Google adds giant tricycles to its fleet: more worries for the privacy people?
It's the all-seeing eye that reaches the parts that other eyes cannot reach - and it's on a Google tricycle
The internet giant on Monday launched a large collection of images taken by the nine-foot-long tricycles. The trikes go beyond public streets into hiking trails, amusement parks, historical landmarks, parks and gardens. Using the rather novel off-road vehicles, Street View will increasingly include images of public and private sites ranging from Kew Gardens in London, to hiking trails in California and to Sea World at Orlando.
The tricycles - 250-pounds, and with a 7-foot stalk of cameras on the back. - are heavy and tough to pedal. That's why Google has hired soccer players and other athletes to put in the, er, donkey work.
It all started when Google engineer Daniel Ratner saw cobblestone alleys impassable to cars in Barcelona - and realised Google needed something to record universities, parks, trails and other places where cars can't go.
"I feel like we're just scratching the surface of what sorts of images our users want to see," said Ratner, demonstrating one of the trikes that he helped develop at Google HQ in Mountain View, California. "We don't compare the trikes to the cars. We see them as being complementary," he told the San Jose Mercury News.
Google now has Street View imagery for most metro areas in the U.S. and in 27 other countries. Street View does not make money directly, but is a valuable component of Google Maps, which has a "large and growing advertising element", said a Google spokeswoman.
Launched in 2007, Street View has had its hiccups. The biggest was when its cars scooped up data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in Europe and North America. The breach was inadvertent - and Google pledged never to use the data it collected. One British village was so angry about Street View's " invasion of privacy" that residents blocked Google cars from cruising their streets.
The number of available trike images was greatly expanded on Monday, as Google posted images from Europe, Asia and many U.S. sites.
"It's been really exciting for me to see this thing go international, and have users have fun with it," Ratner said.
The most common public reaction to the trikes? "They literally want to know whether we have ice cream," Ratner said.