Confusing Crashes Caught

Jalopnik has put out a funny article about ten very confusing car accidents that have been found on Street View. They range from too many police officers to very poor parking. Take a look for yourself!

Cute Google Animation

This video was recently released by the folks at Google Japan to show how the Street View process works.

South African Street View

According to Bizcommunity.com, Google SA is working to release Street View for South Africa. They seem to plan to release this imagery in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Toyota is teaming up with Google to provide the camera cars.

Google Brings Back Link

A feature which was previously in Google Maps, but then removed for some strange reason, has returned. When searching for a business in a Street View-covered area, a link now appears to view that business's building in Street View.

A new addition to this feature is the appearance of the red placemark pin:

Swiss Watchdog

Yesterday, a data protection "watchdog" officer in Switzerland told Google to immediately remove Swiss Street View coverage from the Internet, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The group claims that Google did not follow the privacy conditions they apparently agreed to.

Actually, the only problem with the coverage is that some faces and license plates have not been blurred. Hopefully, Google will repair this imagery soon.

August 2009 Worldwide Update

This long-overdue update (sorry about the prediction, guys! ;-) has finally been put on the map. Three new nations are now covered in Street View: Portugal, Switzerland, and Taiwan. Swizterland has the best coverage of them all; Portugal only has coverage in Lisbon and Porto, and Taiwan only has coverage in Taipei City.


View Larger Map

According to Google LatLong's official announcement of this update, some new interesting Partner Program locations have been added: Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Thunderhill Raceway Park (which the Street View car was spotted at months ago), San Diego State University, and Legoland California.

Picture Perfect

A Kentucky painter named Bill Guffey likes to paint pictures of scenes in cities around the world, but he has not been to any of them. According to ABC News, he solved that problem by virtually visiting those places in Street View! These paintings have sold for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars.

Although Street View images may not be the best-looking photographs you've seen of a place, Bill can transform them into something beautiful.

My Work Here is Done (Most of it, Anyway)

For the past twenty months, I've shown you loyal readers a list of certain upcoming Street View locations from news sources and blogs all over the Internet, and I've kept a list of current locations on this blog's right sidebar. Now, Google Maps has an official Street View database where all this information can be found, along with lots of other cool stuff. I've posted a link to this site right here on the blog so it will be easier to find for visitors.

Don't worry, I'll keep you guys updated on the latest Street View buzz, but remember that Google now has a website especially for listing current and upcoming locations, so I would recommend heading over there for that information.

According to the new Street View website, cities all over Canada, Germany, and Switzerland are being photographed. That answers the question of Germany and Switzerland's privacy laws. It looks like Google has once again steered clear of those obstacles.

Land of the Midnight Street View

According to Life in the Knife, the capital city of Canada's Northwest Territories, Yellowknife, is being photographed by Google Street View.

Also, according to CBC News, the not-so-nearby city of Whitehorse (in Canada's Yukon territory) is also being covered. The driver of that car was told not to conduct any interviews, but said that he'd been driving through Whitehorse for the past three days.

The Canadian Street View release should be huge.

Getting Fancy

Today, Google has changed the way Street View works with a new 3D-type feature that is viewable whenever you click the arrow buttons. You can try it out below:

View Larger Map

This is very similar to EveryScape's 3D motion feature.

What are your thoughts on this new feature? Is it a slight improvement, or does it take away from the simplicity Street View once had?