Tour de Street View
Wednesday, 2nd July 2008 by James Turnbull
The first Street View images outside America are now available - Street View has come to France!
Added in celebration of the upcoming Tour de France, the street view images are mostly restricted to the race route (rather than allowing you to explore whole cities).
However, there is lots to see, including the most classic of sights: The Eiffel tower1.
Street View cars have been spotted all over Europe, so other countries are no doubt on the way.
In the meantime, let us know what you find in France and, if you speak French, make sure you're subscribed to Google Sightseeing Français.
Thanks: Google Maps Mania
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Which we've already seen from above many, many times! ↩︎
I thought Google were supposed to blur faces in France?
This guy isn’t blurred, and he looks very suspicious of the camera car…
That guy is actually an alien, and not human at all. The Google face-blurring technology is so advanced that it can tell the difference, even if we can’t!
Also worth noting is that the imagery in France is much higher resolution than all the new imagery just added to the US (which was deliberately kept low-res to protect people’s privacy).
The lack of face blur is odd because i know France has much more punitive privacy laws than both Britain and the US. C’est la Vie.
The guy on the other side of the street does have his face blurred.
In domestic google streetview news, hubby is fairly sure he saw the car in Eugene, OR the other day.
I can’t believe how low-quality much of the US Street View imagery is compared to this, or even the original cities. Zooming in does not refine detail like it does there. Yes I’m jealous.
Ooh la la! They seem to have employed number (license) plate blurring on the cars in France, whereas I don’t believe they do stateside…correct me if I’m wrong!
Heh, the guy without a blurred face does have a blurred shoe!
Since they followed the Tour De France route, some street-view images have been recorded here in Italy, too!!
I also notice that part of the shop sign behind Monsieur Nonblur is blurred out. This whole blurring business is a bit hit and miss to say the least. Sacre Bleu!
blurmange.
Since this morning, it is impossible to reach the site from Google Reader. The feedburner feed makes an infinite loop.
Have you a problem with that ?
Merveilleux! I was wondering why the street view coverage didn’t extent all the way over the Col de la Bonette (the highest mountain pass in the Alps, by the way), but it seems the road was still blocked by snow.
Strange car, by the way.
@ernest: It seems to be working now, but get in touch if you’re still having issues.
Does anyone else feel much higher up in the French car than the American ones? Or is that just me?
I think there’s a car trying to cloak here: View Placemark,,0,32.81411048244348&ll=43.616598,1.445389&spn=0.013577,0.026608&t=h&z=15
WooHoo, anyone fancy a pint in Lourdes? I’m off there in a few weeks.
View Placemark,,0,16.075365584055643
@dr. R. – There are some fantastic shots of the Alps though! Here’s a great vista over the border in Italy.
@Stuey – That particular driver appears to have squashed several people completely flat!
Looks like the rain got a bit much for the driver…
Oops, meant to link his lovely face properly!
And here the driver goes straight through a roadblock: View Placemark,,0,35.24780687829319&ll=44.668287,6.993914&spn=0.026675,0.053215&z=14
Here is the view from switchback #9 of the famous 21 switchbacks on the climb up to Alpe d’Huez: View Placemark,,0,22.955516931726567&ll=45.080127,6.051235&spn=0.055091,0.163422&z=14 I rode up this mountain last month, the pictures bring back lots of good memories 🙂
ChrisW, correct me if i’m wrong but did Top Gear do a skit on this bit of road (switchback road)
Top Gear did do a switchback road in France, but it wasn’t that one:
http://www.redlineblog.com/top-gears-worlds-best-driving-road-in-detail/
Well looks like the paranoids, sorry privacy fans, will block Google Sightseeing in the UK even with face blurring – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7488524.stm
@ Tim – there is a debate on it on this BBC site – http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/07/google_privacy_and_street_view.html . I have been accused of working for Google for leaving a comment in favour of Google :).
It looks like they are ready for the Tour de France here:
View Placemark,,0,-0.8729769188022668
this is going to provide a big boost to French tourism, imho. i’ve already found some amazingly pretty French towns already that i’ll certainly be visiting.
its great seeing the cafe/restaurant culture of a town before you visit it – with streetview i now have a reasonable idea of where i can get lunch before i visit the town…
now thats awesome.
I’m trying to figure out what type of vehicle they are using here. I would assume some type of SUV given the extra height of the camera and the off road treks and snow on these mountainous roads. Here you can see what is either the top of the car or part of the mounting system for the camera.
View Placemark,,0,50.77638372904379&ll=44.667005,6.990309&spn=0.015352,0.037594&z=15
People have some pictures of the streetview car in France on Flickr. Here’s one: http://flickr.com/photos/visentico/2510596871/in/pool-616736@N20
And here is the Flickr group, where you can find more: http://flickr.com/groups/616736@N20/pool/
I checked out the pics John linked….I noticed there are at least 3 different looking cameras and modules. Any idea as to why?
I suppose one type…the tallest and biggest could be a high res. module. Then the others are simpler cameras for lower res. stuff like the images in many of the States streetviews.
@nova: I read somewhere that the other cameras might be for 3d modelling of the buildings.
Wow the resolution is incredible! And also I see that google has implemented their face blurring technology haha. Looks great! I hope it’s there to stay!