Posted 09/09/09 at 08:04:40 PM by Ryan Whitwam

It doesn’t matter that almost all the text is in Japanese, and you probably don’t speak Japanese. This adorable look at how Google Street View works is easy viewing for all nationalities. Sure, it takes some creative liberties, but that’s why it’s so darn endearing. 

The video opens on a charming little fellow with a camera for a head puttering down the street. He snaps pictures as he goes, and then takes them back to his (also charming) workshop, where they are scanned.  Identifiable information is blurred out, and all is well. Well, there are some additional complaints about unwanted elements in the pics, but the little camera-headed fellow works late into the night to keep you safe.

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Posted 04/03/09 at 07:52:20 PM by Pulkit Chandna

A Google Street View vehicle came up against a tempestuous, unyielding mob in the British village of Broughton. The Street View car had gone there to collect photographs to be used by the Google Street View service. Google’s ingenious camouflage tactic of leaving the car unmarked failed miserably as its peculiar rooftop camera betrayed the vehicle’s identity and purpose of visit.

When a local resident, Paul Jacobs, discovered the vehicle ambling in his languid village, he rushed towards the car’s driver to deliver his sermon about the privacy rights of villagers in quiet British villages. It did not take long for other villagers to rally behind Jacobs.

Their protest eventually paid off as the vehicle had to leave. The locals are worried Street View may help thieves plan burglaries; Broughton has witnessed three burglaries in the past six weeks.

'I don't mind estate agents taking pictures but this shows people how to get in and how to get out. I was determined to make a stand so I called the police,’ said Paul Jacobs.

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Posted 01/08/09 at 07:19:15 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Google Street View has been on the radar of privacy advocates and has had its fair share of legal run-ins with them. But many of them might just undergo a change of heart after being told that cops in Massachussetes solved a kidnapping case using Google Street View. Although it is too early to say whether it will remain an isolated incident or become a precedent, the story is truly amazing.

When cops were trying to find the whereabouts of a 9-year old girl, who had been abducted by her granny, they were able to trace the coordinates of her phone to a location in Virginia. They then came up with an ingenious plan of identifying possible hideouts in that area using Google Street View.

Local cops were soon dispatched to a suspected hideout, where they found that technology had not disappointed them.

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Posted 07/04/08 at 10:51:26 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Google’s Street View service has already hit a roadblock in the UK, even before its launch across the Atlantic. Google would be hoping that this is just a hurdle and not a dead end for Street View’s UK version. Street View is an extension of Google’s navigational and mapping services that features photographs of locations on Google Maps and Google Earth.

A U.K rights organization, Privacy International, believes that the service violates people’s right to privacy as Street View photographs freely feature passers-by, that too, without their consent. The organization has been in constant touch with Google over the issue but seems unsatisfied with the answers it has received thus far. Google has tried to placate Privacy International with promises of a new technology - which it claims is under trial – that can identify human faces and blur them.

However, every bit the cantankerous and incredulous social rights organizations, Privacy International has asked Google to either furnish more details of the technology within a week or run the risk of being officially referred to the Information Commissioner, who can even gatecrash Google’s ‘Street View’ launch plans.

Privacy International has a plausible reason behind its skepticism. It points to Google’s track record of freely reneging on such promises; as it did with the promise of developing ‘crumbling cookies’ after acquiring DoubleClick.

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