Slashdot Mirror
Riding Shotgun With the Google Street View Beetle
longacre writes "Popular Mechanics takes a ride in an Immersive Media VW Beetle, one of the six cars that drives around America shooting images for Google Maps Street View. Mounted on the roof is the $45,000 Dodeca 2360 video camera, whose 11 lenses record a 360 degree field of view at 30 frames per second, sucking up as many as 200 miles of city scenes per day. The setup takes up the whole back seat and part of the front passenger seat, and is all controlled with an off-the-shelf Logitech game controller. Includes a cool interactive raw video of a drive through Manhattan."
While the project sounds intrinsically good-spirited and the sample videos are really amazing, I can easily imagine one of these drivers getting bumped off or "vanishing" after recording something they "weren't supposed to see." Or, worse yet, someone mistakes their Beetle for a Geek Squad unit.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
While this is impressive (especially it being controlled by an off-the-self controller), I would be much more impressed if they rigged up the interior with a lot of HDTVs so that the walls seemed to be transparent to anyone inside.
Everything is subjective.
These things need to be stopped.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
where sandwiched in between kneejerk, paranoid ranting articles about encroaching invasions on your privacy, are fawning articles about google doing the SAME DAMN THING
pure blindness and hypocrisy at work on slashdot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If it didn't require any user control (for the cameras at least). I mean why isn't the recording speed tied to the speed of the car? (or is it?) what need do you have to manipulate the cameras manually. Instead if the car is stuck in traffic, just stop recording. If the car is moving faster, increase the fps.
What purpose does the game controller have? Are the drivers allowed to track hotties? or is it for focusing in on billboards for corporate sponsors? Are they offering street view adwords or something?
Theres nothing like slapping a dozen fisheye lenses to a moving vehicle and building a movie out of it. My city just got google street view enabled. I was wondering how they got exact pics of where I was on the map. Now that I see it runs at 30 frames/sec I know how they captured so much data!
This reminds me of when Data talks about how he records everything that he sees, and what his maximum storage capacity is. I always wondered "What compression algorithms does he use for all that? At what frame rate does he record it?" I think Google will create Data before they create Skynet. After all, they've already taken the first step
Crank up the halon system, this ought to be good.
Imagine future versions (with much lower prices) of the "Dodeca 2360" camera used as Police Dash-Cams (but on top of the car).
With the increased Law-Enforcement use of WiFi/Wireless-Data access and the necessitation of Computer capabilities in modern Police Vehicles, this device would make a nice streaming Police roof-cam.
(The quality looks good enough that "Cops" or other 'reality' police shows might just fund the costs for the cameras too.)
Now i can do every thing on the internet.
No longer do i need to get up and go out side. I can just surf to it via google.com!
l33t!
I have to return some videotapes...
Do they correct the Barrel distortion afterwards? If not, they should. Everything to the side of the car looks stretched and skewed.
Only one thing bugs me about this... the quality sucks..
Just because it works, Doesn't make it right. - JTM
Growing up in a rural area, I was always kinda dejected when the satellite images I'd look up were old and relatively low resolution compared to what was commonly available for more urbanized centers. Given the price tag for what Google is doing here (the article says between $125-$700), I understand why... there's less market for it, so there's less of a return on cost.
Still, the possibility that someday soon users will be able to submit their own images of various locations suggests that suburban and rural settings will start to be imaged in the same fashion. Does anybody want to put up some ideas regarding why this may or may not be a good thing?
were sitting on a streetcorner, photographing everyone walking by, the outcry here on slashdot would be huge
i don't really care if you think the fbi would be right doing that, i don't really care if you think the fbi would be wrong doing that
what i care about is thinking the fbi is right/ wrong to do that, and thinking elsewise of google
a massive company like that? who knows practically what everyone in the country is searching for?
i'm not being paranoid, i'm illustrating the kind of distrust that flows to the government, and the massive amount of trust that goes to google. why? i'm asking for uniformity of logic and reason on the issue. what i care about is why the fuck does slashdot go ballistic when the government does something that invades your privacy, but fawns over google when they do the SAME THING
it's cliquishness: google is our darling company. no, slashdot, google was a darling upstart search engine in 2002
it's 2007. "do no evil" is a load of crock, as google's activities in china illustrate
i just can't understand why people trust and love google so much. it's out of place
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One of six cars? Several months ago someone photographed at least a dozen, maybe two dozen, such vehicles lined up with rooftop mounts installed.
