The subversive-looking Google Streetview cars have hit Paris to shoot a touristic stroll past highlights like the Tour d’Eiffel, Place de la Concorde, and, the Place Charles de Gaulle (depicted below). Not the touristic part, as the ‘normal’ areas of the city aren’t covered. Some Valleywag commenter complains that the Google Cam didn’t shoot anything east of the Louvre. Anyway, when you DO cross a well-known area on the Google Map, this is how it looks like:
Google Streetview shows 360 panoramic photos of cities from ground level. So far, lots of US cities and some parts of Italy and France have been covered. The ultimate goal of Google is to cover the whole world, which is obviously pretty ambitious, really exciting as well as a touchy subject. As you can imagine, ladies in bikinis and men leaving strip clubs aren’t really fond of Google Streetview.
Earlier this week I saw a Google car with a mounted camera driving around my block here in Amsterdam so I guess streetview will be available for the Netherlands in the not so distant future as well.
Google has released part of Paris and other French imagery because of the Tour de France. All routes the Tour will follow can be seen in Streetview.
My guess it’s a matter of weeks before they start the complete Google Streetview for Europe.
The utility of Google mapping, particularly street view, depends on the match between the changes going on in a given environment and the regularity of Google updating. This is not street view, but it is relevant to the point. I wanted a Google picture of the parking lot of my local airport so that my wife could locate the car I was leaving for her. It seemed like a natural for Google’s satellite views. Unfortunately, the parking lot has been ‘under construction’ for the last six months. The picture I got from Google was pre-construction, and not much utility.
So imagine “ladies in bikinis and men leaving strip clubs” being embarrassed for years to come — not just for a few moments.