El Reg nails Street View spycars to Google Maps
Well, we at El Reg have decided we've had quite enough of Google's Orwellian Street View fleet - coming over here, invading our privacy, burning our petrol, and so forth - so we decided to nail the blighters to the search monolith's own Google Maps. Yup, it's uninhibited Web 0.2, and no messing: View the Map (opens in a new …
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Hah!
Watching the watchers! Good on yers!
Not that I've a problem with these particular snapshooters. What else should El Reg be tracking? CCTV? ANPR cameras...?
Black cars?
Do you think they chose black cars so they wouldn't stand out?
No pic
I failed to take a picture of the spycar when I saw it. It would have involved running after it, and I would have been immortalised looking like a dork.
New sport
Rather than have people bleating about privacy and not wanting to appear in Street View, how long'll it be before some nutters turn it into a sport (after picking a highly distinctive outfit) to appear in as many pictures as possible?
Or else, some tw*ts will use a household brand of auction site to sell their services (?!?!) holding adverts up everytime they're passed by a Google SV car.
Maybe this will keep the ne'er-do-wells off the can't-sing / can't-act / can't-integrate-into-society sort of crap TV we've suffered for way too many years.......
Surely
these cars cannot be legal. That camera pod on the roof will become a lethal projectile in an accident and then Google is going to have to spend a few of it's millions in court fees and compensation.
Am I the only one
who thought the Street View thingamy was quite nifty?
If by some freak incident my mush ended up on one I can't imagine crying myself to sleep.
Stand out!!
Well the black car bit would be ok but the 5ft Camera on the roof might be a bit of a giveaway, they would be better with a fleet of pope mobiles.
A title is required.
Black cars, black helicopters, they are all the same.
Here's a competion suggestion - a stack of El Reg goodies to the first person to find a picture of themselves taking a picture of the google spy cars on street view? (Something to do whilst looking for bulgarian airbag snaps anyway.....)
Thanks for sharing your other maps too
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=103601503239287784075.00044865d6cfbccb02889
np
France
You can add Toulouse, France; my daughter spotted one the other day.
I wonder if...
one passed an inidividual with a placard that said f**k off Google whether that particular part of the street/house would be left out?
Spotted in Leeds
I spotted one of the cars today in Leeds, it was driving past the big NHS building. It didn't appear to be taking any pictures though as the camera was covered up and the big pole thing was lowered.
It was identical to this: http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/07/11/brum_spycar_2.jpg
Except as mentioned the camera bit was lower.
Bristol car in Stokes Croft.
I'll look forward to google giving us Hi-res pictures of all the winos, crack addicts, whores, whore-users and trustafarians in Stokes Croft. Money well spent.
re: Black cars
Can you imagine trying to get a helicopter between all the lamp posts?
Black is the new white!
"Do you think they chose black cars so they wouldn't stand out?"
Perhaps they figured white cars with the Google logo sprawled across them was a little too high profile so they went with the very stealth black paint and technological gubbins covered with a bin liner instead. :)
Also in Leeds last week
I also saw it in Leeds going up Scotthall Road towards Harrogate. I successfully cut it up with a natty overtaking manoeuvre near the two way speed camera.
Does this mean that I can be googled?
Seen it only today..
I saw it on Deansgate in Manchester about 1:30pm today. No picture, but it defintely was there shilst I was crossing the road just before Waterstones!
Manchester
Got snapped yesterday on Ducie Street in Manchester. Unfortunately I was staring dozily into space whilst on a cig break outside work.
Hmm
i think because they used an everyday car (vauxhall astra..the same one the police use) they would blend in...
Paris..because she knows about geting spied on
They're in Sheffield too!
Spotted by Plusnet staff:
http://community.plus.net/blog/2008/07/15/google-streetview-spycar-spotted-in-sheffield/
Is that a bin bag?
In that case, WTF are these cars for?
Clearly they're working on some sort of non-visible wavelength that'll cause cancer and kill our kids. It's called "TerrorHurts" radiation for a reason, people! And it's radiation so it's evil!
Skull and crossbow because someone will die if these rotters aren't left unchecked. Think of the children!
Bristol sighting.
Good grief, of all the places to take your expensive camera equipment, Stokes Croft in Bristol is not it!
I wonder if the street view footage will just show a pack of hoodies approaching with a socket set :-)
flashers
i'm surprised no one's tried streaking alongside these cars yet
re: Bristol Sighting
Overheard:
crack addict 1:"this stuff's good - I can see things growing out of the cars"
crack addict 2:"AAARRRRGGGH! WOOF! BuggritMilenniumhandandshrimp."
No Pic
saw it on King Edward Street, Liverpool earlier today.
heading north, so towards Sefton, where Duncan Reid snapped it.
Re: Stand out!!
