Article Entry

08 Mar 2011

Comments:1

Google Street View Boldly Going Where No Tricycle Has Gone Before

Added by Category: Daily Intelligence Brief, General


Just when we thought that Google Street View had conquered every corner, side street and the alley way (wait is that from a song?) it does something even more astounding: they go off-roading with tricycles. Google last week unveiled the latest photos of places that we typically could not see from the road, which includes hiking trails, university campuses, historical landmarks and national parks. By using a 250-pound, 9-foot-long tricycle has a camera mounted on the back that takes pictures from 7 feet in the air, now Google can give us a unique perspective of our world that is not often seen — at least from our cars. According to PC World, the tricycle was the brainchild of Google engineer Daniel Ratner, who visited the car-unfriendly cobblestone streets of Barcelona, Spain. That made him realize that Street View cars weren’t adequate for Google’s apparent intent to scan and record everything in human history, including every book ever written, the topography of museums, and our Wi-Fi passwords. Be sure to check out this post for a short video from Google showing the tricycle in action.

Google used to stick to places where its vehicles with mounted cameras could roam. But now it’s using an off-road vehicle that it invented to go where no Street View camera has gone before. T

Tags: , , , , , ,

1 Comments »

  1. Kelly wrote: 14 March 2011

    Google has been using the tricycle for a couple of years now. It was used to collect street view data on the Penn State campus two summers ago. You can even catch a glimpse of the trike in reflections off windows. The images are very high resolution and of much higher quality than previous data. The images inside Beaver Stadium are fantastic. However Google’s face recognition software appears to be too efficient as it blurred the face of the Lion Shrine and most statues on campus.

Share Your Thoughts