Google Streetview in New Zealand.....

[Timmo]

I just noticed that Google streetview has been enabled for NZ....I have noticed the vans/cars driving around the place collecting the many GBs of data needed so I knew it was a matter of time.

For those that arent aware what streetview is- Now google maps not only allows one to zoom to any part of the earth and see a satellite image, a map or the terrain, it allows you to see a 3D panoramic view of the street on which you click.

Not all streets have been done but I have looked at a selection of places around the North Island and they all seem to have been captured. Amazing technology. I laughed when I went to my street- I remember what day they must have driven down it as a white Toyota Chaser was parked outside my place with a flat tyre.

From a FS development point of view, it is useful for being able to get a better idea of the layout of an airport without actually traveling there- For someone like snowman who makes airports from a set of pre-made objects (i.e. doesn't need photos of the sides of buildings for textures etc), I can imagine this would be very useful when combined with google maps/earth satellite images.

Just go to google maps, enter in an address and then click on the little yellow icon of a man.

[toprob]

Yes, this does have a certain disturbing fascinating. I keep going back to it this morning, dunno why.
Hey, here's my car!


There's some sort of space/time warp as I travel along this road, I jump in and out of the Lyttelton Road Tunnel.

[Ian Warren]

That s impressive , 6 months back , i recall a women with an eye piece walking the street , and with a certain sign , be smack on !

[ardypilot]

This is kind of freaky- everyones privacy levels has just dropped down one notch.

[Charl]

Good find, thanks Timmo.

The scale of the project absolutely boggles the mind.

North Shore Airfield, anyone?
Just type in 256 Postman Road, Dairy Flat, New Zealand.
"Walk" down the road a little way, to 282 say, look back, yup, there's the wreck of the GBA Trislander!
Pop over to map view, enable "Satellite" and see hi-res photolayout.

Not sure that Snowman could do airport layouts just from these views (Given where I had to trespass to get the airside shots ).

But I'm sure we should all feel a little nervous, now that Big Brother finally has a visual handle on us all.
I know I have a funny feeling, right in the middle of my back.

[NZ255]

QUOTE (Charl @ Dec 2 2008, 01:06 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know I have a funny feeling, right in the middle of my back.

Bad computer chair posture?

[ashton]

what a waste of gas driving every were! lol

[chickenman]

"Privacy" "Big Brother" C'mon guys, this is nothing, anyone can take pictures of a streetscape.

Get more worried about the fact that I have complete access to your credit histories, how much you pay for your houses, what vehicle you own, your phone number even if its unlisted or a contract mobile, your rates, house valuation and depending on how I feel on any given day your health records and none of that is adequatley regulated even though they are subject to privacy laws. Privacy in New Zealand is a myth and purely based on the fact that no-one would want to access the information rather than preventing them from trying. Most peoples concept of privacy is when some misinformed self important twerp says you can't see or know something because of the privacy act, which is usually bollocks.

A photo of your house and car are nothing.

[Rant Mode Off]

Having said all that it is very cool as a navigation tool since recognising landmarks is a much more important thing than just street maps.

[creator2003]

This is cool i like it ,just enough for me sometimes to check out streets for the best angle for phototextures ,i can see this being a tool ill use abit thanks for the heads up

[victor_alpha_charlie]

I don't see why it matters that people can see your house/ car in a driveway on the internet? To know it's your house they need to know the address anyway, so could they not just drive over and stalk you in person?

Pretty incredible really, I've spent a whole lot of time on it already

[SUBS17]

LOL googlegeeks what will they think of next.

[Charl]

QUOTE (NZ255 @ Dec 2 2008, 01:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bad computer chair posture?

Checked the chair - nope, funny feeling is still there.
If you are Generation X or Y and live in a free society you would probably have a more freewheeling view on this kind of stuff.
I'm framing a thought about this, trying not to sound paranoid...it's not the data that's at issue, it's the quiet collation of it all, without permission.
Raw data is essentially worthless, until you do something with it.
So what's to become of this mountain of data?
What purpose does it serve?
And whose?

Answers to these and other, deeper, darker questions may or may not be addressed in future editions of this forum

[greaneyr]

The way I see it, the more people they gather data for, the less personal it becomes. Here's an example.

When I was 18 I got a scanner radio for christmas. It was a model that had virtually continuous coverage from 25-1300MHz. My main goal was to use it to listen to the airbands, but I wanted the ability to be able to develop an interest in another band without having to acquire more hardware. Anyway, wander the airwaves I did rather happily that day. Until i stumbled across the unmistakable sound of DTMF tones. Help, somebody was making a phone call. I had landed on the cordless phone band. Not so long after this, I made another discovery in finding the 025 cellphone band.

So you can imagine what my evening was spent doing - listening into phone calls of course. At first, it was an "oh my god I feel so stealthy" moment as I enjoyed listening to couple after couple who were clearly not together on christmas day and the quality of conversation slowly deteriorated during the course of each call. They'd start happy, and end up fighting. It was light amusement - terribly unethical, but amusing just the same.

So the next day, I attempted to reproduce the same amusement by returning to my freshly-charged scanner's cellphone bands. What did I hear? Loads and loads of calls, of course. How does someone take anything meaningful out of so many conversations at once? How do you even choose which one to listen to? In the end, I think I settled on 118.8 (Wellington tower) and spent the remainder of my stay in Wellington listening to it.

So when you have sensitive information on a select few individuals, you can take something meaningful from it. The more people you get information on, the less 'personal' the information becomes. It is still useful information, but it takes on a more 'statistical' nature. That in itself may still bother some people, but then I'd suggest those people abstein from doing things like living, because no matter what you do in the world, at some point you become a statistic to somebody.

I think street views are very cool. I'm now off to go explore the perimeter fences of our nations airports and see how many parked cars I recognise

Richard

[beaufighterguy]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Dec 4 2008, 02:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Haha- my little brother had a walkie talkie set we used to use when we were younger, and I could always pick up my neighbor across the street on her phone, however, I could only ever pick up her voice and not the person on the other end.

On my Uniden that I have at the moment, I've also accidentally picked up what I think were Chinese people down the end of my street whilst surfing for air bands, but it could have just been a TV station audio band, as I once picked up the noise from TV1 and TV2.

Yeah I've got a walkie talkie set that's like a real good one and I've picked up a few old people and a guy from a garden centre .

[pilot.masman]

its a pretty cool new feature, surprised they decided to do NZ before completing the UK...

My house is in-accessible from google earth, but now i can stroll down my rural placed road and look at some random dog doing the forbidden stuff on my lawn