Wow, wouldn't it be cool to use this to make a DVD with angle selection? Or, even better, take the cameras off, and put them in a circle around a room, and film all those ancient martial arts masters from every angle. Oh, to have Bruce Lee, or Chang Man Ching, or TT Liang doing the sword form (in his prime, of course; not when he was 100 years old).
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
For those of you too lazy to follow the links, the Aspen Movie Map was a project done in 1978-81 by the MIT Architecture Machine Group (precursor to the Media Lab) to create an interactive map of the town of Aspen Colorado. Similar to Google, they mounted sideways facing cameras on a car, drove around the town collecting "street-view" imagery and loaded it all into an interactive map. They built an interactive videodisk and interface that allowed you to "drive around" the town. Video clip Here. I don't know if they patented any of the ideas, but I expect any patents would have expired by 2007.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
I'd love to try this out with video from a formula1, nascar or superbike race - it'd be *really* amazing if it could be done live - you could actually simulate being in the driving seat live during a race!
I can predict that if the tech becomes cheap enough, it will lead to a slew of re-runs of the famous Rendezvoos video (cross-Paris maniac run in a Ferrari) or Gumball rally.
So is the "reasonable expectation of privacy" a digital thing? All or nothing? People behave differently when three, thirty, three hundred or three million people are watching them.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Some guy in lab at Google farts! Read it on the front page of Slashdot!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I've heard rumours these cars are handing out cookies so Google can track everybody!
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Goatse!
One wouldn't really need much of a compression algorithm to store the string "I have no emotions, because I am an android. That makes me very sad."
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I and a friend separately saw a couple of vehicles driving around the north area of a major Southwestern US city last month. This was no Google van or Google Beetle, it was just some rinky-dink car with a Google magnetic sign on the sides, and presumably a camera assembly set up on a pole about 3 foot from the car roof. It literally looked like Google ran an ad for any joker to bolt a camera to their car and drive around. My friend and I wondered what could be so exciting about the northern suburban area of a large city, rather than in the city itself, that needed to be on Google maps.
Anyway, it got me thinking that pretty much anyone really could put a Google sign or their car to presumably drive someplace they shouldn't, or use a brand like Google to lend themselves some authenticity, and nowadays people might probably not give them a second thought. Imagine if terrorists planned on attacking our imagination using Google as a cover! Or maybe someone could scam a press pass for being a member of "Google News", even though Google News isn't an actual news outlet.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Dutch Company Cyclomedia recently finished a full overview of the Netherlands. You can see 360 degrees of every 20 metres or so. They even have tools that help you measure the sizes of things on the street and on houses. It's popular with municipalities and real estate agent. It's also featured at the major real estate site Funda.nl I hope it links through, but you can see a street view in front of the working palace of the Queen here.
Use Adsense for Charity
Eh, it's actually pretty good... check out the flash file that that viewer is displaying: http://demos.immersivemedia.com/fvdemo_1/data/CylindricalFlashPlayerDemoSite/PopularMechanicsNYCDriveAlong/video.flv Open that without their custom flash player and you get 1024x512 video... And I'd imagine they're recording higher than that. Also, check out some of the actual shots in google: http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=32.734512,-117.159705&spn=0.024981,0.05373&z=15&om=1&layer=c&cbll=32.72197,-117.161636&cbp=2,356.38393784103107,,1,-18.177554028083662&title=Google Maps&source=k Pan around that one and double click to zoom in on the license plates of the cars on the street. You can zoom in VERY far.. and read them.
appleguru.org
Eh, pardon the formatting on that last one.. accidentally chose html over plain text and didn't preview :/
In any case, here's it again, this time along with a mirror for the flash file in case their site gets hammered from the original link:
Eh, it's actually pretty good... check out the flash file that that viewer is displaying:
http://demos.immersivemedia.com/fvdemo_1/data/CylindricalFlashPlayerDemoSite/PopularMechanicsNYCDriveAlong/video.flv
Mirror here: http://g.appleguru.org/nycpano.flv
Open that without their custom flash player and you get 1024x512 video... And I'd imagine they're recording higher than that.
