
Google Street View now includes interiors - mikeocool
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.742568,-117.820365&spn=0.004853,0.013561&sll=33.742814,-117.816672&layer=c&cid=7704649002191693046&panoid=qHPoNvOZOYBaFsE0vGCa5A&cbp=13,127.37,,0,11.85&gl=us&hq=comic+book+store+orange+county&t=h&vpsrc=0&cbll=33.742848,-117.816622&z=17
======
nkurz
Here's another one:
<http://maps.google.com/?q=Scream%20Sorbet,%20Oakland,%20CA>

This one's my business. They came to shoot the interior as a perk for
participating in a "Google Offer". I think this is how they are rolling it
out, at least in the Bay Area. To me, the results came out fine, although I
worry that it now makes "casing the joint" a little easier.

It took them two visits to get it right. The first time apparently had some
silly technical glitch where the automatic processor didn't stitch the photos
together correctly. It took maybe 20-30 minutes for the full visit, which
would make doing this universally quite a chore.

~~~
joshu
I can't figure out how to get inside your store. I feel a bit like I am
playing badly-designed video game.

Also, you own a food business!?? I am fascinated by the idea, can you talk
more about it?

~~~
jwallaceparker
> I can't figure out how to get inside your store. I feel a bit like I am
> playing badly-designed video game.

lol me too.

------
BSeward
Love the idea, but the Street View UI has never felt all that fun to use and
it feels worse indoors. Walking around a shop or mall at Street View
pace—12-ish steps for every press of a small, non-fixed arrow—is something I
hope I never have a reason to do.

The pancake ([http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/04/introducing-the-pancake-
a-l...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/04/introducing-the-pancake-a-less-
annoying-way-to-move-through-google-street-view/)) and the city-scale of
things make moving on streets more tolerable (though Legoland is not bad:
[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=legoland&hl=en&ll=33.1...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=legoland&hl=en&ll=33.127451,-117.310389&spn=77.42549,111.621094&sll=37.78875,-122.4176&sspn=0.009818,0.013626&vpsrc=6&hq=legoland&radius=15000&t=v&z=3&layer=c&panoid=v9MxPqkuglORfTXUMpxn0A&cbll=33.127451,-117.310389&cbp=13,-7.751031121039244,,0,11.516451682129372)),
what's the interface for person-scale, cramped interior navigation? Until
there's a solid answer this doesn't seem very enjoyable.

~~~
scottmp10
You can double click on the ground to move to that spot, or on the side of a
building to move there and look at that spot. I see that indoors you cannot do
this, but hopefully they will add it.

~~~
BSeward
Yeah, that's the "pancake". It works in street-level view because there's 3D
spatial data to help bound navigable regions, and because when you're at
street-scale you don't mind being a little off. In this comic bookery or in
any cramped space I feel like I'd need slightly higher fidelity.

------
kb101
This set me to imagining: every item in the store is dropped into a box before
being put on the shelf. The box contains cameras on every interior face to
snap a set of 360° views of the item. The UPC code is scanned and entered into
inventory. The item goes on the shelf. If sold, the sale removes that item
from inventory.

Each night after store closing, a Store View bot roams the aisles taking
pictures and updating for the next day.

You browse to the store on Google Street View, go inside with Store View, and
if you see an item you like, you draw a box around it and ask the image search
algorithm to look for a match based on appearance. It finds the item, tells
you how much it costs, and gives you the option to buy it.

Stores would get some basic frequency (annual?) of scan free, more frequent
scans or keeping a bot on premises to scan every night would cost more.
Integration of the online store would have a fee attached to every purchase.
Prices and discounts could be updated daily and there could be different
incentives for online vs. in-store purchases.

As data storage and computational power get cheaper and cheaper, and image
recognition algorithms get more sophisticated, this would seem to be a
potential outcome. A package of algorithms could even be marketed as a store
manager: moving stock that has sat on the shelf too long with discounts,
predicting what will require reorders soonest, integration with price
comparison engines to analyze competitiveness, etc. Once imagery is
dissectable and searchable in the same way that language is, things could get
very interesting very fast.

~~~
redler
Through this idea, Google turns brick-and-mortar stores into the equivalent of
an Amazon distribution warehouse. The result could be a highly decentralized
Amazon alternative with Google's imprimatur, grown from the bottom up.

~~~
kb101
And while Amazon is stuck with maintaining both computer and physical
infrastructure, Google will have effectively offloaded the physical
infrastructure to the free market. Not only that, but while Amazon must seek
economies of scale and efficiency at every point of the distribution network,
Google can leverage the irrationality and inefficiency inherent in a
distribution network composed of individual retail outlets. In the same way
that eBay doesn't have to worry about packing up and shipping millions of
disparate items, it just takes a fee off the top for delivering the sale.

