monoblog

I've been playing around with Google Maps Street View the last couple days, and think it's very fun. It's almost like taking a vacation somewhere but without paying for airfare, meals, etc. My first snapshot using it was of a cable car in San Francisco. Today I found a convex mirror on the side of the road in Sausalito, CA that shows a reflection of the infamous Google Maps camera van. The resolution is spotty, so it is difficult to make out what type of vehicle it is. The roof is clearly loaded with equipment though!

What I also find funny is the number of people in San Francisco who are "caught" looking at the camera. Another fun thing is to see exactly what time the camera car was driving through an area. Here is a newspaper box for The Onion. Now here is an odd one -- someone is taking a picture of another person, with the Golden Gate Bridge behind the Google Van! You have to zoom out and rotate around 180° to see it. I'm starting to think this could take scavenger hunting to a whole new level... It is sure going to make getting lost that much harder.

After reading the Shape of the Future speech by Charlie Stross, which talks about how many of us in the future will carry a GPS-enabled, internet-connected video and audio recorder that records everything we experience, I am wondering if this sort of technology will find its way into a Google Maps "street view"-like interface. It would be very interesting to be able to click on a person on the street map and see/hear what they are experiencing, if they "opt in" to the system of course. For instance, you would be able to see a riot as it occurred, or watch the ball drop in Times Square, or witness any event in real-time. Virtual vacationing would be possible just by clicking on various people, wherever you want to be, and "living" through them vicariously. Alternatively, you could click on a street address or intersection and have it cycle through the views of people in that region. That way you could tell if it was raining, congested with traffic, etc. This would also solve the problem of the street view information being out of date...