Also, check out some of the actual shots in google: http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=32.734512,-117.159705&spn=0.024981,0.05373&z=15&om=1&layer=c&cbll=32.72197,-117.161636&cbp=2,356.38393784103107,,1,-18.177554028083662&title=Google%20Maps&source=k
Pan around that one and double click to zoom in on the license plates of the cars on the street. You can zoom in VERY far.. and read them.
appleguru.org
Is there a way to find out where and when the Googlemobile will be driving past my house so that I can be standing outside dressed as a pirate? They have a schedule, it exists somewhere. How can I find it?
where's the wankers who cry corporatocracy, that the government is owned completely by corporations not citizens, when i need them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i agree with you, that the fbi or google is ok to take pictures on a street corner
but the usual slashbot would cry high holy terror if the fbi were doing it, and swoon if google would do it
i don't care if google or the fbi take your pictures on a streetcorner. i care that the difference in reactions on slashdot is so retarded. so little trust here, so much trust there
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Especially after the Public/Private debate, I probably shouldn't say this...
But I want one!
In Blue! No Yellow! No, sorry, Blue.
and i don't have a problem with google doing it either
i have a problem with the usual slashbot who would cry high holy terror if the fbi did it, and swoon if google did it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but i expect them to be logically consistent and coherent
yu can't spout one opinion one monet, and then the opposite opinion the next, and not expect to be called out for it
that's what is happening with the government photographing you, or google. why is one mistrusted? why is the other trusted so much? makes no friggin sense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"i distrust government, but i wholeheartedly trust multinational corporations, even one who traffics in information, specifically my personal information, and has publicly stated it wants to track people's every query"
you'll excuse me, but your distrust of government and trust of google is fucking hypocritical and stupid
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but if they are logically inconsistent and hypocritical, don't be surprised if you get called out on it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If the camera is called Dodeca, why does it only have 11 lenses?
Am I the only one who thought the name of the camera a little misleading? It has 11 cameras so it should be called the Hendeca 2360. If it had 12 then the Dodeca appellation would be accurate.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them."
Marvin the Martian
Let me just count off some of the crazy NEW WORLD ORDER predictions that I've read on slashdot:
1. 1995: the UN is stationing international "peacekeepers" all across the US in preparation for Clinton announcing the end of US sovereignty. The is the original "black helicopter" conspiracy. The black helicopters were supposed to be UN, not US.
2. 2002: Haliburton is building internment camps all over the US, complete (according to a video posted on youtube) with ovens for disposing of the bodies of dissidents.
3. 2004: Bush has *already* signed the order to reinstate the draft. He's just waiting until after the election to announce it. You'd better go to the polls and vote for Kerry or your ass is going to be in the Army by January!
None of this shit was true, yet you guys *still* go around spreading fear. OMFG TEH GOVERMANT WILL MAKE EWE DISAPPEAR IF YOU HAVE A CAMERA ON UR CAR!!!11oneone
Aren't you just a tiny bit embarrassed by the things you say? The Bush presidency is almost over, and not one of my rights (or any other american citizen's rights) has been violated. There are no jack-booted thugs rounding up dissidents. People regularly criticize the government and nothing happens to them. In fact, the only really scary 1984-like stuff that's going on is being perpetrated by the political left - by democrats. They are the ones that want to silence talk radio for no other reason than that they disagree with what's being said. They are the ones that support jail time, not for what you do, but for what you're thinking
Thousands of little solar powered robot blimps. When they come into cell phone range, upload instructions like "go and explore these co-ordinates" and simply download their info when they come into cell tower range.
Deleted
small hint: if the government were to do any of those things, they'd probably get google's cooperation in recovering info on you
is your hypocrisy and misplaced trust and logical incoherence dawning on you yet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
sorry but the street level views hurt my eyes. it's too damn blurry, cool yea, but I can't sit there looking at it for very long. Maybe a snapshot of a destination when getting directions, but I hate exploring town this way.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
http://flickr.com/map/?&fLat=38.896868&fLon=-77.036422&zl=1 Page three looks interesting.
I for one find it extremely worrying that google is trying to hamfistedly controll, record and own everything.
Nice to see that being a paranoid nutjob is still in style.
... a mounted laser then it would be super cool!
