March 20, 2009 by James Oliver
After months of vaguely sinister Google cars crawling around the nation’s cities and towns, photographing everything in sight, Google street view is finally ready to be released in the UK. From yesterday, anyone, anywhere in the world has been able to type in a post code from selected UK cities and almost instantaneously view that particular street as if they were right there on the pavement.
For the uninitiated, Street View works by stitching together millions of individual photos to make what is essentially one huge continuous photograph of a city or town. Initially the service will show London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh, though more cities and towns are expected to be added in the future.
Street View has a high novelty factor and can be an awful lot of fun to play with for a bit, though people are divided as to its actual practical applications. Google believe that the tool will be used by people trying to find shops and houses, tourists planning trips and by house-hunters looking to check out the neighbourhood before they move house, whilst others are worried that it could be a tool for burglars to ‘case’ potential targets. There’s also another group who believe that Street View has no real uses, and that Google have essentially just built a very expensive toy.
I guess only time will tell.
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