Real technology should feel like magic
- 11 March 2010 01:4542946So it's past midnight and Google Street View for the UK has just gone live!
Give it a go here :-http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q
Type in your address. Drag the little yellow man to your road and have a look what your house looks like.
Enjoy! - 11 March 2010 03:1542948Extraordinary. I am sitting in my cabin on the Maersk Dover looking at my front door. Pan up and down the street and I can see my car. Swivel round through 360 degrees and look at the grass bank on the other side of the road. Angle up and look at the top floors on the house. As you say, magic, and perhaps a tad perturbing.
- 11 March 2010 03:3042950Great stuff. I`ve been up and down my street and round the front and back garden. These images were taken on a Friday last Summer, due to rubbish bags around, plus our cherry tree in full bloom. Just like magic.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered. - 11 March 2010 09:2742957Excellent, trying to spot myself at the mo !!Been nice knowing you :)
- 11 March 2010 09:3042959Magic indeed, but am I the only one to feel a little uncomfortable with this?
- 11 March 2010 09:3642960Incredable - I can see my business sign in my garden and zoom in to read it!!
- 11 March 2010 09:4742962Great stuff, but cannot get into the back garden.
- 11 March 2010 10:2442969Cool
- 11 March 2010 13:2542986the whole thing give me the creeps, too many cameras around by far.
if they helped to reduce crime i would be more likely to be in favour. - 11 March 2010 14:2442997this has come up before, but why worry, you can only see things from the street that you can see anyway (will help me investigate my postcards
).
What is more of the worry and it has been available for years are birds eye views where you can see gardens etc that you wouldn't usually see (though you can from Dover from the various hills anyway)Been nice knowing you :) - 11 March 2010 14:2842998Depends what you get up to in the back garden Scotchie. I'm either playing with the dog, cutting the grass, or sitting reading a good book with a glass of something elkaholic and of course, my ciggies.
- 12 March 2010 21:3943132Sid, I know your comment is tongue-in-cheek but to put a serious spin on it, it really should not matter what you get up to in your own garden, you should be able to get up to it without worrying about it ending up on f*****g Google! I think that this system is atrocious and also highly useless. I am not happy that my house is on Google like this.
It's a false argument to suggest that it's just stuff you can see anyway. So are car number plates, children's faces, and corporate adverts, but these things generally have to be edited off / pixellated when PUBLISHED without the relevant consent / release documents being signed or approved. Who the hell approved Google to publish very detailed images of my home online? I sure didn't.
We have CCTV everywhere but CCTV officers have to operate with certain restrictions in place in the realm of private dwellings. I have seen this with my own eyes in the local office, their CCTV cameras are obscured if they point at private dwellings so that the operator cannot possibly zoom into any windows. Looking at the Google street view, I was able to easily see into MANY windows, some in great detail. Surely this cannot be right?
Furthermore, what the hell use is this thing? I don't consider myself "fuddy duddy" as I am a champion of the world wide web, I have always believed in it and I love it. I use the web for just about everything. But why would I want to wander down suburbs peering into windows and gardens? Google Street View is just high tech voyeurism that has no practical application that I can think of unless you are either a very bored individual who never, ever goes out or a terrorist wanting some simple armchair reconnaissance.
Google have yet again taken our privacy and taken a huge shit on it from a great height, like they always do.
I haven't found any info on this website about Street View yet (I dare say it will arrive) but this website is worth a look:
www.google-watch.org - 12 March 2010 22:1843137