Did they have to make it look like the floating torture droid from Star Wars?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."--Feynman
Too bad I didn't find that one an hour ago before my last mod point expired... I was instead trying to find something to mod insightful in the post under how flamewars and trolls get started.
Obviously, I could have spent that time better.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So far we've only seen 2d data, but from the look of the video, there's probably enough parallax information that you could perform 3d reconstruction of the scene. One really good aspect of this is that you could automatically remove objects such as people from the result.
I wondered why I wasn't seeing anything in Firefox, until I saw this:<script id="clientEventHandlersVBS" language="VBSCRIPT">Scripted in Basic! In the 21st century!
Talk about "technology for technologies sake".
Nice, but that Aspen project wasn't the first time this sort of thing has been done. Municipalities, insurance companies, and real estate firms have been doing this for decades. Since at least the 60's in some places. Probably longer.
For years you've been able to look at street-level pictures of every property in Cook County, Illinois (Chicago) on the internet through the Assessor's web site.
Just because Google's doing it, people pretend like this is something new.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
That's not a google beetle, that's A TRANSFORMER!!!
Plus the drag from the camera would certainly ensure you had a great view of last place ;)
Driver: "Why is there a bloody great wind break on my car?"
Manager: "We're gonna video everything you do so we can sell it to the cable subscriber schmos."
Driver: "Can't you at least stick an aerofoil on it!?!?"
Manager: "If it's good enough for Google, it's good enough for you. Now race!"
Driver: "Bah."
*yawn*
Sorry, I'm tired.
Wait, I thought google had a huge fleet of Chevy Cobalts.
Those pictures show a LOT more than 6 cars.
http://www.gpsmagazine.com/2007/07/googles_secret_cameracar_armad.php
now where did i say slashbots=all of slashdot's user base?
i'm referring to the usual kneejerk twit
such a person doesn't exist?
you feel a need to defend such a person, or group yourself with them?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Watching the raw video, there appears to be someone that keeps honking. Was this the google car? or was this someone else that was following them? Or maybe it was just a friendly hello.
HD Trailers
1) NEW BREAKS! SQUEEEK... For real, get the VW serviced already. If you have the money for all that camera stuff, buy a pair of brake pads every 30K or so!
.01 seconds and now it is over... I know what my street looks like and my neighbors.. I GO OUTSIDE AND SEE THEM YOU F&&#@ ICEH#LES!
........
2) HONK-HONK... WHAT is it with these city drivers in New York and other places? All the Honking around... Maybe I'm just sheltered living in the smaller areas, but I NEVER have to Honk my horn. Oh, Ok, Once I Honked it to let the wife know I was waiting on her, but thats about all... How about some nice polite driving for a change?
3) Pointless... This is someones "escape from cube land" project. "Dude, we mount a camera on the roof. Tell the boss we'll digitize ever where we go and see, and we'll get free pizza, pussy and beer at motel 6's on the company charge!"
4) WASTE... How much Gas, Energy, Money, Tech and Human Service might be better saved/served/used(etc) if this project did not even exist. Instead Google should give me the money to feed/clothe some homeless people instead. What a waste of usable resources for a completely worthless tech. DO NO EVIL... How about DO NOTHING either...
Seriously, the idea and concept had a coolness factor for
We all need to just disconnect sometimes... Seriously... See what the real world is like outside of the glowing boxes... Do it now before winter sets in and you commit suicide because of lack of sunlight and vitamin D. Otherwise it was all a waste from your first breath, till your last.
Off grid is sounding more and more sane...
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
But for Google Earth, not Google Maps:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramio
One that hath name thou can not otter
1. create distributed project to track the googlemobile using google maps.
2. tailgate googlemobile.
3. ???
4. profit!
A guy in Vienna has put together his own Street View version using Google Maps and CleVR. It's pretty cool. It would be nice to see that expanded so that anyone could contribute.
You mean translucent concrete?
I saw a new white Saturn with the rig in question on an orange poll. It had CA plates (this is Central MA), a mag mount sign displaying "Google Maps" and an elderly couple were driving.
And yes, I did make and hold up a sign for the camera. They weren't pleased and pulled over to let me pass. =)
I love the way the article refers to the eleven cameras as "nearly a dozen". Using that system, there are nearly 61 minutes in a hour, 2 + 2 is nearly 5, and I nearly ate one gnome for breakfast this morning.
