October 1
Google Maps car sighting: They’re having lunch, we’re snooping
On our way to lunch today we had a sighting that makes the average geek excited: a Google Maps car, live, in the flesh. These cars are deployed by Google to document the street view imagery on its maps. They also collect geospatial data. It is not the most nondescript article to travel with.
Parked outside a Friendly’s diner, a huge tower carrying telemetry and photography equipment
is installed atop the car.
Data collection equipment inside the car
Driver side view of the car featuring monitor, keyboard
As you can see, a long, methodical road-trip necessitates gummy candy and lots of music.
The data collection computer is stored in the car's trunk
Wireless data uplink using a Verizon data connector.
Definitely does not seem like the cushiest gig, but hey, it’s a tough economy.
The Google Maps car sighting: They’re having lunch, we’re snooping by Molecular Voices, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Richard said on October 1st, 2009
So, I assume you saw it here: http://bit.ly/arsenal-mall-street-view on 10/1/09? I’ve stumbled into game of waiting to see how long it takes to update Street View imagery: http://twitter.com/rklancer/status/3751558611 (No update yet, 4 weeks later.)
Aside: They’re holding up the driver’s monitor with a 4×4 fence post? That’s crazy, like having Velcro holding together your server components or something…
Thanks for posting!
Richard said on October 1st, 2009
So, I take it this was sighted at http://bit.ly/arsenal-mall-street-view on 10/1/09? I’ve stumbled into the game of seeing how long it takes for Street View imagery to be processed and updated: http://twitter.com/rklancer/status/3751558611
Thanks for posting; that was amusing and informative.
Richard