Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth that provides 360? panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007, only five cities, all in the United States were included. It has since expanded to hundreds of U.S. cities, towns, and suburbs, and to parts of France and Italy.
Google Street View displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated using either the arrow keys on the keyboard or by using the mouse to click on arrows displayed on the screen. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles. Lines that are displayed along the street that is shown indicate the direction followed by that street.[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/javed/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/javed/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg[/IMG]



Development

Main article: Development of Google Street View

Google Street View was first introduced in the United States on May 25, 2007, and currently features 57 camera icon markers on the U.S. map, each representing at least one major U.S. city or area (such as a park), and usually the suburbs and other nearby cities, towns, suburbs, and parks. Additionally, many major U.S. cities now have street view coverage without an icon. In all, with the extensions now reaching quite far beyond these major cities, views can now be seen in parts of all but seven U.S. states (Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia).
On July 2, 2008, Google Street View was introduced in France and Italy, providing the first service outside the United States. On this day, 19 camera icons were added, mostly showing small towns and areas along the Tour de France route and part of north western Italy.

Date	Locations added	Reference
May 25, 2007	San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, New York	[1]
August 7	Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Orlando	[2]
October 9	Portland, Phoenix, Tucson, Chicago, Pittsburgh	[3]
December 10	Dallas, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Detroit, Providence, Boston	[4]
February 12, 2008	Juneau, Boise, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Raleigh, Albany, Manchester
March 27	Anchorage, Fairbanks, Spokane, Yosemite National Park, Albuquerque, Austin, Little Rock, Rockford, Madison, Nashville, Cleveland, Tampa, Richmond	[5]
June 10	Sacramento, Fresno, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, St. Louis, Jackson, Louisville, Atlanta, Columbus, Jacksonville, Columbia, Charlotte, Buffalo, Virginia Beach, Yellowstone National Park	[6]
July 2	Aigurande, Auray, Bourg d'Oisans, Brest, Brioude, C?rilly, Cholet, Embrun, ?tampes, Figeac, Lannemezan, Lavelanet, Cuneo, Nantes, Saint-Malo, Paris	[7]

• Two other features included in the June 10, 2008 update were an effective mask of the "Google" car and the application of face-blurring technology on all photos, which effectively lowered the resolution across all photos, even the formerly impressive high resolution images of San Francisco. Also, many nearby metro areas were included, but they did not receive their own camera icons. Google initially used images from spherical video company Immersive Media as well as their own vehicles. Since December 2007, Google has used imagery that belongs exclusively to Google.
• On April 16, 2008, Street View was fully integrated into Google Earth 4.3.

Areas included


World



Continental USA


Coverage areas shown in blue














United States

State	Locations with icons	Other major cities/areas
Alabama		Huntsville
Alaska	Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau
Arizona	Phoenix, Tucson
Arkansas	Little Rock	Pine Bluff
California	Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Yosemite	Bakersfield, Modesto, Oakland, Salinas, San Bernardino, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Stockton, Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Sequoia National Park
Colorado	Denver	Boulder, Fort Collins, Greeley
Connecticut		Hartford
Delaware		Wilmington
Florida	Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Tampa	Daytona Beach, Everglades National Park, Florida Keys, Ft. Lauderdale, Melbourne, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, West Palm Beach
Georgia	Atlanta
Idaho	Boise	Coeur d'Alene, Nampa
Illinois	Chicago, Rockford	East St. Louis
Indiana	Indianapolis	Anderson, Bloomington, Columbus, Greensburg, Kokomo, Lafayette, Marion, Muncie, Seymour, Shelbyville, Terre Haute
Iowa		Dubuque
Kansas		Kansas City, Lawrence, Topeka
Kentucky	Louisville	Lexington
Maryland		Elkton
Massachusetts	Boston	Springfield, Worcester
Michigan	Detroit	Ann Arbor
Minnesota	Minneapolis	Saint Paul
Mississippi	Jackson
Missouri	Kansas City, St. Louis	Independence
Montana		Yellowstone National Park
Nebraska		Lincoln, Omaha
Nevada	Las Vegas	Reno
New Hampshire	Manchester
New Jersey		Newark
New Mexico	Albuquerque	Belen, Mountainair, Santa Fe
New York	Albany, Buffalo, New York City	Rochester, Saratoga Springs, Syracuse
North Carolina	Charlotte, Raleigh	Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem
Ohio	Cleveland, Columbus	Cincinnati, Dayton, Springfield, Toledo
Oklahoma	Oklahoma City	Tulsa
Oregon	Portland	Salem
Pennsylvania	Philadelphia, Pittsburgh	Uniontown
Rhode Island	Providence
South Carolina	Columbia	Greenville
Tennessee	Nashville	Knoxville
Texas	Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio	Fort Worth, Galveston
Utah	Salt Lake City	Ogden, Provo
Virginia	Richmond, Virginia Beach	Chesapeake, Newport News, Norfolk, Williamsburg
Washington	Spokane	Vancouver
Wisconsin	Madison, Milwaukee
Wyoming	Yellowstone National Park

