

Google Maps Street View capture... from a bike - fivebells
http://fivebells.livejournal.com/24977.html

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TrevorJ
Wow, that is awesome. I wonder if Google is working on actual hardware
"spiders" to crawl the real world.

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pavel_lishin
It would probably be easier and cheaper to make hardware for any given person
to wear. It's not like they'd have a shortage of volunteers.

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ulf
I cannot think of something more Big-Brother-like that every other person
wearing a 360° camera helmet. Given enough of those, you can visit every place
on earth virtually with live data, including everyone in that location.
Hooray...

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baxter
What you're describing sounds like sousveillance,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance>

Inverse surveillance is arguably a good way to combat authoritarian systems.

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vaksel
just goes to show that Google has no problem spending money to make a great
product, even better.

I mean how many people will actually use something like this? But for those
few, Google will be the only option

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83457
In the DC area there are various trails that you can use to bike to work (or
other recreational uses) however it is hard to actually map you route or see
if there is a cut through between a parallel road and the trail. I would use
this right now if I could.

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teuobk
There's a service called Cyclopath operated by the University of Minnesota
that's doing exactly that, albeit only for the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

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timcederman
I suspect Google is doing this for more reasons than "just because". Imagine
all the data they're collecting other than just pictures.

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alexkon
What data are they collecting?

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timcederman
Aside from the cameras, it's already known that they are using range-finding
sensors to map building shapes, and I'd be surprised if they weren't recording
GPS data to go along with the photos.

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andreyf
_I'd be surprised if they weren't recording GPS data to go along with the
photos_

Of course they are, that's how they know what street you're on ;)

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serhei
One thing people are missing is that using bikes doubles as escalation in the
arms race between Google and locals who don't want their neighborhoods to be
photographed with Street View. Considering that extreme cases of the conflict
included a situation where a human chain was formed to prevent the car from
driving into the area, it seems remotely possible that unpleasant incidents
might occur when some Neighbourhood Watch attempts increasingly hostile
measures to restrain an overzealous Street View cyclist who won't listen to
reason. While I don't know that the photographers' walking orders look like,
it seems like most of the cases involved photographers who were being flat-out
callous to the locals, making the situation more severe than necessary and
giving a bad name to their company. Since Google are the people suffering the
consequences and getting the resulting negative publicity, it's still Google's
problem. Google's PR, of course, isn't helping the matter when they act like
the locals don't have a legitimate concern in not wanting their property
mapped.

See, I recognize the usefulness of having access to this data, but it's still
personal data. It's not like it's impossible to construct a useful database of
locations in a manner respectful of local residents' privacy; but unexpected
issues always arise. The very mission statement of Google opens a
philosophical can of worms: "to index the world's information and make it
useful". Useful? Who to? How can you tell when making a piece of information
'useful' to one person becomes an affront to another person's human dignity?
This really is a problem for which, no matter how much one tries to foresee
complications, there's always some new issue popping up. Resolving the issue
requires a much greater amount of accountability - accountability to the
public whose information is being gathered and 'made useful' - than we can get
out of Google as a publically traded corporation. Heck, it arguably requires
much more accountability than we can currently get out of the United States'
_democratically elected government_ (otherwise we wouldn't be worrying about
things like wiretapping).

So certainly this Street View thing is all in the name of progress right now,
but I'm not certain that it's worth the while to humanity to be able to see
photos of bike paths in Google Maps before we've got some answers to the
accountability question.

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cdr
I saw one of those in LA 1.5 years ago, I don't think they're exactly new.

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dennmart
This past May I was on vacation in Orlando, Florida, and while visiting Sea
World, some Google employees were capturing the attractions inside the park
using this type of bike.

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nym
Actually, this isn't completely a new thing; It's just Google is doing it.

<http://openviewproject.org/>

Check out our fly ride! [http://openviewproject.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/08/polycy...](http://openviewproject.org/wp-
content/uploads/2008/08/polycycle.jpg)

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adharmad
One of the reasons why caving is an interesting sport is just that - no easy
way to capture all the imagery.

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JacobAldridge
Coming soon, Google Spelunking Cam

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mrinterweb
I'm waiting to see Juan Valdez and his trusty mule to be equipped with the
Google "Trail" View equipment.

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jacquesm
I hope they will be very careful where they park that bike in Amsterdam, with
all that gear on it it would be gone in less than 10 seconds.

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jrockway
Maybe take this up with the police department rather than HN? There's not much
we can do about it.