I wonder about the benefits versus the costs to stores. Though you can already
walk into a retail store and Google up an item on your phone to see if it's
cheaper somewhere else... and you can already search for reviews of an item
online, etc. I guess what is interesting here is that Google is delivering the
physicality of a store to your screen; so conceivably some walk-ins that might
have occurred just to check a place out will now occur online. On the flip
side, turning every retail outlet into a 24 hour business has got to have some
appeal.

Going really crazy with this, looking ahead to Google's driverless cars
getting approval to run without a safety driver on board, you could Store View
to your favorite cafe, put in your order for the caffeinated beverage of your
choice, have the Google car drop by, the barista puts the drinks in a carrier
in the back seat, the car picks up some Chinese food, energy bars, and a pair
of earphones for you on the way back, you get a text telling you to go outside
to pick everything up, you scan your GoogleID into the car, get your stuff,
head back into the office and prepare to code all night. If you are so
inclined, you drop a few bucks into the online tip jars of the coffee shop and
restaurant. Based on your tip ratio, the star rating of the establishments in
question are bumped up ever so slightly.

Google has the computers, cameras, and cars to take over the world of running
errands.

~~~
AJ007
One of the phrases I've started using is, in the future you don't have to talk
to anyone.

You see this already with the self-checkouts at stores. You walk in, grab what
you want, check out and leave without talking to anyone. This is just the
start of a torrent of low level automation. At some point there is not a lot
left to do.

~~~
kb101
What amazes me is that we are seeing this happen around us so rapidly; near-
total automation is on the visible horizon.

"At some point there is not a lot left to do" reminds me of the story "With
Folded Hands" by Jack Williamson.
<http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780312852535-0>

------
recampbell
The most interesting part comes when they start indexing these images so that
you can search products (and prices) within stores. The tech is mostly there
(see google goggles).

Then you can answer the question "Where's the closest store with jumper
cables?" Or really, "show me where the jumper cables are."

A very big map reduce job, but seems feasible.

~~~
b_emery
I've often wanted to google the location of items within Home Depot for
example. That would be way easier than asking someone, who often doesnt know
the answer!

~~~
cbr
I used to be too timid to ask employees, but since I've gotten over that I've
usually found that they do know where things are.

~~~
cracell
Not at Home Depot. The employees there tend to only know where things are in
one small section of the store. And for other sections they send you on a wild
goose chase where every employee you ask tells you a completely different
section and you cannot find what you are looking for in any of them.

~~~
teach
I'm sure this varies wildly by locale. In Austin, most employees I've ever
asked anything pretty much knew.

------
sethg
They blurred the face of the guy in the store, but not the faces on the comic-
book covers. Interesting.

~~~
danielamitay
Although I agree that most comic faces are left unblurred--when I look at some
(perhaps 15%) of the faces visible, they are without a doubt blurred. They
tend to be the ones that are forward-facing, without facial hair, and natural
skin colors.

Example: Take a look at the GI Joe comic on your right all the way at the end.

------
shimfish
Is this an Easter Egg? When I zoomed out I couldn't find a way to get back in.

~~~
mikeleeorg
If you clicked the white "backwards" arrow to zoom out and see the storefront
(along with neighboring stores), click the "forwards" arrow to get back into
the store.

~~~
shimfish
I zoomed out to the normal satellite view. I could then only get street view
on the roads and not the shop.

~~~
fez
You have to click on the link to the stores Place Page on the left then under
the mini map on the right you will see rotating images, click that and bam!

------
sharkman
And the store owners will be able to put on digital price tags and ads, and
viewers may click to buy online... next thing you know, you and your friend
are "sitting" inside a restaurant on google "store" view and eating the food
delivered from that place...

~~~
pavel_lishin
And suddenly, I want to re-read Snow Crash.

And also have a digital assistant whose ethnicity changes based on who wanders
into my virtual business.

------
droz
I'd like to see a "Local Product" search come out of this.

Allow businesses to integrate their inventory systems with Google so that I
can search for a copy of Strictly Turntablized and see that a used CD shop
down the street has a copy.

Have the results include how many copies they have on hand, the price of the
item, information about how to reserve the item and where I might find it in
the store (floor, isle, shelf) if I choose to just run over there.

------
exogen
I'm most impressed with the stitching and lack of the typical fisheye
distortion effect that plagues 3D views like this. Almost every possible view
looks like a normal photo. Well done!

~~~
NakedRobot
The "fisheye distortion effect that plagues 3D views like this" that you
describe is nothing of the sort. You are talking about a very wide angle of
view. These images have a limited FOV, and it's not possible to zoom out so
much that you get such distortion.

