Google Tricycles To Map Footpaths For Street View

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.

I can just imagine

[KingPin27]

With as much animosity as google street views has already been met with
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?

Forget street view, how about decent maps

[randomchicagomac]

As a bicyclist, I'd love it if google had decent maps of off-street bike paths, such that I could use google maps' normal direction-finding feature with these. I've lived in lots of cities with numerous such paths, and they're usually out of the way and hard to find if you don't already know that they're there. It would be great to have a feature that a) lets me find them, and b) tells me exactly how far out of my way I'd need to go for the added safety/pleasantness of using them.

Rights Do Not Scale Up

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I am within my rights to take a picture on a public street and then upload it to the internet. I am within my rights to publish my views, on anything, freely on the internet. I am within my rights to worship or not worship freely as I please. I am free to cast my votes for representatives in the various assemblies that pass and enact the laws of the land. So is everyone else.

But rights do not, and should not scale upwards so easily as they scale across society.

Google's ultimate objective, and they're danm well able to achieve it, is to map, index and photograph the entire world and put it all online for everyone to gawk at. One company. Worldwide coverage. Of everyone, and everything. No recourse. No appeal. It's clear that in the process of inductively scaling up the rights and freedoms we all enjoy to such gargantuan proportions, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

I am free to own a newspaper or pamphlet and to use it to express my opinions. Must it then follow that I should be free, if I had the money for it, to own as many newspapers as I like in order to disseminate my opinions?

I am free to worship in any religion that I please and ask others to follow me. Does that mean that I should be free to amass as large a host of followers as I like and have my will of all of them?

I am free to vote for my political representatives. Does this mean that I should be free to vote on every single piece of legislation they propose, or to propose and vote on legislation I or others demand at a whim?

You can't inductively keep scaling rights up and up. Eventually you will end up with highly [wikipedia.org], undesirable [vatican.va], outcomes [bbc.co.uk]. Google Street View is just such an example. I don't want my house, garden, neighborhood and face plastered all over the web for everyone to gawk at. You don't want it. Nobody wants it.

Yet we are all to accept the slow inductive argument that at each camera click and image upload, Google is always well within its rights. Yet the final outcome, colossal in its arrogance is repugnant to almost everyone involved. The inductive argument is invalid. No one should be allowed to do what Google are doing. Least of all a private corporation.

Rights do not scale up. The bigger you are, the less rights you should be entitled to. And the scope of your rights should be similarly curtailed. Allowing unfettered freedoms to the richest, largest and most powerful will only lead to them becoming overmighty, and we will all suffer for it.

Re:Forget street view, how about decent maps

[julian67]

Unfortunately the Google trike is far to wide to access many UK cycle paths. Many have a small barrier which allows bicycles (though forces rider to dismount) but prevents small vehicles and tricycles and any but the smallest motorcycles from passing. Also many cycle paths are in any case so ridiculously narrow that a substantial trike has no chance. Urban paths often share traffic light controlled crossings with footpaths and these again are often too narrow for a trike. Then there are the cycle paths which repeatedly alternate the rider from the road to the sidewalk, what to speak of the paths hosting street signs, trees, litter bins etc etc. Even on a normally loaded touring cycle, or a bike with a small trailer or child carrier some UK cycle paths are a problem. A trike is going to be hopeless. Whatever the purpose of the Google trike in the UK it clearly isn't going to work well for footpaths (illegal) or cycle paths. And most white roads, green lanes, unmetalled roads etc are essentially muddy, rocky or overgrown trails requiring an unencumbered mountain bike with a fit, skilled rider, or a vehicle. 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.

Re:Rights Do Not Scale Up

[Drakin020]

The bigger you are, the less rights you should be entitled to.

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:Segway

[fiannaFailMan]

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 charged up, trikes don't.

Trikes are more efficient.

Trikes do pretty much the same job for a lot less money.

There's no enough room on a Segway to hold the equipment, there is enough room on a trike.

Riding a trike is a lot healthier than driving a Segway because it uses human power.

Want any more?

Google - OK! Gov't = Big Brother

[HockeyPuck]

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?

Re:Rights Do Not Scale Up

[evanbd]

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.

Re:Google - OK! Gov't = Big Brother

[Murpster]

It's not OK in my opinion. Google is turning pretty Big Brothery with shit like this and the cell phone location thing and other stupidness. If I ever see one of these or their cars, I'll make sure they don't get any images they can use haha. Screw Google. Time for them to go the way of Enron.

Re:Good job kdawson!

[queenb**ch]

Put cameras on everyone's cats.... You'll get a lot more than a "street view".....

Re:Segway

[Nerdposeur]

Segways are always tilting forward and back. Bicycles are always tilting side to side. Trikes stay pretty level. That probably makes it easier to stitch together all the photos.

Re:what for?

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA says "... to map areas inaccessible by its fleet of Street View cars."

Places like downtown areas that don't allow cars any more. Or really old downtown areas where the streets were never wide enough for vehicles. If you've ever tried to find a specific store in the marketplace of a city like Istanbul then you'll quickly understand the value of bicycle and pedestrian based Street View.

Re:Rights Do Not Scale Up

[vux984]

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. But it doesn't scale up. It doesn't implicitly give me blanket protection of a right to pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as I can manufacture.

Similiarly, with respect to google, we absolutely should be allowed to take pictures of something we see while out and about. That shouldn't scale up to a right to deploy a world wide surveillance network.

I fully agree with him.

Re:Hmmm . . . .

[TinFoilMan]

Why troll? I thought it was a good question.

Re:Google - OK! Gov't = Big Brother

[smellsofbikes]

Presumably coz Google doesn't have tens of thousands of armed employees legally empowered to kill.

Re:Hmmm . . . .

[stephanruby]

I don't know. If the natives are going to come after me with their pitchforks, I'd rather be in a vehicle with better get away speed.