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Google Street View Criticised Because Of SAS Photos
Google has been lambasted for allowing its Street View service to publish pictures of the secretive SAS (Special Air Service) headquarters in Credenhill in Herefordshire which had never been photographed officially before.
Security experts say that terrorists could potentially use the pictures to plan for attacks on the base especially as Street View shows a full 180-degree panoramic view of the HQ’s boundary and has been taken within the last six months.
The search giant has promised that Street View will not show licence plates and faces. An MoD spokesperson told the Sun that they never confirm where their special forces are based.
Laura Scott from Google has confirmed that Google only takes pictures from public roads and that the base was not hidden away from public view. She also confirmed that the images would not be taken off the site.
Google said previously that “One in five people already use Google Street View for house hunting and the scheme has previously launched in 20 countries without any breach of security issues”.
Ironically, anyone can ask Google to remove pictures if it violates their personal privacy. Furthermore, it did remove some pictures of 10, Downing Street, the home address of the British Prime minister that it considered to be too sensitive.
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Google Street View Is Service For Burglars Says Survey
According to a recent poll undertaken by discount website myvouchercodes.co.uk, people in the UK believe that Google’s Street View service is highly intrusive and a ‘service for burglars’, the Telegraph has reported.
The results of the poll indicated that Google has failed to impress Britons with its Street View technology as 57 percent of the 1,317 people interviewed thought the service was intrusive while 24 percent believe that the service would be precious to the burglars.
Google has managed to anger 74 percent of the correspondents by not bothering to ask permission before publishing photos of their streets and houses online, according to the poll.
However, almost one-third of the people that the service was meant for the benefit for all while the Thames Valley Police explained that there was no evidence indicating that number burglaries had escalated after the launch of the service.
Google, on the other hand, has reason to believe that the service has been welcomed with tremendous success in the UK and the company has reported that more people are calling them up and requesting that their street be included in the service.
A Google spokesperson said in a statement that “Anyone who has a privacy concern and wants to remove their house can do so quickly and easily but in fact we often find people get in touch asking us to come and put their street on the map.”
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Google Street View To Integrate Wiki Feature
Search engine giant Google has announced that the company is planning to equip Street View users with the ability to edit the service, in order to make it more accurate and tailored according to their needs.
According to a post on the Google Lat Long blog, Street View service will come with an ‘Edit Marker’ feature, which is designed to allow users to edit or change a business marker on Street View if it is placed on the wrong spot or is not exact.
Jie Shao, a Google Street View Software Engineer, explaining the new feature, wrote on the blog that “Let’s say you know that your favorite pizzeria is near the corner but the marker for it appears further down the block. You could use our map editing feature (the “move marker” edit) to move it to the right place.”
The company also said in the blog post that, when a wrong marker is located by the users. in order to edit a marker on Street View, they need to click the marker and select ‘more’ from the info pop-up that appears on the screen.
In the ‘more’ drop down menu, users need to select the ‘move marker’ link, after which, two animated markers will appear, one on the map and the other on the Street View image. Users just need to drag the Street View marker to the right spot and click on ‘save’.
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Google Street View Goes Live Nationwide Tomorrow
Google will be officially rolling out Street View in the next 24 hours as it promises to put online images for “almost all of the UK’s roads, both rural and urban”.
Ed Parsons, Google’s geospatial technologist for the EMEA, explained that “Street View takes mapping to a level not possible before. And with so many practical applications it’s no wonder that over two-thirds of people who had tried the service said they would use Street View again.”
In total, 210,000 miles of roads across the country will be available in glorious pseudo-3D in addition to the 28,000 miles that are currently available on Street View UK.
By the end of this week, a staggering 96 percent of the nearly 247,000 miles of roads, streets and motorways will be available online, that’s much more than the journey to the moon.
Nigel Lewis, property expert at FindaProperty.com, told Vnunet that they have provided the service to the users since it was launched back in May 2007 with only 25 towns and cities and saw it become one of the most indispensible tools available to prospective house hunters.
Streetview has often been in the news in the UK for the wrong reasons as some had questioned the privacy issues associated with the service, something that Google has been keen to dispel.
The service however turned out to be one of the most popular services provided by Google.
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Shambles Wins Google Street View Award For Best Street
The results of the Google Street View Awards have been announced and it seems that Britain has voted the Shambles in York as the country’s most picturesque street.
The street, now a major tourist attraction, is one of the oldest streets in Britain and has been a part of York since medieval times.
Search engine Google had recently launched a Britain-wide poll in which people could vote for the best streets in the UK. The categories included ‘Best Foodie Street’, ‘Best Fashion Street’ and ‘Most Picturesque Street’.
The poll, which was taken by almost 11,000 people, resulted in Stockbridge High Street, Hampshire emerging as the best foodie street in Britain with Milsom Street in Bath being voted as the best fashion street.
According to Google, the short-listed streets for each category were compiled by an expert panel of judges including chefs, travel writers and fashion designers.
Commenting on the results of the street view poll, a shop owner on Shambles street, told the BBC that “There is a real feeling of community amongst shop owners and I think we all feel privileged to work in such a beautiful place. The shops here are all strikingly different and unique.”
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Google To Introduce Store View For Street View
Barry Schwartz, the editor of Search Engine Land, has reported that search engine giant Google plans to add a new product in its Google Maps offering, called Google Store Views, which will allow users to check out popular shops and stores in a particular area.
Schwartz reported that someone at the popular retail store ‘Oh nuts’ had told him that Google representatives had come to their store in order to click photographs of the inside of the store, after every 6 feet in all the directions.
According to Schwartz, Google is developing Store View as an additional component for its popular Street View products, which allows users to checkout an area by looking at photos taken from a moving car.
Store View will allow users of Google’s Street View product to virtually visit a store listed on the Street View in order to see whether the establishment is to their liking or not. Several industry experts are of the opinion that Google’s Store View has the potential of emerging as a major e-commerce tool with very cool and interactive features.
However, the idea that images of major stores and establishments will available to virtually everyone in the internet, has raised some privacy issues and the fact that thieves and arsonists can use this feature to their benefits.
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Google Street View Now Includes National Trust Landmarks
A collection of the UK’s twenty picturesque landscapes, country houses and fascinating castles from National Trust properties have been included into the Google’s popular Street View service.
The service will now show images of some the iconic National Trust’s sites, including Corfe Castle in Dorset, Downhill Denesne in Northern Ireland, Plas Newydd in Wales, and Yorkshire’s famous Fountain Abbey.
Images of these aforementioned sites were captured last summer using the Google Trike, a three-wheeled bike that carried a camera mounted on it which is capable of capturing high resolution images.
Online users can now have a 360-degree ground level view of these National Trust sites, and also gain valuable insights from the specially created guides on these attractions.
Google’s geospatial technologist, Ed Parsons, extolled the arrival of these sites to Street View service by saying, “National Trust locations offer all of us a glimpse of history, nature and architecture”.
“We were delighted to be able to open up some of the UK’s most famous landmarks to the rest of the world via the web,” he added. Giant Causeway is likely to be the other National Trust site that would appear on Google Street View service sometime during the end of this year.
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