Street View Imagery Coverage by Nation

Here is a bar graph of the amount of Street View coverage by nation:

Google might want to improve their European coverage, no?

Photo Fun!

Street View has been given a small makeover: while viewing Street View in Google Maps, there is a border around the Street View window that will turn blue when you hover over the "x".

But the biggest and most exciting change about Street View is a new feature called user photos.

Now, when you view popular Street Views in Barcelona, New York, New Zealand, Rome, San Francisco, Sydney, and Tokyo, a small image thumbnail will appear in the Street View's upper-right corner with the caption "User Photos".

Clicking this icon will adjust the Street View and open the first of a whole set of photos provided by Panoramio users. Panoramio, a service from Google, is a great way to share your geolocated photos. Google has reviewed many of these millions of pictures, and placed them into Street View for your enjoyment.

This new feature can be very useful for Street Views with not-so-good-looking atmosphere, like some taken on dark, cloudy days. User photos, I predict, will soon be popping up all over the Street View world. That would be fun!

Imágenes de las Islas

According to the Gran Canario Info Forum, a Google Street View car has been found in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago of the coast of northwestern Africa.

As one member pointed out in the forum, the sides of the black Street View van were quite dented. Someone is a bit too concerned about privacy, perhaps?

Agaete, the location of the sighting, has been added to this blog's "Upcoming Street View Locations" Google My Map.

Exciting Results of Boring Lawsuit

You may have heard about the lawsuit on Google by Aaron and Christina Boring. You can read more about it here and here.

Well, the results have been talked about all over the Internet: Google won! Again! Actually, the case was dismissed by a federal court judge.

The images are still taken down for privacy, but Street View is still available to us on Google Maps and Google Earth. Hopefully, this feature will still be here in the future.

Pete's Privacy

According to The Boston Globe, a man named Peter Funt is concerned about Google Street View invading his privacy. This is not unusual, but there really is nothing to worry about with Google Street View, for many reasons that have been listed before.

Today, another Globe article talks about Peter Funt's concern that burglars could find his home's open window on the second floor and take it as an invitation to come rob his house. Hey, Peter? How about just locking the window?

Lately, Google released a new service called Latitude, which you can use to track your friends' locations with your phones. Mr. Funt calls the service "eavesdropping". As pointed out by the Globe's Michael Sierra, Latitude is an "opt-in" service, which is not eavesdropping. Thank you, Mr. Sierra.

Make Your Own Street View

At Gizmodo, Adam Frucci has started a Street View-themed Photoshop Contest.

Adam writes:

We're always finding strange things in Google Street View. But there are some things that, chances are, we'll never, ever see using the service. Let's change that.

If you have Photoshop and some Photoshopping skills, you can send your entries to Adam at contests@gizmodo.com by February 10, 2009.

The Poor Deer

Wendy Wang wrote a post on the Google LatLong blog explaining an accident with a Street View car in New York.

While the Street View car was driving along Five Points Road near Rush, New York, a deer was run over by it. The images of this collision were removed after someone posted the link and image to The Daily What and increased tremendously in popularity.

View Larger Map

Going forward on the above Street View will show you the location of removed images where the deer was hit.

Many people found this funny on reddit.

No Comment

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on people who were found on Street View doing "private" things. You can read this for yourself.

Drive the Parade Route

Today is Inauguration Day in the United States, so News.com.au's blog Stars 'n' Snipes has put together a virtual Street View tour of the Inaugural Parade route, complete with directions using the Street View API.

Many Australians do not seem to approve of the somewhat cheap plugin, as you can see by the many negative comments on the bottom of the page.

Time for Taiwan

According to DigiTimes, a Google Taiwan managing director has stated that Street View imagery in Taiwan will be online in late 2009.

Street View cars were spotted in Taipei City, Taiwan, in early October 2008. Taiwanese Street View will be appreciated by tourists who cannot skillfully read Chinese. Well, only if they are smart enough to go to Google Maps.