question about the "RAW" video

[Bryansix]

Do they correct the Barrel distortion afterwards? If not, they should. Everything to the side of the car looks stretched and skewed.

Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy!

[morgan_greywolf]

, I reasonably expect some 30 or 40 people currently I can see could see me. I reasonably expect a million people are not watching me and what happened there would not come back to haunt me 10 years from now.

You do? How do you know CNN isn't conducting a 'hidden camera' investigation? Do you think news crews get releases from everyone that happens to appear in a camera shot that was filmed on a public street?

If 30 or 40 or 300 or 3000 people driving by that day can see you, then you have to expect that everyone can.

you can have any opinion you want

[circletimessquare]

but if they are logically inconsistent and hypocritical, don't be surprised if you get called out on it

Dodeca?

[CompMD]

If the camera is called Dodeca, why does it only have 11 lenses?

Re:Dodeca?

[Jivecat]

Because the twelfth face of the dodecahedron is occupied by the mount.