Appreciating Life’s Little Things

Oh no to privacy… Google Street View is finally released in Australia… Just click on the Street View button on Google Maps and you’ll see it in work. I really don’t know whether it’s a good thing or not to have such a technology launched in our neighbourhoods…

Now, from a typical Queenslander’s point of view…

Some negative points:

• Say a thief wants to rob a house, he/she no longer needs to physically walk around the neighbourhood to observe the environment – because they can now do it virtually online using Google Street View. If they were to physically walk around, at least there’s a chance that someone would spot any odd activity. But now it’s like they can “walk” around the place invisibly.
• There are screen captures of children playing in the front yard. This one can become a serious privacy issue. It’s nothing to do with whether or not you can see their faces. The problem is that the message “children live here” is now published worldwide.
• Click here for Top 15 Google Street View Sightings – Some of these are quite funny :P But as you can see, even people walking in or out of adult shops were photographed. A thief in action was also photographed!
• In the past, say if someone gives you an address of where they live. An address is an address, so what. But now with Street View, people can actually look up your address, not just to see where it is on the map (well, there’s a refidex in nearly every car so that’s nothing private), but now they can actually see the HOUSE and the neighbourhood you live in; hence they can “judge” you by looking at what type of house you live in. Will this become a cause for discrimination or bullying?

Of course, if there are negative points, there has to be positive points too:

• It’s good to know that we now have the technology to virtually “tour” everywhere using the computer. It’s one more step towards the future.
• When you need to go to an address, as you drive on the street, you don’t need to slow down trying to read the number on each house – because you’ve already seen how the house looks like using Google Street View.
• From a real estate point of view, Street View can save tonnes of petrol. People no longer need to physically BE THERE to see a neighbourhood. They can see it first-hand online before deciding whether they want to actually GO to and review the neighbourhood or not.

Any other pros and cons?

Street View … a map of Australia showing where Street View is available (in blue), left, and the tool itself, right / Google

Google unveils Street View across Australia
By Andrew Ramadge, Technology Reporter August 05, 2008 12:01pm
(article from news.com.au)

AUSTRALIA will today become the third country to have its cities, streets and landmarks “scanned into” Google as the search giant unveils its most ambitious Street View project to date.
Google Street View is an online tool that lets users take a virtual tour of landscapes from their computer by perusing an interactive database of millions of 360-degree snapshots.

The snapshots are taken by a fleet of cars fitted with special cameras that drive across the country, capturing images on every street corner and along every highway.

The technology has so far been used to create virtual replicas of major US cities and the route of this year’s Tour De France, but Google will today unveil its most comprehensive Street View project to date – the mapping of virtually all of southeast Australia and much of the east and west coasts.

Users will be able to wander the streets of Australian cities and towns from Port Douglas to Perth and along the Stuart and Eyre highways that cross the country, as well as view icons such as the Australian War Memorial and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Google product manager Andrew Foster said that because the company’s mapping tool was based on technology developed in Australia, it was excited to bring Street View to the country.

“Google Maps has its origins as an Australian invention so we’re thrilled to bring Street View here as one of the first countries in the world,” he said.

Google Maps, the online mapping service that incorporates Street View, is based on a product created in Sydney by Where 2 Technologies that was purchased by Google in 2004.

Mr Foster said the company’s ultimate goal was to have every road catalogued on Street View. Australia will be the country most covered by the technology, but there are notable exceptions.

Uluru will be absent from Google Street View Australia at launch. Google spokesperson Rob Shilkin said the search giant had applied for the relevant permits to photograph the Northern Territory, but that images of some areas were still being processed.

Street View Australia would be updated in “a few months” with more images, and Street View in general was updated “from time to time”, Mr Foster said.

The Google Street View fleet of cars – which company representatives made a point of identifying as Holden Astras – began capturing images across Australia last November.

In response to security concerns raised in the US, Google said last year its Street View service would not identify faces or license plates in Australia.

The company has recently introduced an automatic face-blurring technology designed to obscure the identities of people caught in the lens of Street View. Mr Shilkin said that the low resolution of images would prevent vehicle number plates from being identifiable.

Users can also report any Street View images they believe to be inappropriate through a link on the website. Mr Foster said it would take anywhere between a few minutes to “a day or so” to remove to offending images once they were reported.

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