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Google Tricycles To Map Footpaths For Street View
CNETNate writes "To advance its Street View service this summer, Google is poised to unleash the unstoppable power of human legs. Google will deploy pedal-powered tricycles — the company calls them 'Google Trikes' — mounted with 360 degree Street View cameras to map areas inaccessible by its fleet of Street View cars." The article indicates that the trikes will first see use in the UK, to map out public walking paths, but one anonymous commenter said: "This must be bogus — you are not allowed to cycle on public footpaths in the UK, I can't believe Google would have overlooked such a fundamental fact. Not to mention that the vehicle pictured wouldn't fit down most paths." PC World features the trikes in Rome.
Do they (Google) actually pay you to do that?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
"The article indicates that the trikes will first see use in the UK"
He then goes on to link to pictures of them actually being used in Rome. Did the UK annex Rome?
Google Sherpa!
Soon there will be "Google Stuff in Your House" where a half dozen guys dressed head to toe in black with head mounted cameras will rifle through your belongings, cabinets, and drawers. So when you loose your cars keys, just Google it!
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
I wonder if I should not make a space for a camera on my child's helmet... Any offer?
gooba? scoogle? scooble?
just attach cameras to aquatic lifeforms and let us swim the depths of the oceans from our computers... no chance of being stabbed in the heart by a stingray, either!
It looks like the mast has 3 lidar eyes on it. How does StreetView use lidar?
...until SKYNET uses this data to track us to our hiding places in the woods!!!
With as much animosity as google street views has already been met with
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/1731231
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/13/0055234
I can just imagine what these guys riding around on bikes will meet up with - Can anyone say moving target?
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
I was a Seaworld in San Diego a few weeks back and one of these was driving around the various pathways taking shots for Street View. Haven't seen the data go live yet, though.
As a bicyclist, I'd love it if google had decent maps of off-street bike paths, such that I could use google maps' normal direction-finding feature with these. I've lived in lots of cities with numerous such paths, and they're usually out of the way and hard to find if you don't already know that they're there. It would be great to have a feature that a) lets me find them, and b) tells me exactly how far out of my way I'd need to go for the added safety/pleasantness of using them.
Actually, extending StreetView to things off the street makes sense to me, for certain values of "things off the street" - there's a few businesses and the like I'd like to see mapped.
Example: I'd like to see my local zoo or one of our local museums set up so that I could use my GPS to find my way around - and being able to see some of the exhibits would be a bonus.
If *I* ran those places, I'd be begging Google to scan my site!
www.eFax.com are spammers
History has shown that the human leg is an often untapped behemoth of energy, having in the past powered generators, submarines and, of course, deep space hair dryers aboard Red Dwarf.
Next thing you know they'll be reporting that Lister has been hired to peddle the thing around London. They tried to hire Cat but he was afraid being outside in the summer heat and humidity would ruin his fantastically perfect hairdo.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, For you are crunchy and go well with ketchup.
Regardless of whether Google is going to use Tricycles, they're not the first to market with this feature. http://www.mapjack.com/ already has many many trails mapped out, things that bicycles may even have a hard time on.
awesome. To the best of my knowledge, GPS's will show rivers, but if you are paddling on one, it won't give you a great ETA. Google Rivers, on the other hand, could record average current speed and all the bends in the river to a genuine geocoded object instead of a dumb jpeg. That would be pretty sweet.
Did the UK annex Rome?
No, it was the other way round. Rome invaded Britain in 43AD. I think they've mostly gone home now.
Smivs on the intertubes!
Just add some bells and a freezer and it can further add to Google revenue!!!
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
I don't want my house, garden, neighborhood and face plastered all over the web for everyone to gawk at. You don't want it. Nobody wants it.
I kinda want it.
I'm sorry...What!?
That has to be the most retarded comment I've ever heard. No one should be limited to rights just because of how "Big" they are.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Why they didn't buy a bunch of Segways for it, is beyond me.
Trikes are cheaper to buy than Segways which start at $2,400.