What google gives you that the Cook County Assor's Database doesn't is the "fly through" visualization and the interface to control it. The Aspen Movie Map had a cruder version; it was a "drive through" visualization and interface; i.e. your point of view was limited to the paths on the street grid. Lemme know when Cook County gets their 3D fly-through visualization working.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Your first misapprehension is that Google's beetle only drives on public streets. This is not the case.
Many public roads are on private property. For example, the road in front of my house. There is a historic easement for through travel on this road and I have no beef with anyone using it for through travel provided they do not damage the road or my property. The easement for through travel DOES NOT GRANT OTHER RIGHTS such as the right to make and sell digital representations of anyone or anyone's property. Basically, previous owners of my property have given prior permission for a certain activity on my property - driving through - within strict limits which do not include photography. As far as I'm concerned, if you take a picture, shout racist abuse, or throw trash in my yard you are trespassing in order to do so - because you've broken the terms of the existing easement.
Google has apparently made no effort to determine what streets are laid on easements across private property, and which are owned by public entities. In their defense, such an effort would be nearly impossible - my deed is over 140 years old and the landmarks it references no longer exist, and while my property lines ARE available from the state in computer-readable format, many states do not have the resources to provide this information in a machine-digestible format. They could have done it in my state, but not all, and it would very difficult and expensive.
Another thing you've missed is the special status of minors. When Google's beetle drove over my property taking pictures without my permission, they took pictures of the interior of my minor daughter's bedroom. The wind had blown her curtains aside, or she had moved them aside. Google providing images to paedophiles that were taken by peering through my windows is not going to be defensible in court, mostly because juries don't expect a minor child to understand the legal implications of opening the curtains.
Because of the physical relationship between my house, my property, and the road, it's really not possible to get the images that Google has created without thousands of dollars of equipment specialized for the purpose. If you try to peer through my window as you drive by, you will end up with your car upside-down in the creek. If you are a passenger, you might get a brief glimpse, but you won't be able to scrutinize the building security system, my taste in wall art, or the interior of my daughter's closet like you could in Google street view. You certainly wouldn't be able to get the multi-mirror bounce that Google got. Thus, I have had reasonable expectation of privacy until Google went to extreme efforts - for the same amount of money they could have used xray imaging to look into your bedroom, but you've got reasonable expectations of privacy there.
Many of Google's images could not possibly be seen without their specialized equipment. Your car does not have a non-distorting transparent roof, after all, and you aren't allowed to block a public thoroughfare so you can stare fixedly into people's second-story windows or shoot photographs through them with a telephoto lens.
Now, the nice thing about all this is that when I contacted Google, they pulled the image immediately, and once they had verified that I was in fact the owner of the property that had been illegally imaged they took it down (they say) permanently. The bad thing is that I had to find out by friends emailing me with links to the image - Google really can't tell people when they are coming through, or people would line up along the road with their pants down.
The fictious Reasonable Man does not have access to machines that would allow him to see through walls, nor does he have any reasonable expectation that someone would want to look through his walls for harmless reasons. Thus, I do not believe the police are allowed to use the blimp that sees through walls without a warrant or probable cause (in the United States, that is). Your neighbors can't build magnifying devices that let them peek through tiny cracks in your shower wall and publish your pictures on the Internet, either.
Similarly, the Reasonable Man does not track the doings of Google like an obsessive technophile slashdotter, and thus has no reasonable expectation that someone's going to take high-quality images through his windows using brand-new technology. He has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" if he is naked in the upstairs bedroom next to a busy road, even if the window shade is occasionally blowing open, because he can't be expected to reasonably anticipate incredibly expensive imaging efforts that will capture his likeness for magnification and public display.
As I understand it, when you apply any sort of Reasonable Man test, the jury gets to look at the facts of the individual case and decide what "reasonable" meant at the time the incident occurred. Since Google has done ZERO prior notification to homeowners the jury may very well rule that they have no right to peer through people's windows with instruments that are much more sensitive than the naked eye. For the jury, it might come down to the difference between taking a picture of someone's house and focusing a web-connected telescope on someone's bedroom window... most likely, it will depend on local community standards and the particular images involved.
burger flipping Idiots.