Actually it is not fisheye distortion that you describe at all - it is a
rectilinear projection, and it's this type of projection that looks bad in a
wide FOV. A fisheye projection looks much _more_ natural if you are looking at
a view with 110º FOV.

These things are not "distortion" at all but merely different projections of a
spherical image on a flat surface. There is no "correct" way.

You can right-click on this panorama to change projection and understand more
what I'm talking about. <http://www.360cities.net/image/a-busy-morning>

~~~
exogen
I realize that, just wasn't sure of how to describe it which is why I tacked
on "effect" (might not be the actual type of distortion, but to a user the
appearance is similar). From a user's perspective it most definitely does look
wrong even though there is technically no "correct" way. Thanks for the link!

------
arepb
I like them plotting more of the Y axis points of place. But I really look
forward to the day when we can move on X, seeing the changes in these over
time.

~~~
_delirium
There are a few research projects to reconstruct historical views by
automatically aligning and extracting building outlines from old photographs,
e.g. this one from a few years ago: <http://4d-cities.cc.gatech.edu/atlanta/>

Google presumably has a ton of data to do it going forward somewhat more
easily, though, if filling in pre-streetview periods isn't a priority.

------
ctdonath
Over time, the problem of maintenance overwhelms usability. Like the street
view, but to a greater degree now, comes the problem of keeping those
googlebytes of data updated ahead of looming obsolescence. Cool I can go in a
store and look around...but what updates store change or - worse - closure?

ETA: puzzled by downvotes. Satellite views can be updated on a regular basis
with relative ease by a largely passive system, and what's imaged is rather
static; street view updates come with re-driving every road which ain't easy
or cheap and may need more frequent updates; interiors change even more often
and imagery/data cost much more per byte to maintain. Sure, interior views are
cool - what's the cost of obtaining, and more important maintaining, them?

~~~
aerosuch
I think the 360 Pano guys have a potential solution for the update challenge:
<http://www.occipital.com/360/verse>

I'm curious what long-term incentive would be for updates, though.

------
trevin
More info from Google - <http://maps.google.com/help/maps/businessphotos/>

------
mattgeb
I started a company a few years ago to capitalize on being able do shoot high
quality, 360 interiors. Started out shooting exteriors and then Google Street
view popped up, so we needed to figure out how to do something different. We
developed technology to mass produce high quality 360 panoramas and integrate
a social tagging component (click on the shoe in the store to get information
about it and buy it or click on a bench downtown and post about the special
moment that occurred on it).

Here is the site if anyone is interested: <http://walkspots.com/beta/>

Long time HN reader, but this is my first post.

------
hugh3
So is there anything other than this one comic book store an Legoland San
Diego available? How can we find 'em? I'd love to go for a stroll through,
say, the British Museum.

~~~
eternalmatt
<http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/nationalgallery>

------
duairc
Haha, wow. I use Google Street View a lot for scouting out empty buildings (I
squat for housing). It would be amazing if you could see the inside of them
without having to break in to do so!

------
johnbatch
The Guitar Shop is awesome,
[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Gruhn+Guitars+Inc&hl=en...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Gruhn+Guitars+Inc&hl=en&ll=36.160399,-86.776124&spn=0.005786,0.008905&sll=36.160983,-86.777265&layer=c&cid=609519256254457243&panoid=3w450W0PAZ-
wHXPu3s-i-g&cbp=13,290.98,,0,3.77&hq=Gruhn+Guitars+Inc&cbll=36.160983,-86.777265&t=h&z=17&vpsrc=0)

Go outside and lots of people walking around with blurred faces.

------
taylorbuley
Yes, I would shop here
[http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.742817,-117.8166&spn=0...](http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.742817,-117.8166&spn=0.005478,0.009645&sll=33.742814,-117.816672&layer=c&cid=7704649002191693046&panoid=WfsqM62TX
--
7pc0ZZEGxAA&cbp=13,205.36,,0,37.08&gl=us&hq=comic+book+store+orange+county&t=h&vpsrc=0&cbll=33.742817,-117.8166&z=17)

(Yay deeplinking)

------
rplnt
This reminded me of quite interesting talk about bing maps:
<http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html>

They too showed some interior and (I think) talked about "mapping" it. The
talk is almost two years old so it suprised me that it's new in google maps.
But I don't know if it's actually used in bing maps as I don't use them (just
for the bird-eye occasionally).

------
MikeGrace
Interesting to see this on HN since I blogged about this a few weeks ago.
[http://geek.michaelgrace.org/2011/10/google-street-view-
in-y...](http://geek.michaelgrace.org/2011/10/google-street-view-in-your-
stores/) Not sure exactly when Google first started doing this but I like it.

