Google Street View South Africa

Google Street View: Should South Africans be worried or is the world just paranoid?

Google Street View is coming to South Africa and it seems people are unsure if they should be terrified or excited.

In an effort to make some sense of the issue, I’ve decided to write a few words on the following :

1. What is Street View and how does Google create it?
2. What are the privacy concerns surrounding Google Street View?
3. A personal perspective on privacy.

What is Google Street View?

Google Street View is an extension of the very popular Google Maps.
It allows users to ‘go down to street level’ and see what it looks like at [...] Continue Reading…

Two years ago, Google sent out an army of hybrid electric automobiles, each one bearing nine cameras on a single pole. Armed with a GPS and three laser range scanners, this fleet of cars began an endless quest to photograph every highway and byway in the free world.

One of the best jobs in the world?

Google (GOOG) has hired two lucky young men to ride around France on dopey looking tricycles snapping up photos of historical sites that are inaccessible by car. This three-wheeler is a sight with its long pole holding nine cameras, a GPS, a computer and a generator. But the contraption tooling around the French capital needs all that gear to do its job – adding three-dimensional images to Google's Street View Maps.

The riders, wearing Google tee-shirts and white helmets, are visiting well-known sites such as the Chateau de Versailles, west of Paris, the Jardin du Luxembourg on the city's Left Bank or Les Halles, in the busy centre of the French capital.

(Link)