Trikes are cheaper to maintain than Segways.
Trikes are easier to maintain than Segways since all you need is a regular bike mechanic that can be found in any good bike store.
Segways require electrical power just to stand up, that kind of power costs money. Trikes don't use any power when standing up because they've got three wheels.
Segways require electrical power to operate, trikes don't and hence have a lower carbon footprint.
Segways have to be charged up, trikes don't.
Trikes are more efficient.
Trikes do pretty much the same job for a lot less money.
There's no enough room on a Segway to hold the equipment, there is enough room on a trike.
Riding a trike is a lot healthier than driving a Segway because it uses human power.
Want any more?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Why is it ok in the public eye for google to do this, but when the gov't does this it's BigBrother and 1984 all over again?
I think rights should scale up. I really don't see a problem with that.
Oh, I see, you seem to have drunk the kool-aid and accepted that corporations are people who have rights. That's where the fault lies in all your examples, not with any inductive scaling.
All that said... in this particular example, I do want my house on Google. Or, to be specific, I want other people's houses on Google -- many times I've made use of the Street View pictures to see what my destination will look like. And I can see other people wanting the same when I give them directions to my house. And I don't mind the pictures being up, and I certainly don't intend to take up a hypocritical position on the matter.
Segways are always tilting forward and back. Bicycles are always tilting side to side. Trikes stay pretty level. That probably makes it easier to stitch together all the photos.
I shall be twittering this with a sigh
On someone's blogs and blogs hence:
Two paths diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less googled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--RFrostie1977
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
That has to be the most retarded comment I've ever heard. No one should be limited to rights just because of how "Big" they are.
So what you are saying is that a monopoly shouldn't be regulated?
Maybe you should rethink your position.
The poster is asserting that what should be in-alienable rights for an individual at the individual level do not implicitly work at massive scales. The meaning of those rights transform as they scale up.
I should be allowed to exhale carbon dioxide; nobody would ever dispute this. But it doesn't scale up. It doesn't implicitly give me blanket protection of a right to pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as I can manufacture.
Similiarly, with respect to google, we absolutely should be allowed to take pictures of something we see while out and about. That shouldn't scale up to a right to deploy a world wide surveillance network.
I fully agree with him.
One could even argue that not designing the project to allow disabled individuals to perform the work is job discrimination.
I suppose one could, but one would be wrong. The job description is for someone to pedal this bike around so it can take pictures. Therefore, being able to pedal said bike is a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ). Your idea is interesting, but failing to implement it is not discriminatory on Google's part, at least not in any legally recognized way.
Here is an example of a typical countryside UK footpath. I would defy one to navigate it on a tricycle: http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk/footpathexample.html
or this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mapmakermike/1029015477/
I was wondering why a guy on a tricycle was going around my living room and then taking a dump and then took off. Must be the google houseview or google johnview project in progress.
The scale. The scale is the difference. Your post is exactly the kind of argument that I object to.
What you say is correct. It is legal for you to take a picture of my house, and many other house. It is legal for you post those pictures online. It is true that everyone else can legally do so to do so. Moreover, it is right and proper that it should be legal for them to do so.
But your reasoning is false. It is not right for Google to create something as grand and encompassing as Street View. You cannot inductively step from individuals snapping the odd photograph to a multinational corporation creating a comprehensive, unprecedented, worldwide, image database which is totally unaccountable to everyone it affects.
The laws of society are not a mathematical framework. The base case of one, or a few individuals doing this for a few house is fine. But the inductive step is flawed. This step assumes that if what your are doing is legal/fine/moral for k houses, then it must be legal/fine/moral for k+1 houses. It's only one extra house after all. This reasoning is inherently flawed, based as it is on a black and white, binary view of legality and rights.
The whole can be more than the sum of the parts. Sometimes, even if every single part of the whole is just and correct, the whole of the whole can be rotten to its core. It is not right for Google to do what it is doing, particularly in the way that it is doing it. Unilaterally, and without consultation or consent.
May the Maths Be with you!
Maybe if they built a large wooden badger...