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The Google Street View Car was in West Easton this past August. With everything West Easton faces this year I thought I might lighten it up a bit and show you some of what Google captures when the Google View Car comes through a town and snaps its panoramic images.

First, for those unaware, Google Maps does more than provide trip directions and a satellite view of the address you search for. Almost everywhere you can take a stroll along the streets, looking in any direction relative to your position.

This is accomplished by the Google Street View Car that snaps millions of images during its journey, using GPS for its exact location and lasers to measure distance, in order to reconstruct the exact route it took and compute speed, direction of travel, and depth of the objects in relation to each other.

Further, a recently implemented program is run during reconstruction of the route to identify facial images and license plates that are then blurred for privacy concerns.

When Google first sent out the car in 2007 a lot of complaints came back to them about images captured showing personal information including being able to recognize an individual. With the new program, that rarely happens and there is even an option to inform Google that you want your entire body, or even your entire vehicle blurred from the route.

Others want anything but that.

One of the most well known is the images of two men in Norway who chased the Google car around town and were pretty successful in finding themselves on the Google Maps Street View that landed on the Internet. Dressed in scuba diving wet suits, complete with masks (to eliminate facial blurring), flippers, and pitchforks, they followed the car in their hometown, or took up a position on lawn chairs and waited for the car to come to them. Due to the notoriety they received Google has since blurred them completely out of most images, but a few still remain relatively untouched.

They can be found by going to Google Maps and entering, “Rugdeveien 39, Bergen, Norway” on the Map search, going to ground level and looking around.

Other images are caught that weren’t planned. Most involve public urination, but others involve people doing things that they wouldn’t have been doing if they knew Google was going to take a picture of it.

Some are just opportunistic. Middle fingers, men mooning, and women flashing their breasts are the more common.

Then there were obvious staged situations. The most controversial involved a youth that appeared as though he was going to shoot another with a gun, which raised an uproar from people who believed it happened. They later admitted it was all staged in anticipation of the Google car.

To see a collection of 36 images that give a good sampling of what Google View has captured, Click Here.

For those like me who want to do something crazy for the Google View Car, we missed our opportunity this past August when it rolled into town and updated the area. I failed to check the website that informs people where the cars (that’s plural, as there is obviously more than one) currently are. If you are interested in a current location visit the Google Maps Home website and click on the link near the bottom. If you have family or friends in the area, tell them to wave, “hello.”

Google has also started using their technology for walking individuals. A unit is now available in backpack form and has begun trekking through National Forests and other remote areas that aren’t accessible by vehicles.

So how did West Easton do? A few people got caught.

My neighbor can be seen mowing his lawn, while his neighbors son sits watching him work, as usual. My neighbors dog, Toby, lounges on his swing seat waiting for beer.

 

For information on how to use Google Maps to its full advantage, or even take a walk around town (or Paris, Rome, or even The Grand Canyon) without having to get up from your seat, the video below will explain it all.