Google Street View

[Numbers]

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/index.html

If you haven't seen it yet, holy shit.

I was able to literally walk down the street of all my old haunts in NYC. Both schools I went to, both of the buildings I grew up in, all of the restaurants I used to go to, all the places I used to hang out and skate.

Amazing.

[Sean of the Thread]

Sweet. Too bad it's only 5 cities.

[Jayvn]

Google now has turf in nyc

[Celephais]

I like zooming in on license plates... not sure why.

[The Ponzzz]

Yea, very awesome. Be nice when they get more cities!

[Serops]

This is awesome! I can see my corner store in SF, can't get the camera to angle down to my flat though. How often are the images updated, anyone know?

[Serops]

Cancel that, I'm know looking at the outside of my place. Heh.

[Izalude]

Yeah, I checked out my 3 former apartments in NYC, as well as both Universities I attended. That was cool!

[Sean of the Thread]

They must have some kick ass Google Van with serious camera dealio driving around. Someone look it up and tell me?

(I'm too busy watching History of Mafia night)

[Stanley Burrell]

Holy shit.

Fucking sick. I can see my neighbor walking her dog on the service road. So sick.

[Stanley Burrell]

The most Northern point on the NYC map is actually the DMV in Yonkers where I got my Driver's License issued.

LoL, actually, just a bit more at the tip of Route 9. They knew when to start turning around :lol: Should've just stopped in R-dale or Gunhill :-P

[Celephais]

Is this a bum? They should have a google scavenger hunt to christen it...
Item 1: Find a bum near a portapotty

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=250+Main+St,+Hartford+CT&sll=37.09024,-95.712891&sspn=56.59387,89.736328&ie=UTF8&ll=37.812022,-122.450781&spn=0.055874,0.115786&z=14&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.783851,-122.454605&cbp=2,276.804592234799,0.650991313077088,3

[Sean of the Thread]

Is this a bum? They should have a google scavenger hunt to christen it...
Item 1: Find a bum near a portapotty

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=250+Main+St,+Hartford+CT&sll=37.09024,-95.712891&sspn=56.59387,89.736328&ie=UTF8&ll=37.812022,-122.450781&spn=0.055874,0.115786&z=14&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.783851,-122.454605&cbp=2,276.804592234799,0.650991313077088,3

I think you either found Bin Laden or a tusken raider...

[Kranar]

Heh there actually is going to be a scavanger hunt within Google for the Street View.

I still find it hilarious that a giant bug was once caught on Google Earth:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/28/giant_insect/

[Blazing247]

Is this a bum? They should have a google scavenger hunt to christen it...
Item 1: Find a bum near a portapotty

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=250+Main+St,+Hartford+CT&sll=37.09024,-95.712891&sspn=56.59387,89.736328&ie=UTF8&ll=37.812022,-122.450781&spn=0.055874,0.115786&z=14&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.783851,-122.454605&cbp=2,276.804592234799,0.650991313077088,3

Dude you live at 250 Main St. in Hartford? So sorry....

[TheEschaton]

Is anyone else scared by this fucking thing?

I just walked down the street I'm gonna be living at this summer.

-TheE-

[Celephais]

Dude you live at 250 Main St. in Hartford? So sorry....

Eh, it's clean, it's cheap, well maintained and very close to work (haven't bought a tank of gas in over a month). Good for banking money, and the only "problem" I've had with the place is that it's full of indians, which just means I have to smell BO or curry when I get in the elevators sometimes. If you mean because it's on Main St in Hartford... I've got no problems with that, that whole beautiful adrian's landing/bridge/convention center is like three blocks over, awesome place to go on a summer day.

I might be moving to the park towers after this lease though, only reason would be that I could drop my gym membership and use the apt one (this apt has a gym, it just doesn't have enough equipment... good for if I want to just do a few quick reps w/o having to go out).

[Kranar]

Yeah, I don't exactly know how much of this I should be revealing... but every Friday we have a nice and big company meeting where we show off Google ideas and products and a neat topic of discussion was on future uses of Google StreetView.

Basically the plan will be that for driving directions you will obviously get the map detailing the directions, but there will also be a neat feature that simulates what it will be like to follow the map using Streetview technology. So it will actually play out the route you should take so that when you do follow the directions everything should look familiar.

The demo they played looked really awesome. Ontop of that they are working on enhancing the 3D quality of the gathered pictures and will soon have much better 3D images. They're already experimenting with mounting lasers onto the cameras that gather information about the 3D geometry of the captured video and use that to render Streetview in full 3D rather than the interpolated 3D images that it currently generates.

It's really quite cool stuff. There's actually a ton of Google stuff publically available right now that isn't all that well known but really neat to use. One thing I found interesting was http://www.gapminder.org/ which basically displays in a highly intuitive and graphical manner relevent social statistics and global trends spanning the past 50-100 years. Watching 50 years worth of data unfold infront of your eyes especially with respect to China and the U.S. is pretty facinating.

[Kranar]

Funny stuff to be found on Google Streetview, heh:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=San+Bruno,+California,+United+%20States&ie=UTF8&ll=37.625041,-122.482667&spn=0.022331,0.038109&z=15&om=%201&layer=c&cbll=37.617952,-122.485275&cbp=1,228.978817071945,%200.56251897101312,3/

[Sean of the Thread]

Rofl. What a dumbass to whip it out and piss on the highway. Nothing like being branded a sex criminal for not holding your whiz.

[Celephais]

Rofl. What a dumbass to whip it out and piss on the highway. Nothing like being branded a sex criminal for not holding your whiz.

That pic was on the Daily Show last night, they had a couple other quick flashes of funny picks... some person's thong as they were bending over... stuff like that.

[Kranar]

Aww man it's gone now.

[Celephais]

http://mashable.com/2007/05/31/top-15-google-street-view-sightings/

Doesn't include the ones mentioned though... actually kind of lame.

[Ignot]

This is great for stalkers.

[Kriztian]

Patrol Car 1: Hey, did you just see that guy walk an axe from his storage shed into his house?

Patrol Car 2: Yeah, copy, and all the lights in said residence just went blank.

Patrol Car 1: Probable cause?

Patrol Car 2: I'd say so.

Patrol Car 1: Copy. Calling for backup.

Scary days indeed. Most peculiar, mama.

[Sean of the Thread]

They must have some kick ass Google Van with serious camera dealio driving around. Someone look it up and tell me?



Think this may be it.

http://www.immersivemedia.com/

[Kranar]

Immersive Media is the company that makes the camera. The next generation of them will carry lasers to get 3D info.