The Observation Deck

Our black-eyed susans were in full bloom, the zucchini was high and the lawn was dead. I could pan up and see the angle of the sun.

Looking more closely, both vehicles are in the driveway, the garage door is open and somebody is by the side of the house. I can't see who it is.

It could be somebody kneeling over a lawnmower...

First Federal's clock says 12:08.

If the zucchini looked that good, we're talking about the very end of July or beginning of August. That's when I was wondering what to do with the bountiful crop...

dl meckes wrote:Our black-eyed susans were in full bloom, the zucchini was high and the lawn was dead. I could pan up and see the angle of the sun.

So looking more closely at this project is it...

cool?

creepy?

a fair representation?

It occurs to me that many people looking to move might use this resource to walk through a city before going there. You get transferred to Cleveland to be one of the millions working at the new Medical Mart and you decide to do some virtual walk throughs before actually shopping for homes.

If this was shot this week the city would look extremely ugly, nasty and bad. Would that be a fair representation of the city?

A city could work for years on defining and building its brand only to be under-minded by this.

As we read in wikipedia, this was not a Google project, they had a company do it for the first year then, drop them and threw money at it themselves.

Are we stuck in the land of dead grass and large zuchini for all of eternity?

Random thoughts from a random guy.


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Jim O'Bryan wrote: As we read in wikipedia, this was not a Google project, they had a company do it for the first year then, drop them and threw money at it themselves.

That's pretty much the story for every Google acquisition - they find a startup, use them for a while, then buy it and assimilate it into the 'Google Borg'.

David Lay wrote:

Jim O'Bryan wrote: As we read in wikipedia, this was not a Google project, they had a company do it for the first year then, drop them and threw money at it themselves.

That's pretty much the story for every Google acquisition - they find a startup, use them for a while, then buy it and assimilate it into the 'Google Borg'.

David

That was not the story here, which is why I found it so odd. It seems to me if I read it right, they dropped the one company then did it on their own. Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft have all been playing very nicely for the past ten years, buying other people's ideas. Google more than any other paying over market price for these acquisitions. I was a little shocked to see this if I am correct.

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Jim O'Bryan wrote: David

That was not the story here, which is why I found it so odd. It seems to me if I read it right, they dropped the one company then did it on their own. Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft have all been playing very nicely for the past ten years, buying other people's ideas. Google more than any other paying over market price for these acquisitions. I was a little shocked to see this if I am correct.

I believe you are correct - and I'm a little shocked to see Google didn't buy Immersive Media, who provided a lot of the initial Street View images.

On the other side, sometimes they buy a startup and do absolutely nothing with it. An example is Jaiku, a microblogging site that is basically a competitor to Twitter. Supposedly, Jaiku's employees are going to be reassigned to the Android project.

David Lay wrote:I believe you are correct - and I'm a little shocked to see Google didn't buy Immersive Media, who provided a lot of the initial Street View images.

On the other side, sometimes they buy a startup and do absolutely nothing with it. An example is Jaiku, a microblogging site that is basically a competitor to Twitter. Supposedly, Jaiku's employees are going to be reassigned to the Android project.

David

Huge difference between buying and shelving and becoming a competitor.

This is not the Google style of business.


FWIW


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Here's a funny one from Cleveland:

Start here. Move the arrow forward, and with each step, pan around to see the guy on the bike.

Just jumped in on this thread. A little "aside". Back in the .late 60s/ early 70s, while in the Air Force, we were told that we had satellites that could take pictures that were clear enough to read numbers on vehicles on the ground. Can you imagine what the NSA and other 3 letter agencies have now, considering all this Google "stuff" is available for public use?


Mark Allan - pulls out the TFH again - Crnolatas

Mark Crnolatas wrote:Just jumped in on this thread. A little "aside". Back in the .late 60s/ early 70s, while in the Air Force, we were told that we had satellites that could take pictures that were clear enough to read numbers on vehicles on the ground. Can you imagine what the NSA and other 3 letter agencies have now, considering all this Google "stuff" is available for public use?


Mark Allan - pulls out the TFH again - Crnolatas

Well try http://www.zillow.com for a little more freakout. Punch in yours or anybody's address to find out what the home is worth, how much was paid, what other houses near by sold for, etc. It has aerial views, but I know mine for instance was over seven years old and not very clear. Plus on a Mac, it seems to bug out when I zoom.

UPDATE. When I look at the birds eye view, which is on the data sheet page, it shows N,S E and W views that are only maybe 2 years old (based on the size of my Magnolia tree in the front yard).

I'm sure the government satellites these days are quite good for spying. Not sure if the commercial ones will ever be allowed to be better than the governments. Google was asked (and complied) to not show military and sensitive areas for national security. Of course the Chinese and Russians have no such restrictions on what they photograph.

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This type of tool should certainly make a site visit less of an obstacle for any business relocations.
To be honest, I was hoping that all the photographers here had put together a walking tour of the city (at least Detroit and Madison) on their own and this was the launch of a new product.
On the higher tech side of things any chance of putting together a layered map which would put a different colored pin in each type of location (a park, a church, a school, down to types of stores and offices)? Does something like this exist already? I recall this being an undertaking that was too cumbersome with another project that I had worked on but had always thought is would be a great planning tool.

While yeah it is a bit creepy it is still cool.

It seems like a lot of streets though got skipped for the street view. It looks like they started on the east side of Lakewood and just stopped, I hope they eventually do all the streets.

Dustin,

Just in case people are trying to get to the site you link above I have added the missing w to the end of it here and in your post above. The other link just took you to one of those evil domain parking sites.

Have a good one!!

The Zillow images come not from satellite imagery but from Microsoft's Virtual Earth images, which were taken by helicopter. That's why they look so much closer, and can be viewed from the four perspectives.

Jim DeVito wrote:Dustin,

Just in case people are trying to get to the site you link above I have added the missing w to the end of it here and in your post above. The other link just took you to one of those evil domain parking sites.

Have a good one!!

whoops- thanks!

Dustin, a true story ..
When I first arrived at an air base for which I cannot give location for security puposes, (OPSEC) I went to the "security control" where I checked in, as I was a cop in the Air Force. The building was near a taxi way for the planes. On the grass, at noon local time was about 30 guys laying on their stomaches without ANY PANTS on. Buck naked, spelling out twoi words ending in U, (for about a half hour). Obviously I had to ask someone what the deal was, and why those guys were doing what they were doing.

My commander told me every daytime at noon local time a "Rusky" satellite went over directly over, taking pictures and this was the way the guy would give them something to look at.
The next day I joined the ritual with my fellow cops.

Mark Allan -TFH and maybe famous in USSR at the time photo'd toosh Crnolatas