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Google Street View Wants You to Direct New Tricycle Imager
An anonymous reader writes "Google is taking suggestions for where you'd like to see the new Street View Trike go. Your favorite park, hiking trail, zoo, school campus hangout or outdoor mall could be going online thanks to Google Street View's new 250 pound tricycle, complete with camera and GPS. According to the press release: 'The Street View trike began as a 20% project by Daniel Ratner, a Senior Mechanical Engineer on the Street View team. "I began thinking about building a bicycle-based Street View system after realizing how many interesting places around the world — ranging from historic landmarks to beautiful trails to shopping districts — aren't accessible by car," says Dan. "When I'm riding the trike, so many people come up to me and ask where it's off to next or how they can get imagery of their favorite spot, so I can't wait to see what our users come up with."'"
Amsterdam - Vondelpark.
New York - Central Park
etc.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Whoa, there's an awesome streetview of San Diego State University in there!
I wonder if the camera is sensitive enough to see the classroom overcrowding, herpes under the skirts of sorority sisters, and traces of cocaine on the Homeland Security majors' noses!
The girls locker room of course...
Let's send it to that stalked ladys house: Amber Duick
Toyota emails will have nothing on the Google trike showing up in her back yard.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
So when do we get the Google street view segway?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Number One Observatory Circle, Washington D.C.
Your favorite park, hiking trail, zoo, school campus hangout or outdoor mall could be going online thanks to Google Street View...
All of my favorite places (especially hiking trails) would be way on the bottom of my list of things they should photo. Call me selfish, but a lot of my favorite places are places I can go to get away from people, and I'd like to share them as little as possible :)
where it'd get impounded as cycling is prohibited.
Perhaps they'd have the damn thing crushed......
nuff said.
the De Wallen district perhaps, at around 22h00 ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Wallen
how about a mule rig with all the cameras climbing down (or up) the grand canyon.
According to the press release: 'The Street View trike began as a 20% project by Daniel Ratner, a Senior Mechanical Engineer on the Street View team.
Maybe if they would have leveraged Dan more than 20% for this project, he could have put together a collection method that didn't involve a 250 pound trike.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
I'm waiting for the DIY open source hardware helmet-cam that ties in with streetview... Then things will get really interesting!
The Riverwalk in San Antonio, an old school public works project that is off limits to cars. How about some of our nations landmarks that have been closed off to traffic? There are countless trails and bike paths in Minnesota with wonderful scenery. Basically find any place that is a famous landmark, assume that can't drive in front of it and that's a place you should visit.
The main corporate Microsoft Campus.
This is my signature.
Are you saying the trike should go to New Jersey?
Playboy mansion
30,000 feet. Open plane door. Push trike out. Remember to remove rider first.
This is just the beginning. Next up,
One feature that I think would be really useful, for biking especially, is to be able to find the "flattest" route between two points. Around here, they have been converting old railroad rights of way into bicycle paths, which is nice because they are extremely well-graded. But I'm not even sure where many of them are. I would probably bike more places if I knew I would only have to contend with as few hills as necessary to get there.
Does the tricycle (or the street view car) collect altitude data as well as latitude and longitude? Would it even be theoretically possible to add this in the future?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
i'd like to see the trike sent to the moon. and stay there.
a web site with remote control options, like that guy who allowed people to control his 2x2 grid of christmas lights over the internet, would be icing on the cake.
"Your moms house, you can see me coming out of it with a very satisfied look on my face"
Practically, that thing won't fit in a canoe (unless it is a voyageur canoe), you would probably need the camera mounted on some sort of steadycam, and your going to have to pay attention to battery life. But I think that would be a very cool project.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
I'd like to see the trike take pictures as it goes off Niagara Falls.
All around the bike path network of Perth, Australia. And I'd like the job of riding it 'round them.
Google should do this:
Develop a special sign / sticker that you can stick on your property - it will work kind of like a robots.txt file but for your home.
Then your home should be blurred out from Street View. Also, your home address should not be searchable via Google Maps.
Perhaps the sign / sticker could have special options which allow you to customize what to blur out.. eg. blur out the windows only, blur out the car / garage only, etc.
> Google Street View Wants You to Direct New Tricycle...
No, they don't...
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I would suggest taking the trike for an evening spin through Nickerson Gardens in Watts. I think even my fellow privacy advocates would be supportive of such an expedition.
It doesn't sound like the 250 lb. trike could actually make nearly the whole journey, but it could photograph some stretches adjacent to where the trail crosses roads or skirts towns, at least. There are even a few places in the Smoky Mountains national park that come to mind, where the AT's grades are light and the trail moderately broad, so the cam could photograph some of trail markers, places where other Smokies trails cross, join or split, and some of the hiking shelters, for a few practical uses in helping AT hikers plan.
