Google street view!

[iceman]

It's now launched in Australia.

I just found my house, it's a perfect view.

Incredible!

Just go to maps.google.com.au and click "street view".

[RB]

What's your address Mike? :P

[vindictive666]

no images for my street yet :)

[Amy]

It has to be a home within the blue outlines to be able to see. I tried mine, Steve's and my kids without luck.

[erick]

That's amazing - so someone drove around Australian streets with a video camera! Edit: OK, it's a series of still images. Find a road with moving traffic and you can see the other vehicles passing the imaging vehicle.

In fact, we remember a strange looking van coming through a few weeks ago - looking all the world like a UK TV detector van! But with an obvious camera.

It looks like all number plates are blanked out?

[snowyskiesau]

I've wasted a few hours with this today, looking up all the places I can remember living.:)
It would be interesting to work out when the pictures were taken.

[iceman]

Apparently they were taken in November last year.

[Striker]

Wow I need to mow my grass.
very nice.

It looks to have been done by a car with a camera on the roof.

[iceman]

It was. There was little google cars driving around with 360deg fisheye cameras on top.

[Striker]

Yeah check out the shadow of the car it looks more like a UFO...weird

[jjjnettie]

Cool!

[erick]

ABC News:-
Australia goes virtual on Street View

Google Maps has today officially unveiled Street View for Australia, a feature which enables computer users to view and navigate 360 degree imagery of public roads around the country.


The new web feature can be used to take virtual walks, explore cityscapes and search for local places of interest.


Google says it consulted privacy and community groups throughout the development of the feature in order to ensure privacy safeguards.


Google says Street View only contains imagery that is already visible to people from public roads and none of the imagery is in real time.


Street View also blurs any identifiable faces and vehicle number plates.

[Kal]

Theres still a few number plates I can read - their algorithm might not be able to detect 100% of them.

A bit of wavelet sharpening and a deconvolution filter and I might be able to real alot more of the fuzzy ones as well :lol:

[[1ponders]]

Maybe for the bigger cities, but the shot of my place was taken between the 24/3/08 and the 10/5/08. I would guess sometime around the end of may as the pine profiles look yellowed and weathered. It shows the profiles I built for my observatory, but the posts and pier haven't been put in yet.

[vash]

they took the shot of my street after a storm. I remember the clouds

[toyos]

It's already raised some privacy concerns.....

[sheeny]

They haven't tackled rural addresses yet (at least not near my place) but my old place is in there... probably taken during November last year: only 1 for sale sign up, and my truck is in the drive-way so most likely while I was in Canada. It's interesting how much you can determine just from a photo;). It's not surprizing to me if there are privacy issues that come out of it.

Al.

[erick]

Still trying to work out whose car is parked outside my place! :whistle:

[wavelandscott]

I'm having that same discussion with my wife tonight! Wish me luck...

[Ric]

Nothing out my way at the moment. As Al said they haven't got around to the rural areas yet.

[wavelandscott]

It was the "handyman" that my neighbor's wife hired...or so my Wife insists ;)

[Jen]

:eyepop::eyepop: Yayyy Swan Hill is on the map and there is no big shed on there :doh: but there is now hahaha so they need to update already lol :lol::lol:

[Kevnool]

Clear blue skies i noticed in my street

[dannat]

Eric & Scott - it is probably the butcher,baker or candelstick maker

Our lasthouse must have been snapped last year, as we can still see our car in the driveway at Shepparton

Our new place must have been snapped at the end of this summer, as we can see our car again - Though our kids find it strange our car could have been in two places at once, they only wish they could see themselves outside the house :cool:

[ving]

you know whts freaky bout this?

apart from the invasion of privacy, i found my car in 2 spots... freaky!

[snowyskiesau]

I've just found out that the tenant in my rental house is parking his truck on the front lawn. No wonder it's dying :)

[Hmm, I'm now getting we are sorry,but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region when I access any map.]

[ving]

yeah its slow due to over use of sumpin i think...

[erick]

Hey, I can drive all over Australia without using any petrol or leaving my chair! Just follow the blue lines! Bit slow but - about the equivalent of a houseblock every 5-10 seconds? :D


Edit: - Sorry Darwin, cannot "visit" yet.:sadeyes:

[kinetic]

Here's a few privacy issues I can think of to start with:

I can see what is in someone's yard two houses up.
He can see what is in mine. A bloody great observatory.
Isn't that why people put 6ft colourbond fences up.
For privacy. Why bother with fences anymore?

Someone a few doors away has built a pool over an obvious
easement. Big NO NO.
If I was feuding with the guy, should I tell council?

Google would have to drive on private roads to take housefront
pics of all addresses.
Don't you need permission to drive on a private road?



Steve

[Rodstar]

Fortunately I must have just whipper-snipped and mowed the front lawn in the day or so before my street was imaged.

[DistroMan]

Unfortunately for me, the opposite is true. My son-in-law (wonderful fellow) hadn't mowed my lawn in a few weeks and it looks like, well, to be honest I can't think of a description bad enough. :shrug:

[badchap]

Aye- most likely, that fits with my house photo anyway... was somethime after our roof tiles were (finally)done, and before I (finally)removed the bricks from the front gence/gate that my husband so skillfully knocked over.

