While planning a weekend, I found Google Street View. This is some astonishing and creepy technology. Just zoom in on people's faces, license plates, and more. Just when it got old to find quirks in the Google Maps satellite view, now we have StreetSpooting.

Honestly, I can't wait for this to cover more of Europe. It would be great to look around cities that I plan to visit. Crazy technology....... Just wait for the advertising integration: click the image of McDonalds to be taken to their homepage!

I found this by accident a couple of months ago while looking at a google map of San Francisco.

Since then I've 'toured' several people down Lombard Street from the comfort of my office. LOL

I actually found my car on StreetView. Creepy, but also cool.

I wasn't at the coffeehouse and my car wasn't home. I have no idea where I went that day.

The weird one for me is that they actually drove into my parking lot at work and snapped pictures of the cars there (mine included.) I can understand the appeal of street view, and have found it useful myself, but really, guys, a parking lot?

Several of my friends have located their cars on street view as well. Nobody I know has located themselves walking around, though.

You assume that all of the pictures were taken simultaneously. That would seem to be an invalid assumption.

For example, my house shows SWMBO's car, but not mine, and the garbage can is on the street, which makes it a Wednesday. But my office parking lot is empty, which makes it either a weekend or a holiday. Those two things cannot have happened on the same day.

Personally, I think Google should have the responsibility of editing out all people (at least faces) and license plates before putting any images (containing such) live. This can be automated with existing tools. Unless they stop and ask each and every person who's face they capture to sign a model release, this is the only right thing to do.

Here's a good article on the basics-
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4232286.html

and here's the wikipedia info-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

Whacky lookin' camera, that one!

I was out jogging last summer and got scanned by a google car a couple times. They have not published my city yet, but I remembered where my appearances should be and look forward to being immortalized ;-)

They caught us having a yard sale!

Not quite what you wanted, but looks like they'll remove faces upon request.

Google Street View totally helped me out this weekend. I used to find landmarks and a visual of my hotel in Philadelphia. When I arrived, after dark and in the rain, I was able to get to the hotel a few blocks away without a single wrong turn from memory.

But yeah, it's still a little creepy. What's next, Google Inside Your Office Building View?

While useful I have a feeling that the pictures on street view will remain for years without being updated.

However with the economy down the tubes maybe new building will not be an issue in the next few years.