Last week, Google Street View turned 15:
Fifteen years ago, Street View began as a far-fetched idea from Google co-founder Larry Page to build a 360-degree map of the entire world. Fast forward to today: There are now over 220 billion Street View images from over 100 countries and territories — a new milestone — allowing people to fully experience what it's like to be in these places right from their phone or computer. And Street View doesn't just help you virtually explore, it's also critical to our mapping efforts — letting you see the most up-to-date information about the world, while laying the foundation for a more immersive, intuitive map.
While that's all worth celebrating, we aren't stopping there. Today, we're unveiling Street View's newest camera, giving you more ways to explore historical imagery, and taking a closer look at how Street View is powering the future of Google Maps.
Admittedly, the piece reads more like an ad for their new camera, but there's no denying the tool has its place in modern society. Here's a fun idea, ask any Millennial or Gen Z if they know how to read a map.
Also at XDA, DailyMail, and a decent discussion at YCombinator Hacker News. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
[Ed.: there were a lot of interesting things that people found in the early days before Google has to start blurring faces and license plates --hubie]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @02:57AM
Can't find aristarchus on Street View anymore, even if you look around Samos. He as been blurred, banned, bundled, and bifurcated. Google only did this at SoylentNews's request. But if you do a quick search for "tranny penis for lunch", you will end up here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:19AM (5 children)
Google maps
It hasn't worked for me for years.
I considered it gone, for all intents and purposes.
A Google thing. Here today, gone tomorrow, marketing designed to influence the freshly minted MBA.
It doesn't work on my brand new android, but everyone else's maps do.
I rely on a 10 year old maps.me program for critical stuff. Like when I am lost and don't know where I am. It used to be on F-Droid. Gone now. But it still works. I've copied it onto all my other phones. There is a little trick to telling the app where the .mwm files are, but once you get it right, you will never be lost again.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @04:29AM (2 children)
It's not gone and works for 99% of people. It's probably some aspiect of your tech autism that is causing the problem.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @04:49AM (1 child)
Not GP, but when my phone still had google closed source software on it, I had similar issues. If you denied google play services permission to spy on every move you made, google's other apps would act up. At first, they would just nag you with BS messages about mail etc., not working if you didn't let google play services have access to your heart monitor, location, and everything else on your phone. Later, Google's apps, including Maps, started refusing to run.
Seemed like google saying, "Choose. Submit or leave." I left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @04:36AM
And yet... here you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:41PM
It works for me, but it glitches in a weird way. If I pan with my mouse, sometimes it keeps panning and locks in to a pan-spin. There's no way to stop the spin without closing the tab. It's just like the unrecoverable flat spins that some planes get in to. This has been true with every version of FireFox the past few years on a Windows PC. I hardly ever use Chrome so I'm not sure about that, and I don't dare fire up IE as it's basically asking to be compromised.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday June 06 2022, @12:42AM
Google Calendar doesn't work for me on Chromium.
Works fine on Firefox.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @04:02AM (1 child)
> before Google has to start blurring faces and license plates
I gather that blurring was a knee-jerk demand from countries like Australia and the UK.
It's still good for checking if my ex who started berating me for not thinking Property Investment was Cool, still lives with her parents. The car out the front is still identifiable from its make and model.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:26PM
> The car out the front
Have you checked the date on the Google photo? The image of my house is from 2017...shows two cars that we used to own...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:26AM (2 children)
Hell, I'm a stuck in the mud, and even I use Street View. It is actually a useful tool. Not on a toy cell phone, though. If I'm going somewhere I haven't been before, I'll follow the route on street view, and that usually give me a good idea of what to expect. I do that on a fast desktop computer with a decent internet connection. If I have to look down at a map, even a paper one, while I am driving, I have done something wrong.
At the moment it works fairly well in NewMoon for XP, point being it should work on almost every desktop computer without too much hassle. Also at the moment, it does not try to do too much to rape my eyes.
The big question, however, is why has this not yet been monetized out the yingyang? Why have they not borked this so that it only works in the latest Gurgle Crumb? Why is it not dripping with advertisments for Brawndo, or whatever? Why has it not become a subscription service that you have to pay for?
