Oh yeah? I am watching you right now.

Some of my friends told my about this new function Google decided to create beforehand. Yeah all of us are technological nerd, not really. After I found out about this new application that Google created, I decided to check my own address as others might have done. It can be a double-edged sword, but things with great advantages should have some disadvantages. As Newton stated every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so it depends on who the user is. Some people might be optimistic or pessimistic. In my opinion, I think it is a great opportunity, especially with the growing dependence on technology. We all have to remember, this great new power comes great new responsibilities. Overall, I see buildings, blurred people, cars with blurred license plates, the scenery and much more.

It is kind of obvious the pessimistic people will immediately think it breaks their freedom of privacy, but Google are only capturing the outsides of homes not inside, therefore it is still considered a public area. Google put a button for browsers to report any faces or license plates that aren’t blurred yet to help protect the privacy of concerned patrons. This might not completely solve this problem instantly, but they are at least trying to satisfy those paranoid privacy freaks.

On the other hand I think this new application will help a variety of people. As some people might say, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I don’t think this is a privacy issue since it does not record the inside of buildings purposely, which is suppose to be private. This seems to show the innovations technology can create.

I have yet to find a picture of me that is posted online without my permission. Google Street View won’t change that because I think it would be pretty neat to find myself in one of these pictures. It might make you popular among your friends, or create something interesting to talk about. If someone is in a public space, Google would blur their faces so their likeness wouldn’t become public domain. With this in mind, Google is not trying to break any privacy laws so this is legit. I don’t think people would even be able to find their likeness inside these pictures because the quality is not the best and it would be hard to recognize with the blurred faces.

I well appreciate this new application created by Google since it is neat how they are manage to produce these decent panoramic views. I have used this program to make a simple reference picture for my Tech Design SketchUp model for TDJ, which are both coincidentally created by Google. This application could be used to have vague reference pictures like I have used. This could be helpful for people taking art courses or tech courses to use either scenery or buildings of the area as reference or inspiration.

Parkour, which is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment, is becoming an increasing practiced art. Here is a link with some background information (Parkour). Traceurs or traceuses, need to know the urban environment which they want to maneuver through so Google Street View would help them plan out how will they overcome each obstacle.

There are a few types of vehicles that Google uses to capture these pictures. The obvious way is via cars. They have adapted innovated ways to capture areas where cars cannot reach such as the tricycle and snowmobile. It is very amusing how far Google would go to make their applications advance especially with the tricycles and snowmobiles. The camera has a very sci-fi look with all those cameras and censors attached to it.

Google Street View has become so popular that there are websites which show weird, funny, and cool pictures taken by Google. This one seems to have the perfect scenery with the guy at the top of the pole. I would love to be this person standing on one hand on top of a pole. It seems that people love this new application so much they would go hours searching for similar pictures.

All together I think this application is a wonderful thing that people enjoy to browse. Google is probably the only company that could magnify this technology or even create this program. Personally, I believe that this is an astonishing innovation that opens doors and really I don’t find anything wrong with it.