CinnamonGirl

This may be a silly and kind of outdated question, but I got on Google Maps today to get directions. I used to use Mapquest, until recently when it gave me completely ridiculous directions... but that's another story.

Anyway, so I noticed Google offers pics of some of the streets you're driving down. THEN I noticed there was a pic of my driveway, and I was able to rotate it. Then I started laughing, because there was my stepdad, taking out the trash.

I know the picture was fairly recent, because my stepdad has the same haircut. It's at least a few months old, though, because the trees in our front yard that are in the picture got blown down/otherwise broken during the big windstorm in September.

Right, so... how do they get the pics? Is some guy driving around in a van, all over, snapping pictures and sending them in? ( I want that job.) Do they have a superawesome satellite that can zoom in that closely?

And, have you found anything amusing while looking for directions? Pictures of yourself, perhaps, or neighbors or pets?

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"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Daniel_

They have special cars with 360 degree camera arrays.

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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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highthief

Not sure about your question, but Google Maps gave me directions the other day that were utterly wrong. Trying to find a seniors centre, Google sent me into the middle of a forest.

Can't get rid of my Perly's just yet!

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MSD

They contract it out to these guys. There's a picture of the cars they use on the page.
Immersive Media - About Us

mrklixx

Now I know which cars to flip off!

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I hate animated avatars.

MSD

That way there will be irreefutable evidence that you're an asshole until someone complains and Google blurs it

mrklixx

I'm an asshole? Really? OK. Duly noted.

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I hate animated avatars.

genuinegirly

I was wondering who they had driving around for that.
The other day, while exploring Google Maps "Street View" we came across a few streets in Ohio where the images were crooked and confusing. Usually they're pretty good, oh well.

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Vigilante

I found my dad on there as well. Definitely made me laugh.

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MSD

Actually, I'm not sure. I'm keeping track of where the Google cars have been and hoping that I'm home to moon one of them when it goes by.

inBOIL

Apparently, there was a man caught exiting a strip club somewhere in San Francisco when this feature first came out.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

ratbastid

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SecretMethod70

niiiiiiiiiiiiiice

what city?

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

BadNick

hmmm, damn 1st Amendment! ?




I wish I knew when they drove by my house. When I look it up on street view, neither my driveway nor my neighbors have any cars which seems a very rare moment for us.

ItWasMe

Cinnamon Girl, have you tried playing with Google Earth?

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CinnamonGirl

I haven't... but I think I will now.


(for the record, I think I still had dialup when all this stuff went mainstream, so I didn't really get a chance to play with it. Yay for finally getting high speed internets!)

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"...for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world."


"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Nimetic

I'm just waiting for them to send cars through war-zones and the starving bits of Africa.

For sure if I was writing a near-future sci-fi book, I'd have some scenes where these cars sort of doddled on by. Dunno. Maybe there'd be a brief pause or something while everyone poses for their minute of fame - maybe a last testament to a poor life before expiring from malnutrition or gunfire.

Sorry... it's just my grim thought there.

Anyways I've never seen one of these vehicles. I'm sorta hoping that it's a slightly comical small car - akin to a budget pizza delivery van.

ratbastid

Not all that exciting:

lotsofmagnets

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mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor.
she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?