Then maybe in a few years, there will be a lighter, more maneuverable system to do more. Eventually, there could be trail photos for all the National Parks, at least for the most major routes.
Who is John Cabal?
..them to quit screwing around with all this stuff and just get my road on the darn map. It's been five years. Please?
we all saw pictures of the Everest, why are prople climbing it to see the same damned thing?
Do not send this thing through a college, in 5 minutes you'd have to call the school and make a claim that 12 drunk students stumbled upon the RoboTrike and stole the damn thing.
"They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn't steal!"
seeing as it googls street view, how about finishing all the streets before you get involved in things that arent streets? i live on maui, hawaii, and theres not a single street view picture of the entire island. just a thought though
How about some natural landmarks?
Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park, WY
Craters of the Moon National Park, ID
Then there's a couple of just neat places:
Big Brutus, West Mineral, KS
Castle Rock, Quinter, KS
the Bonner Springs Renaissance Festival Park, Bonner Springs, KS
And one really obvious one:
The Playboy Mansion
www.eFax.com are spammers
The playboy mansion, obviously. But what catagory to put it under.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I'd really like to see Google open the API so anyone can upload 360 degree image sets and add to the mapping collection.
Inside and on top of buildings, police stations, museums, libraries, schools, government offices, cemeteries, amusement parks, rivers, caves, airports, ports, national parks, trails, lakes, campsites, businesses, military bases, people's homes, backyards, front yards, hospitals, casinos, daycare centers, bars, strip clubs,...
I say, let's post online detailed maps and images of everything and every single place possible, then give it all to one company to share back to us with ads. This is where these efforts will lead. Oh, wait, that doesn't sound as good (er, not evil) any more.
I'm not sure - but is there a way to use all these images in applications that are not Google? Could others have a license to create a 3D first-person environment simulation of the real world if there were enough stitch-together images or 3D camera imagery? Would Google allow this?
Then I'd suggest:
Tioga Pass (elev. approx. 10000 feet)
Pike's Peak (elev. approx. 14000 feet)
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
From the file of Capt. Obvious....
Bourbon Street, New Orleans. During Mardi Gras.
Those who can do... Those who can't get a certification from Cisco or Microsoft.
But please, rather than a tricycle, use a better equipment.
I live in metropolitan Australia and Google has missed a fair few streets in their attempt to map. Before doing bike paths and the like how about they actually finish the work they started doing?
It would be cool to have Street View images of places that aren't already accessible on Google Maps, but I've got a more fundamental question.
Why aren't these places on Google Maps already?
The best way to see my suburb is on foot, via a network of footpaths for pedestrians and cyclists. Not one of these paths shows up in Get Directions on Google Maps. Your favourite park or hiking trail is already walkable, and who knows, it might even be useful - even if it's not as cool as riding a trike through Legoland and calling it work. Besides, I'd rather know it's there and walk through it myself.
Of course, I'm sure it's only a matter of time; they've probably been thinking about this ever since they added the Walking and Public Transport options to Get Directions. In the meantime, I'll just have to settle for cutting a third off my travel time - and the satisfaction of knowing something as a local that Google Maps didn't find out as a tourist. :P
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
So close
The Front Entrance
but so far.
The idea I had was to install it on all garbage trucks. The garbage truck goes down the street twice the images would mainly be early morning shots with only light traffic.
My humble suggestion: I move that Google's new "privacy enlightenment tool" be first directed right up the south end of a north bound Daniel Ratner.
... the Appalacian Trail.
Gov. Sanford tells me its beautiful this time of year.
Have gnu, will travel.
D00d!! That's brilliant. I get a feel for what you suggested by using Google sat view, but your idea is Nobel-winning good.
I was going to suggest around the ring of the LHC but it is not a US location nor would their GPS work 100m underground...so I suggested the Tevatron at Fermilab which is US-based but will still have the GPS problem.
And environs.
Yay. Us Europeans dont need to visit any cities in the US due to streetview - soon we wont need to visit any tourist attractions either!
I've only seen Central Park in movies. I'd be interested in having the ability to roam around there. Also another nice idea would be some of the larger botanical gardens with alternate views for each season to see what different climate zones look like at different times of the year. It would be like taking a tourist vacation without ever leaving the house. OK this whole concept is starting to feel a little total recall'ish.
It'd be my dreamjob to be paid just biking everywhere 3
It should not go anywhere and Google Streetview should be kept out of those areas.
I'd really like to see Google open the API so anyone can upload 360 degree image sets and add to the mapping collection.
I think that was the original idea with Panoramio. They show up in Google Earth and they have quite a few 360-degree photos in addition to the usual ones.
The London Cycling Campaign publish a pile of maps for London showing the best way to go for bikes. It would be great if they were in Google maps and Google route searches included them. It's a big hole in the otherwise brilliant service. - Christopher