Google Maps Street View

For selected streets of selected cities, Google Maps now features Street View. This allows any user to see the streets and buildings in a 360 degree panning view by simply clicking on a point on a map (of a city with Street View data).

I missed the introduction of this feature back in May 2007, but my friend Don excitedly called me yesterday when he discovered a new "Street View" button in Google Maps.

To use Street View, you must go to a map for a very large city in Google Maps, like Los Angeles. Then click the "Street View" button in the upper-right corner of the map (this button only appears on maps where Street View data exists). Any roads which appear outlined in blue have Street View imagery (zooming in and dragging around helps to see the roads with better detail).

Google's hosts its own video tutorial about using Google Maps Street View.

Though this article suggests that the camera shown from Immersive Media is used to collect data, I saw a van with a big box on its roof in a reflection of a Street View image. One of the comments from this article mentions that Google shot their own imagery in the San Fransisco area with higher quality using a van. A quick Google search of "google maps street view van reflection" got me an article with a screenshot of a great reflection of the van - I looked up the address (in Fremont, CA) on Google Maps so you can go directly to the location and see the van with impressive resolution (you can pan, tilt and zoom around in this image - try it!).

The debut of Street View raised a lot of eyebrows amongst privacy advocates, and Google has responded by allowing users to request removal of faces and license plates from image data. Originally, Google only allowed people to request removal of their own images or license plates, but apparently the policy now allows anyone to make a request. Here's Google's privacy page for Street View, which includes a link to a form to request removal of "inappropriate" imagery.