I'd love to see a fleet of popemobiles driving around our towns and cities.
There is somthing slightly sick about this....
Spying on the spy car using its own tools....
Spotted in Milton Keynes
I saw one in Milton Keynes the other day.
Sheffield
I saw one today near the train station in Sheffield at about 09:30. Driving up and down a dead-end street.
Black car, Google Logo on the side, HUGE great camera pod on top!
Wonder if I'll have been photographed!
@Chris Harden
That is what I love about Google is that you can use their tools on them. Had it been the government (especially here in the freedom-hating USA) with cars/cameras, you would have at least gotten added to the Terrorist Watch List just for noting where the cameracars were.
In fact, I bet Google is aware of the fact that people are tracking its cars. I think it would be interesting if, for example, they were to add GPS devices in the cars and have a real-time/frequently updated map showing their locations. (Even better, being able to track a car in your area and seeing the picture feed to make sure your thong/swimming pool does not appear.)
Wikimapia
Am I the only person who thinks google maps is a bit shit? It's slow, it's sqished into a corner of the screen, keeps crashing, and your inclusion of it in your web page means the 'back' button doesn't work.
Wikimapia on firefox (the only thing firefox is good for) is the dogs bollocks. It's fast, fills the whole browser window, and has information about places.
Why bother?
Could have saved themselves a fortune in petrol by using the UK's comprehensive CCTV network. Real time feed too...
its all a US government ploy
yeh yeh, google this, google that.
theres only one aim.
to find Bin Laden.
This seems like a contradiction
Am I the only one who sees an inconsistency in El Reg's positions here? One day you are railing against restrictions on public photography, and the next you are complaining that somebody is taking public photographs. One does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when out in public. I fail to see the harm that could result from this service.
They are black because ...
... no-one has yet paid the advertising costs.
Promise to pay them a dollar each time Google says someone saw the camcar, and they will paint a vulture on the side. Google will track the number of people who saw the advert with subliminal images that hypnotise pedestrians into texting 'I saw the vulture car' to Google.
Am i the only one thinking..
Get out the stinger ! (the tyre deflation device not the missile.. that'd be harsh even for Google)
Spotted in Liverpool
I saw one yesterday in Liverpool going south along The Strand towards Wapping, It was passing Canning Place police station.
Didn't have a camera with me though :-(
@brainwrong
What browser are you using to use Google Maps? I use Firefox and I've got it so that the entire area of the window that shows webpages (probably 2/3, 3/4 of the screen) is covered. Hardly squashed into a corner. Sounds like the browser you're using isn't as good as the apparently pretty useless Firefox...
You can get rid of the sidebar using the small "collapse sidebar" arrow, widening 'maps out to the whole screen-width.
Google maps is great. Not quite as awesome as Google Earth with its terrain mapping and vast quantities of other data, but still great!
Greedy people
It's just mad American people (mainly; not all American people are mad, i'm married to one but whether that means she IS mad or not I can't say..) who are feeling left out at not having anything to sue somebody for........I do think all this privacy stuff is hilarious...I agree with the guy who mentioned appearing in loud outfits across the world in Streetview...it's be called GoogleSpoogle or GoogleFroodle something like that....(oh, before that catches on, I'll mail myself a printout in triplicate so I can sue anyone who uses that without askin me first lol)...I'd spend ages looking for me or someone I know for my amusement when I'm bored
They are sure taking a long time to upload!
I saw one of them here in Munich (gawked really since I knew what it was), and I am eager to see my blurred face and moronic expression of, "Hey that is..."
Looks like Google is going to have a little bit of a privacy issue here though. And likely a bit of a fight.
Spotted in Hull
Spotted one in Hull city center on the morning of Sunday 13th July. Didnt have the time to snap it though.
Spotted in Aberdeen
Just saw one 10 minutes ago. It went 1 and 1/2 times round a mini roundabout.
How many of these things are there? What is the collective noun - plague, infestation?
Shared Map? Where's my tinfoil?
Interesting...
The shared map that Chris refers to is just round the corner from my office.
Perhaps it's not a StreetView car after all but a clandestine surveillance team from El Reg HQ keeping tabs on me...
Am I right to be paranoid? Have I got enough tinfoil?
can I have your job?
you guys have the best job in the world.
"ok I'm bored and got nothing to do, I know I'll pin sightings of google cars on google maps"
if only I had such an easy and fun job :P
Sent my Pics..
In Nottingham Today...
Noticed it has 3 laser range scanners mounted on the post too.. Google must be planning on going 3D!
Mike
@ Jaded CTO
What do you mean "not the missile"? Surely that'd be one of the best uses for a Stinger, and it'd rather dramatically demonstrate what people think about the potential invasions of privacy from this :)
A TiTle is required
How long before google add a live track map? right back at ya!
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