------
siestetix
This is one of the Google Maps new features I suggested during my phone
interview for a job in Google almost two years ago... their choice to reject
my application didn't make much sense to me back at the time, but right now it
makes no sense at all!!

------
MikeGrace
Love the simplicity of their setup (camera on tripod on wheels)
[https://skitch.com/mikegrace/gds67/screen-
shot-2011-10-26-at...](https://skitch.com/mikegrace/gds67/screen-
shot-2011-10-26-at-11.41.54-am)

~~~
Splines
I wonder where the operator has to stand. Maybe it takes it one side at a
time?

Otherwise you'd see camera guys hiding behind trees and such, which is an
amusing thought.

------
studgeek
I do think the interior is the next big push, but its not grabbing historical
photos - its interior location so you can target ads in real-time and real-
location. Manga, produce, housewares, TVs?

------
mattmiller
Pretty soon video games will use street view to create their maps.

------
ExpiredLink
"Google - Indoors" for privately-owned houses and flats:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EhK4jW8HYo> (in German)

------
thesash
If you look straight down in the linked shot you can see that they are using a
camera on a tripod in lieu of the previous backpack or cart mounted multi-
camera rigs

~~~
mdda
Even clearer from the shadow outside :
[http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.742845,-117.816621&spn...](http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.742845,-117.816621&spn=0.006343,0.007778&sll=33.742814,-117.816672&layer=c&cid=7704649002191693046&panoid=AjKeVCGAFiRzFSj7QOTd1w&cbp=13,326.95,,0,63.31&gl=us&hq=comic+book+store+orange+county&t=h&vpsrc=0&cbll=33.743,-117.816917&z=17)

------
genieyclo
@ahmetalpbalkan

Good point, I cannot find this anywhere else at the moment.

btw, you've been hellbanned for about 52 days now, so no one can see your
comments unless they have showdead=on.

~~~
barrkel
@ahmetalpbalkan comment on hating Lisp books seems to have done it; your karma
average is only .22.

~~~
noodle
could also be the fact that most of his submissions are from his own site.

------
mrmasa
Wow, if those shown stuffs will be searchable and we can run e-commerce, such
technology might completely change our world. Interesting.

------
sundar22in
Looks innovative.

Userinterface needs some improvement, how about using a mouse wheel to
navigate forward/backword. Move mouse left/right to turn.

~~~
jakeonthemove
You can move forward/backwards/anywhere an arrow points using the arrows on
the keyboard and look up/down/left/right with the WASD keys - much better than
clicking with the mouse :-).

------
ww520
This actually is pretty cool. Two wishful additions:

\- Indoor navigation.

\- Integration of live video streams at location.

~~~
aerosuch
There are a few startups working on the Indoor Navigation part:
[http://www.qubulus.com/2011/06/07/the-indoor-positioning-
mar...](http://www.qubulus.com/2011/06/07/the-indoor-positioning-market-
shaped-list-of-indoor-positioning-companies/)

------
webXL
sweet, that's pretty close to where I grew up. What other places can I "walk"
into?

I dragged the little guy around, and all it shows are streets that I can view
(even a parking lot, which seems pretty retarded).

------
6ren
Now, just need click-to-purchase, and we have a virtual store.

------
swah
This might be good for finding places in theaters and planes.

------
phrasemix
This sucks. I can't even open the pages of the comics!

------
sethbannon
Anyone have any ideas on what caused the phantom cars?

------
thentic
Something along these lines was predicted 2 years ago. Remember the Google
Maps is Scary video?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyjms9W8PCc>

------
cgarvey
Google Peep View?

------
mrmasa
This will be "Earth Mall"

------
riotgibbon
that bike outside isn't locked ...

~~~
mironathetin
now thats the kind of information we want to know. When do we get real-time?

------
pulselabs
what?! its not april 1st yet...

------
mrchess
If I were a business I would OPT OUT of this immediatley.

The only thing I can parallel this too is Googling your date before the first
date. Going in knowing too much can often ruin the fun or the mystery of
discovery.

Sure it might save you from "bad experiences", but we need bad experiences in
life to really value the good ones!

~~~
recampbell
On the other hand, being able to share links to products in a specific store
may have interesting effects. Imagine someone writing a Facebook post about
dress they found, and linking directly to it in the store. Or some viral
twitter post. Once that happens a few times, stores will be paying companies
to keep their interior up to date on Google.

------
samtp
Now I have everything I need to plan a robbery. I can see the setup of the
store and the best getaway route, all without having to step foot in the store
before the robbery!

~~~
jeffreyg
no one was stopping you from putting on sunglasses and a hat and walking
around the store before this

