Not to be left behind, Google announced their own bit of mapping news at O"Reilly"s Where 2.0 conference today: the debut of "Street View" maps. The new maps are essentially a 360 panoramic image taken from a specific point on the street (see an example here).
The Street View maps are developed in partnership with Immersive Media, which according to the O"Reilly Radar blog is "a company that has an eleven lens camera capable of taking full, high-res video while driving along city streets." What that means is that these Street View maps, because they are extracted from video shot while driving, are not just static images at random points around the city. They can be advanced fluidly down the street.
Clicking the white arrows on the image, advances it down the street a few paces, and quickly loads a new panorama, and double clicking on any part of the image zooms you in (you can actually read license plates and see recognizable faces). This is a very cool technology that adds a great new dimension to Google"s Maps.
In my post about EveryScape I compared that company to Amazon"s old A9 Block View maps, and the comparison is probably even more relevant here. But these blow A9"s old maps out of the water since they are not static images, but clear, and very well stitched 360 degree panoramas taken every few feet. They offer a very complete and dynamic, block-by-block view of a city street.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn"t compare this technology to EveryScape. It seems like Google really stole the show today, with Street View, but don"t count EveryScape out completely. Their panoramas offer a wider range of motion (Google"s are fixed, 360 degree left to right -- no up and down), and they offer one feature that Google cannot with this specific technology: indoor panoramas. Remember, Google"s new Street View maps are shot from the top of a car, and you obviously can"t drive a car into a hotel.
It seems the two companies have opposite aims. Google wants to create better, more useful maps by providing photographic, street-level views of entire cities, while EveryScape hopes to entice business owners with the ability to offer virtual tours of their business within interactive virtual tours of neighborhoods.
According to Greg Sadetsky, Google has rolled out Street View in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
>>Source Link
>>Blog: Read/WriteWeb
>>Publish Date: 5/30/2007 8:00:43 AM
>>Keywords: street maps
Related Posts
>>Gray Blob on Google Maps? #
Does anyone know what this gray shape is doing on Google Maps (it"s at Monzelfeld near Bernkastel-Kues, in Germany)? While it may look like censorship at first, it might also be just missing data, or
>>Streetadvisor, offering user-generated street reputations #
Ever wanted to buy a house, but weren’t sure about the vibe of the street it was on? Streetadvisor.com—based in Melbourne, Australia—just launched a site that lets people comment on, and find informa
>>Google Maps卫星地图新增印度、新加坡、香港交通地图 #
据Google Maps API官方博客的报道，Google Maps卫星地图最近增加了印度、新加坡、香港的道路街道交通地图。 对于印度来说，这些新地图覆盖了所有主要城市（合计人口超过一亿人），这些数据包括：全国公路网，主要和次要道路的干线，当地公路、铁路、铁路车站、旅游景点、教育机构、宗教场所、历史名胜、酒店、影剧院、商场、购物中心等等。Google正在大力开发地图上的地址搜索服务，到那
>>AskCity Kicks it Up a Notch #
Those folks over at Ask.com...they really like to have a little fun with their search products. It wasn"t enough to let us turn maps into an etch-a-sketch that let us mark up directions and send them
>>Google地图的应用开发分析 #
Google最重要的产品不仅仅是网页搜索和Gmail，Google其实有一个重要的宝贝产品，就是Google Earth/Maps，即卫星地图（或常规地图）。这个产品如果开发的好的话，可以使得Google在地图领域中建立新的权威优势。 即使在市场并不占优的中国，Google在这方面也拥有无限的优势：国内根本没有商业卫星地图服务商，网络公司的交通地图服务都是购买专业地图公司的数据，这些地图服务