Streetview Landing Page Prototype. Street View – Google Maps. Alright everyone. Despite my complete melt-down further up in this comments thread, I need to put something out there. Disclosure first: although I have access to certain sources, I (and my business) am independent of Google but have direct dealings with Google. I have NDAs that prohibit me from disclosing certain things. I will mind my manners and my NDAs in writing this. August didn't go according to plan, completely. YouTube was very quick to adopt 360° video but YouTube is comparatively MUCH smaller than Google Maps and incorporating 360° video didn't require a major overhaul because it's still a niche and people are more forgiving of products that serve a niche. 360° photography, on the other hand, has moved from niche to mainstream and made the Street View brand (when tied directly and only to Maps) irrelevant very quickly.
Transparency is crucial to Google's success. I think that's about it for now, believe me when I say that I'm not happy with the execution of this AT ALL. Street View goes to the Amazon. With Google Street View, you can do amazing things such as hike around Stonehenge or even ski down Whistler’s slopes—all without leaving home. Soon, you’ll be able to float down the Amazon and Rio Negro Rivers of northwest Brazil and experience some of the most remote and biodiverse areas in the world. A few members of our Brazil and U.S. Street View and Google Earth Outreach teams are currently in the Amazon rainforest using our Street View technology to capture images of the river, surrounding forests and adjacent river communities.
In partnership with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS), the local non-profit conservation organization that invited us to the area, we’re training some of FAS’s representatives on the imagery collection process and leaving some of our equipment behind for them to continue the work. We’ll pedal the Street View trike along the narrow dirt paths of the Amazon villages and maneuver it up close to where civilization meets the rainforest.
Google Takes Street View Photography into the Wild with Camera Backpacks. Google has already photographed quite a bit of our world using a fleet of cars, submarine-style cameras, tricycles, and snowmobiles, so what else is there to include in Street View? Places where vehicles can’t go, of course. The company has begun capturing 360-degree imagery using the Trekker — a special backpack with a Street View camera rig sticking up from the top. The special new 40-pound rig will allow Street View to include panoramas from places like mountains, jungles, hiking trails, ancient ruins, and much more. Google published this short teaser for the rig back in June to give the world an idea of what it’s planning: Nathan Olivarez-Giles of Wired explains what the rig comprises and how it works: The Trekker is basically a smaller version of the equipment the Google uses in its Street View cars — a cluster of 15 camera lenses, each respective lens with a resolution of 5 megapixels, shooting a photo every 2.5 seconds.
(via Google Lat Long via Wired) Maps con Street View. Street View.