*never back a trailer in a hurry*

Carmel :)

[bloodhound31]

So now one can case a joint before they knock it over, without even going there and showing thier face.

I can see the bins are out so its a business day. If I know the suburb I will know what day that is. I can pan around and see what driveways and carports have cars in them. Couldnt do this from sattelite pics but now you can. So I can pick a street where I now reasonably know who will likely be home and who will not...... Not happy about this at all. I certainly wasnt consulted before they stood in 5 different spots all around my front yard and panoramic snapped my windows, doors, car, observatory, gates...shall I go on. Thanks Google, for making my place an easier target.

[avandonk]

Here is my place from the street. If you look hard you might be able to see some of the outline in amongst the trees.

Bert

[Kal]

Almost all the imagery on google earth is old, and it may only be updated once every few years. The street view data they put up was captured over the last year or so, so there is no sense of this being 'live' information that is useful. If a theif wants to risk casing a joint because the owner left their bin out 6 months ago then they'd be taking a big risk!

[bloodhound31]

Actually, the photo is quite recent as I can see some old desks I left out the front to be taken away.

My point is, so, its not live, but you can still get a good "feel" for a neighborhood by doing this, regardless of the finer points. A lot more than you could from satellite pics.

My family lives here so I naturally feel protective and a little bit violated that all my entry points can now be seen by any sicko who so desires.

When you design a safe, you need to try to think like someone who wants to break into it, and do what you can to make it harder for the theif.

Street view is not the axe that busts down the door, but it is one of the tools that make the job preparation and target selection that much easier.

It's not the things I can think of that I worry about as much as the things I can't think of that scares me. As I said, this is our family safety at stake. Anything that threatens that is a concern. :shrug:

Naievety is dangerous.

[erick]

I can see a market for cardboard cutout big fierce dogs to stand up in your front yard before the camera next comes down the street!

[madtuna]

shame they don't give you prior warning so you could mow your lawn, put your bins away or press your bum up to your lounge room window

[bloodhound31]

ROFL!!!!:lol::rofl::lol::rofl::lol: :rofl:

[erick]

Now you mention it (well your derrière anyway), of the millions of images they have taken, there must be some interesting scenes captured? I don't think they have carefully inspected every image? Just ran a tool over them to identify faces and numberplates and blur them? :D

[madtuna]

The tattoo on my bum would be a dead giveaway lol my kids would spot me and dissown me.

I was working up in either the Southern Highlands or near Braidwood a few months back and drove passed the google car 3 times in the same day, and I am sure they were all on hillbilly dirt roads.

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
:rofl::rofl::rofl:
:party::party::party:

[Dujon]

I suspect that some in our community at large are being somewhat paranoiac about this innovation. What burglar worth his or her salt is going to rely on, or even consider using, images which are months old in order to plan an invasion? One would be better off using real estate advertisements if one was that lazy.

I will rest peacefully in my bed at night secure in the knowledge that Google's 'Street View' will in no way impinge on my general security. I might even dismantle the machine gun and fill in the emplacement, remove the bars from the windows and cut the power to my electric fence. The baseball bat behind the front door and the .38 Smith and Wesson under the pillow I will keep.

;)

[avandonk]

I have got a little device that can receive four video inputs by radio link and it can monitor all channels for movement. When any movement is detected the images are then automatically uploaded to the net for later retrieval.
This all happens before the equipment can be interfered with. At least then the police know who they are looking for. For their sake they should hope the police find them first.

Bert

[bloodhound31]

Who's paranoid?

Is that Tasco 2" refractor (circa 1960) with table-top alt-az tripod mounted to your machine gun, the 10" Newtonian (GSO optics) & Dobsonian mount mounted to your 38?

Man! That's some hardware. Give me you address so I can Google street view it and come get 'em.:lol::lol::lol:

[kinetic]

The street view doesn't make me paranoid. The latest sat view of Google
does that. The pic of my place has just been replaced / updated after having the same low res shot for maybe 2 years or so.

As I have said in a previous post, basically a nosey neighbour can peruse the detail of your backyard from the comfort of his/her lounge chair.
He doesn't have to wait till you're asleep and put a chair up to your
fence. He doesn't even have to share a fence! :)

He could, for example, see that you collect vintage cars...or are building
a boat (or an ark :))) maybe.

He could see that you are building an air raid shelter and panic that
maybe he won't get an invite at armaggeddon :)

Councils used to have to purchase satellite pics to compare to building applications and catch people out building stuff not approved.
They had to sign disclaimers before getting pictures.
Now they can get it for nothing.
The general public can now get it for nothing!

I'd like to plant a row of small shrubs to spell out:
F... Off MSN and Google, but with the water restrictions I'd
probably spell out : U K an Ogle :D

Steve

[RobF]

Holey hole in a dougnut Batman!

I'd just got used to the extra high res google maps pics of our neighbourhood from the air, and now you can drive around it as well!

BTW, you can actually load Google maps/earth scenery into flight simulator these days and fly around your house/city quite happily. Looks like you'll even be able to have a look at the front door of the house you crash outside now as well.....