Europe

Country	Locations with icons	Other major cities/areas
France	Aigurande, Auray, Bourg d'Oisans, Brest, Brioude, C?rilly, Cholet, Embrun, ?tampes, Figeac, Lannemezan, Lavelanet	Paris, Pau, Roanne, Saint-Malo, Narbonne, Nantes, N?mes, Toulouse
Italy	Cuneo

Early on, most locations had a more limited number of views, usually contained to the city limits, and only including major streets, and they only showed the buildings up to a certain height. But most of the initial views have been greatly expanded, and have been updated to show scenery all the way to the sky. Collections of photos taken of cities added later are generally more extensive from the beginning, and often include a more detailed area with every side street within the main city, more suburbs, and often more cities that are within a close drive of the main city. These areas continue to be expanded with each set of introductions.
In Google Moon, Street View-style panoramas are available for each Apollo mission.

Future

Google has stated that its ultimate goal is to provide street views of the entire world, although the company has not disclosed in advance the exact dates when any particular locations will be added.
In the more immediate future, Google plans to release Street View for various Canadian cities, but modified so that faces and license plates are blurred, due to concerns raised by Canada's federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart about the program breaching Canada's privacy laws. The commissioner's office expressed particular concern with the fact that spherical video company Immersive Media has already collected images for the service from Calgary, Edmonton, Mississauga, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Regina, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, especially since those images have already been made commercially available on its web site
In November 2007, image collection had begun in Australia, with Street View service for the region expected to be made available in the second half of 2008.Images appearing on the Australian Street View will (like Canada) have faces and license plates obscured.
In December 2007, Google began image collection in selected towns and cities in New Zealand, with Street View expected to be made available in Google Maps sometime in 2008.

A "Google Car", used for Street View mapping, spotted in a suburb outside of Tokyo


In March 2008, a Google Street View camera car was also spotted collecting data in Japan.

In June 2008, a Google Street view camera car was spotted in Seattle.^{[citation needed]}
Google has also been spotted filming in various cities in Italy and Spain and is attempting to hire 300 drivers to map Switzerland
Google has demonstrated Street View on prototype phones running Google's Android OS.
In April 2008, Google Street View cars were spotted in Italy with SICK laser scanners added to the scanning array on the car. These would be used for gathering 3D data as well as images.
In July 2008, Google Street View cars were spotted in Frankfurt, Germany.
In July 2008 a Google Street View car was spotted in Woodbridge, Va.
On 7 July 2008 it was confirmed that images had been taken in the UK for Google Street View.


Privacy issues

Privacy advocates have objected to this Google feature, pointing to views found to show men leaving strip clubs, protesters at an abortion clinic, sunbathers in bikinis, cottagers at public parks, parents hitting their children, males picking up prostitutes and other activities, as well as people engaging in activities visible from public property in which they do not wish to be seen publicly Google maintains that the photos were taken from public property. Before launching the service, Google removed photos of domestic violence shelters, and allows users to flag inappropriate or sensitive imagery for Google to review and remove.When the service was first launched, the process for requesting that an image be removed was not trivial;however, Google has since changed its policy to make removal more straightforward. Images of potential break-ins, sunbathers and individuals entering adult bookstores have, for example, remained active and these images have been widely republished.
In Europe, the creation of Google Street View may not be legal in all places. While the laws vary from country to country, many countries in Europe have laws prohibiting the unconsented filming of an individual on public property for the purpose of public display.
One of Google's remedies to the concerns over privacy laws outside the United States has been a pledge to blur faces of people who are filmed. On June 2, when the first service was introduced outside the United States (in France and Italy), faces were not blurred.
Google has delayed the release of its street views of Washington, D.C. and other nearby areas of Maryland and Virginia (including Baltimore, Central Maryland and Northern Virginia) out of concern from the United States Department of Homeland Security that some of the images taken may be of security-sensitive areas.^{[citation needed]}
The Pentagon has banned Google from publishing Street View content of U.S. military bases and asked Google to remove existing content of bases (to which Google has complied).
Some parents have expressed concern over Street View compromising the security of their children.
Aaron and Christine Boring, a Pittsburgh couple sued Google for "invasion of privacy". They claimed that Street View made a photo of their home available online, and it diminished the value of their house, which was purchased for its privacy
Some bloggers have disputed these privacy concerns. For example, a photograph of the home of the Boring couple was already available on the county tax assessor's website prior to their lawsuit.
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