I knew the Google Street View was expanding rather quickly, but I had no idea it was spreading like a virus all over Oregon. Look at this screen shot I just took (the blue roads are the roads where Street View is available — sorry about the large screenshot):
It basically looks like the waters of the Columbia in Portland and the Willamette through the valley flooded and are slowly filling in the rest of Oregon.
The only reason I found this was that I was looking up my grandma’s address on the coast (where we’re headed to this weekend — if you look really close at the URL in the screen shot, you’ll see the city) and noticed the little “Street View” button. Apparently the little Street View car has been combing quite a few rural (and twisty) highways and is gradually making it over to this side of the mountains, even combing some rural roads over here.
The nearest street-view image appears to be on the Madras side of Warm Springs (as well as an equidistant shot up Hwy. 97), and looking at the photo, it looks like the Google guy turned the camera on as he was heading into Warm Springs from Madras (based on the lane he’s in as the passing lanes are coming out of the Warm Springs canyon):
Anybody want to make any bets on how long it’ll take for that camera to make it that next 60 miles into Bend? It still hasn’t hit Eugene, so I don’t know when it will make it here.
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I noticed this too recently– I was amazed I was able to zoom out and see the coverage all over the place like that. I guess I’m more surprised they even bothered with rural roads before the metro areas… but still pretty cool.
I SO want a job as the Google Street View Driving Team….
Wouldn’t that be amazing? Making great wages driving around the country, just to film every street, all of the cool tourist destinations, zooming in on items of obvious interest….
But….
isn’t it kind of scary, too? I’ve already heard (in articles and on CNN) of people getting peeved because of the cameras scoping out their private driveways, or the one dude that made headlines because he’s perpetually embedded in a map showing him outside of a strip joint.
Imagine. Google Street Team drives down your road in Bend, filming the entire time. You, oblivious, are in your boxer shorts staring out the window looking for your cat. Street Team doesn’t notice, but eventually, someone Googles your address and sees you standing there in your skivvies!
Now that’s sexy.
I doubt they earn great wages.
Have you seen the google street car? It’s not camoflaged, or unmarked, at all. It has CAMERAS sticking off of it in a few directions. If I see that coming down my street, I’m ducking, or putting some pants on.
That explains it. There was a large dark green van GPS antennas and an omni camera mount with California plates parked in the lot at the Safeway off of Century last night.
Hmm.
I think I saw some kind of street view rig in Eugene a few days ago. An orange Toyota with California plates and a ~3′ mast on the roof with a round camera doohickey on it.
Last time I looked, street view stopped a little north of Salem, at about the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes stadium on I-5, and now they’re on the south side of Salem.
Is Google Street View planning to image every road in the U.S., not just metropolitan-associated areas?
It’s very difficult (if not impossible) to get any definitive info out of Google about anything.
Google Street View Is Now In Bend
I had wondered how long it would be before it came here, but it looks like it’s now here. I don’t know exactly when it got here, but it’s here,…