I assume they do get money for placing businesses on Google Maps. Perhaps they don't want to upset what they have? But we all know bean counters can wring much more money out of our eyeballs. I am also assuming there is plenty of tracking going on, but I don't have to log in with a Google Account to use it, or feed it GPS coordinates.
Some businesses actually rely on Google Maps and Street View for looking up locations for whatever their data needs are. Seems like a good excuse for squeezing more money by requiring corporate accounts, and then blasting eye raping advertising out to everyone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @07:04AM
Once went into a big city looking for a specific address - and even with a stop in a nearby newsagent for look at the map book there - got where I needed to go - so much more useful is the goodgle street view - but like you also better browsing before the on-road experience. Is actually a nice way to holiday expecially during lockdown, but somewhat ruined by the auto=bluring.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday June 06 2022, @01:52PM
Valid question. My completely non-professional guess is that street view is a by-product of improving maps, which definitely is being commercialized. To me, Google Maps is what the Yellowpages was when I was in grade school. There is also the Waymo aspect; I know Waymo is a separate group but having accurate maps and business locations is critical self-driving.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday June 05 2022, @06:13AM
gather first rate information for burglars, and getting pelted by angry residents who don't want their faces or properties photographed by a corporate surveillance giant since 2007.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @11:35AM
So are we going to be blessed with a story about products every 5th increment?
Does that somehow have ANY relevance?
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Sunday June 05 2022, @12:33PM
A nice big resounding meh. I think I maybe used it twice since it came into existence cause I was visiting a place I'd never been too before so I didn't have to walk around in circles trying to find the place.
It really is a technical marvel, but it's so badly overshadowed by Google's overall incompetence that I can't bring myself to care.
What would make a really good news story? Google actually creates a new product and _sticks_ with it, instead of treating their products and customers like a toddler /w rich parents treats their toys.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:14PM (4 children)
I do enjoy kicking the kids now and then. But, let's be fair about this. There are still hordes of Baby Boomers who never learned to read a map. Approach old folk individually with a map, and act lost. Some will respond appropriately, by orienting the map, getting his/her bearings, then showing you on the map what you are looking for. But, not nearly all.
Many people have always relied on oral directions. That is, oral directions that may or may not be accurate.
"Just keep going the way you are, and about twelve blocks up, you'll see 'Aunt Gina's Beauty Salon' on your right. You want to make a left right there. Go through 3 red lights, and at the next corner, there's no traffic light, you make a right. Go past the school, and turn right before the park, and you're there!"
This is a large part of the reason that Americans in general suck at geography.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:33PM (1 child)
Last time I was given directions like, "...you'll see 'Aunt Gina's Beauty Salon'..." it was from a young engineer who was slightly overweight.
Every landmark was a restaurant or grocery store, "Turn left at the McDonalds" or "Two blocks after the Wendy's turn right".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:48PM
To be a bit more fair, those kind of landmarks are often very visible and located at intersections.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:49PM
Those kinds of directions were always particularly infuriating, especially when I was a courier. Miss one landmark, and you're screwed vs. a map which can get you back on course because it contains more information. We almost always had an address. We had maps. Almost always, those directions were pointless but you had to listen for two reasons. First, you don't want to be rude to customers. Time is money, but relationships are gold. Secondly, there was that tiny fraction of places where the directions were key--hidden driveway, unusual intersection with a tricky turn, and especially rural routes with no street address (not sure if that still exists).
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday June 06 2022, @12:47AM
I've always wondered if the inability to read a map is correlated with aphantasia.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:26PM (1 child)
allowing people to fully experience what it's like to be in these places right from their phone or computer. And Street View doesn't just help you virtually explore, it's also critical to our mapping efforts — letting you see the most up-to-date information about the world
Didn't read TFA, but trust me, streetview does not allow anyone to "fully experience what it's like to be in these places". And, honestly, once you leave North America it's even worse, with very old, or very incomplete image collection.
And as for "up to date," is that less than two years? Five years? Since that apartment block was torn down and replaced?
Streetview is yet another example of Google buying/inventing something truly wonderful and novel, then allowing it to turn into a frustrating and questionable tool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @04:45AM
To be fair, you're asking for a service that costs a lot of money to maintain. To google's credit, they spent the up-front cost to see if it would fly - it doesn't. It's too expensive to maintain. What would you do?