News on the Google Street View UK Launch
Since the discovery last night that Street View had been launched in the UK, things have been developing at tremendous speed! The entire web seems to be talking about Street View, and Twitter mentions are happening so fast that we can barely keep up. In total 25 UK cities have received coverage:
- England: Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Derby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Southampton, York
- Northern Ireland: Belfast
- Scotland: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow
- Wales: Cardiff, Swansea.
The BBC claims that 22,369 miles of roads have been imaged in the UK alone, which has taken a year to complete. Interestingly Google appear to have already begun the next stage of the process, as camera cars have been spotted in the last few days in more rural locations, as well as countries that still have no coverage at all.
However The Guardian claims that the biggest challenge in the project was was actually the British weather last summer – as the cars’ cameras are rendered useless by rain and snow.1
We’ve been posting loads of things onto our Twitter feed already, but here’s a roundup of some of the best ones seen… so far!
Here’s the best available view of Anthony Gormley’s awesome Angel of the North in Tyneside:
Qantas managed to get themselves some bonus coverage for their sky advertising stunt in Liverpool:
Twitter users all over the country have been finding themselves:
Here’s a couple of Londoners who might not want to be seen in public after this. The one wearing antlers is apparently comforting the other guy, who appears to be puking into a pint glass… Classy.
Also in London, many famous pieces of art have been captured, alongside this rather poignant piece by UK super-graffiti-artist Banksy:
In Cardiff a couple has had their happy day recorded for the world to see, and a van man on his lunch makes his feeling known:
In Bristol the car has captured a nasty looking bike crash in progress:
Also, Google have announced that hidden somewhere in the UK imagery is the stripy-jumpered Wally – of Where’s Wally? fame! I imagine there will be vast competition to be the person that finds him!
Our very own Rob Witherow submitted this in an attempt to take the crown of Ultimate Google Street View Sightseer, but somehow we think the real Wally will be slightly more… 3-dimensional!
Street View launched in the US in May 2007 and is already available in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and Italy. The Netherlands version of the service also launched yesterday, bringing the total number of countries covered to nine, and where some images have already started being removed! Presumably as the guys at Google use sites like this one as filters to spot any dodgy imagery…
Thanks to Stuey, Rob Maddison and the whole of Twitter!
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For those of you unfamiliar with UK weather; rain and snow are both common during our summer months. ↩
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The guy in the antlers pic has already been removed.
Well, I think we know what’s going to be in the Daily Fail tomorrow.
I also won’t have to worry about seeing myself on there *yet* – Preston’s not up yet. Interesting, though, that Scunthorpe is.
And I believe that the “One Nation Under CCTV” mural is in the process of being removed. Shame.
Further to my previous entry – That’s when they aren’t having a go at Nintendo for allowing a Grand Theft Auto game to be made for the DS (which comes out tomorrow).
You can read the Daily Fail’s scare-mongering article on their website already!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1162992/Google-Street-View-launches-25-cities-Britain-users-360-degree-close-live.html
Whoever is writing that article has been reading this site. Why can’t they do the right thing and provide a link (both to source and maps preferably, but either would do) like the rest of the Internet?
Also, the moronic comments are hysterical:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1162992/Google-Street-View-launches-25-cities-Britain-users-360-degree-close-live.html#comments
Some of Birmingham seems to have been photographed at dawn. Very dingy…
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
No, that’s just birmingham.
Bits of oxford were also taken at dawn – 5.45am to be precise!
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
There are water spots on the camera, could just be raining?
Parts of York were done early too, the Shambles is totally empty. Couple of things I’ve seen suggest teh cars where in York late September.
Parts of Manchester are very dark too, and damp.
I saw a car several times here in Scarborough before Christmas, wonder if that means we’re next?
Manchester can be quite damp.
Also, to Alex – I love some of the idiotic people who read the Fail: several of them are shouting “invasion of privacy”. Surely you lose that when you leave your house. That’s why they’re called “public places”. Or that’s what I always thought.
You Brits, can’t spell anything correct. It’s not Wally, its Waldo. I can understand the extra ‘u’ in color, but ‘ly’ does not at all sound like ‘dough’ (or is it ‘dogh’?).
In any case, welcome to the 21st century
Actually it’s only Waldo in the US and Canada… It was originally Wally, but for some reason they published it as Waldo over here. It was probably for the same reason that they renamed one of the Harry Potter books.
And this comes from someone in a country where it’s called “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.
Actually the Northern Ireland images extend quite a bit beyond Belfast, they’ve covered from Larne to Belfast and areas in between.
Well, we saw the Google car in the Highlands (Cromarty) back in July last year. http://www.thecromartyarchive.org/picture/number2208.asp?st=google
And as the editor said, that’s “Google attempting to become the world’s second company to produce a virtual tour of Cromarty.
If you go to west way street their is a bbc studio and in 1 window is me and if you go to bethnal green road their is the wheres wally person. He is guarding a building.
I find it strange in Aberdeen they have done most of the suburbs but havent bothered to do the city centre or the area known as “millionaires row”.
Yea…that is strange kinda. Apparently google car was in city center as well so where are pictures then…You can’t even send email directly to google with that question because there is not such email for enquiry
I heard that the City Council threatened all kinds of ructions and that is why Aberdeen City Centre is just a vast empty space.
No wonder. After debt of 50 milion pounds they keen to sue everyone. Aberdeen council =idiots.
Some point in April/May time the Google Street View car passed me on Holburn Street…so I’ve been checking for an Aberdeen update since
Hello- I’m thoroughly enjoying my virtual return to the UK streets, and I can’t wait until you folks cover the streets all around the British Museum… it’s a locale I’m using for part of the novel I’m writing.
Nice job.