Big Brother (Google) is Watching You!

[andyzee]

I always knew that Google had a great search engine and Google Earth was always cool, but yesterday I found something that I thought was mind blowing. Perhaps some of you have seen it, I haven't. I'm talking about the street view in Google Earth. I was able to get pics of my present residence, then I looked and found pics of my old one, saw different angles of my SUV as it was parked on the street. My wife looked for her friends house in Florida and actually saw her friends father sitting on the porch!. I'd like to know what their computer systems are like. These are pics of my SUV as found on Google Earth:

 

[BigJay]

I've used street view to look at a couple of trailhead on my last mountain bike trip in NH, MA, CT, RI, NY and NJ. A couple of places let me see what to look for when reaching your destination... You can even make a "trace" from one point to another and incorporate Street view. That way, you can see before getting there what the intersection will look like... Pretty impressive!

 

[hardline]

i have used this a few time when i was going somewhere for the first time. it is a little scarry.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Zee-man is also going to get jumped by a bunch of Costco receipt checkers and credit card company executives...lol

 

[Moe Ghoul]

Hey, my trash day is Thursday, too!

 

[andyzee]

Hey, my trash day is Thursday, too!

Those are not real time, and we haven't live there since May. But you did help me realize that it was a Wednesday because of trash and alternate side of the street parking. I also know it must have been last fall because I saw leaves starting to fall on the ground and I checked out gas stations for gas prices and they were in the 2.50 range.

 

[Dr Skimeister]

That looks like my brother's neighborhood. Caldwell?

 

[Moe Ghoul]

How are those images taken? The angle gives the impression they are in the middle of the road.

 

[andyzee]

That looks like my brother's neighborhood. Caldwell?

Kearny

 

[andyzee]

How are those images taken? The angle gives the impression they are in the middle of the road.

For the answer, we go to another internet information giant, wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Kearny

Oh man..I once got lost in Newark and ended up in that hole..

 

[hiroto]

This is what the Google's streetview van looks like:

http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~tebo/GoogleStreetViewVan/

They drive around continuously capturing 360 degree pictures while stamping the pictures with GPS coordinate.

 

[hardline]

Oh man..I once got lost in Newark and ended up in that hole..

kearny ain't that bad. frelinghuysen ave in newark is bad.

 

[o3jeff]

They just recently put up half of my town. The house numbers are a off a bit, but it is pretty remarkable what they can do.

 

[SkiDork]

Welcome to last year.

 

[andyzee]

Welcome to last year.

:lol: Yeah I know. After doing some research I see that was started in May of last year. I just stumbled on to it and thought it was pretty amazing. Those Google folks are nuts IMHO.

 

[drjeff]

I'm just waiting for the google ski run level view feature to go live!

 

[andyzee]

I'm just waiting for the google ski run level view feature to go live!

Great idea, get a patent/copyright!

 

[Philpug]

Kearny

I used to go out with a girl from Kearny.

 

[SkiDork]

:lol: Yeah I know. After doing some research I see that was started in May of last year. I just stumbled on to it and thought it was pretty amazing. Those Google folks are nuts IMHO.

Admittedly they've only added a lot of street level content very recently, like my street.