StarTribune.com reports that North Oaks, Minnesota, a small suburb of Minneapolis, has requested that Street View for their entire town be removed. Because these streets are supposedly private property, Google removed them immediately.
Techlosofy reports that another Spanish city, Valencia, has been found to have some Street View cars roaming around. Valencia is among the four Spanish cities that (so far) we know will have Street View probably sometime next year.
This video posted on YouTube on May 27, 2008, shows the Google Street View Astra driving through the streets of Sevilla, Spain. Expect many European cities coming on Street View by or in 2009; there will be many.
The South Hill Enterprise reports a sighting of the Google Street View car in South Hill, Virginia, which is located in between Richmond and Raleigh. The newspaper contacted a Google, Inc., representative, who said that Street View imagery was still being updated in a variety of areas.
Why South Hill, Virginia? This could mean there will be quite a handful of more locations in this upcoming batch we've been waiting months for.
There has lately been a lot of chatter about this view south of Chicago on Street View:
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Yes, that's someone pointing a gun at another kid. Some people were shocked that the Google driver didn't pull over and do something, but what many of them don't know is that it is only a water gun. So don't worry, they're just playing.
Whew!
UPDATE: This Street View has been removed by Google. :(
Today, Sunday, May 25th, 2008, is the first anniversary of Google Street View. In the past year, Google Street View provided us with Street View for over 800 cities, and 43 locations:
Also, 6 online real estate services have integrated Street View into their websites:
The best news of all? 1 Boring lawsuit, 0 Boring court holdings.
Happy First Anniversary, Street View!
PeekaCity.com, a real estate mapping website, has added Street View to their maps.
The website works like Google Earth, with different placemarks for different amenities. A Street View button, spelled "Streetview", is now available for currently available Street View locations.
Google is really rushing to get the Street View for Europe complete. We can tell because Street View cars have been spotted in Madrid and Barcelona, according to Learning Light - Researching Online. This adds it to the list of upcoming Street View countries:
Along with each of my math-based predictions is an alternate set. The predictions on the right sidebar have been updated to the alternate set, although there will probably be more than 7 locations.
It usually takes Google an average of four days per Street View location.
Great news! A fleet of Google Street View Astras has been found in the Netherlands, and you know what those cars will be doing soon.
As you can see, these are also equipped with 3D laser cameras, so Google must be really planning on a 3D Europe. Can't wait!
Google's not just going for Street View's of the enitre Earth, Lunar Street View coverage isn't too far away.
On Google Moon, there are many placemarks available in the Apollo layer, including Street View for a few locations:
RealEstate.com added Google Street View to its website three weeks ago, and today, it's won a 2008 Hermes Creative Award for its website. Congratulations, RealEstate.com!
As reported in the Google Latlong blog, Street View for Manhattan, New York, is updated today, with higher resolution, views going to the sky and ground (to see the tops of skyscrapers from their bases will be convenient), and the introduction of Street View's new face-blurring feature, still in beta, but still very useful.
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Check out Manhattan on Street View to see these great new features!
For the European Street View sightings, it appears that Google is using the Saturn Astra for driving around. They used a big van for the first cities in the United States, then a Chevrolet Cobalt, and now the Saturn Astra joins the club.
Well, it appears that all these plastic shopping bags are wasteful, and now they're getting just plain annoying. Check this out:
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For over half a mile of College Road in Fairbanks, Alaska, south of the Bentley Mall, a plastic shopping bag flying in the air landed on the Google Street View camera until the driver had to pull over to get it off.
As you can see, the prediction on the right falls on today, and there aren't any new Street View cities yet. What happened with the previous prediction, March 26, is that more Street View cities came out the day after, so the prediction was quite close.
If things go properly, you should expect more Street View as soon as tomorrow!
Yesterday, Saturday, May 3, 2008, a Street View car was found in Paris, with the 3D lasers on top, as found by Géographie 2.0.
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See the Google logo on the side there with Street View Guy? This adds France to the list of upcoming Street View countries.
So far the list is:
There are some complaints about over 400 cities available in Street View, and only 43 camera icons being shown in Google Maps. In Google Earth, this problem has been solved by adding more icons as you zoom in, but not on Google Maps.
Using only some icons in Google Maps does give the viewer an idea about where Street View is available, so that's a plus. Also, because Google is trying to provide Street View for the whole world, the icons will eventually disappear. The current icons would get very cluttered on Google Maps if they were for all of the 400+ cities available, so it appears Google's solution works out quite well.
One thing that might also work well is to highlight the Street View areas in blue instead of placing camera icons for the main city in that region.
