Although Google is planning to make an official announcement later today, it's hard to notice the addition of a little yellow man to Canadian streets in Google's popular mapping service. Across many of the country's most-populated cities you'll find the panoramic feature now active. As you zoom deeper into a map, watch the figure standing on top of the zoom controls. If he lights up yellow, you can drag him onto any high-lighted street to access a first-person perspective comprised of high resolution photographs that allow you to use your mouse to explore the view from all directions. Google has been working for several months in assembling the needed photography for the popular feature, sending out special trucks equipped with mounted cameras to tour public streets.
Stay tuned this afternoon for more in-depth details on what lead to the launch and what new features might be in store for Canadians.
Update: After officially launching Street View in Canada this afternoon, Google explained that their focus was in bringing Street View in Canada was to immediately put a focus on the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, with high resolution imagery included of Olympic Venues such as B. C. Place Stadium and Whistler Village. Street View has been added to the following locations: Vancouver, Whistler, Squamish, Banff, Calgary, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax. Additional cities and regions within the country are to be added soon.
Responding to concerns regarding privacy, Google says that they have "gone to great lengths to ensure Canadians' privacy while enabling them to benefit from Street View on Google Maps. The feature only contains imagery that is already visible from public roads and blurs identifiable faces and licence plates. In addition, users can easily flag for removal images that they consider sensitive or inappropriate by clicking on the "Report a problem" link at the bottom of any image. Google has consulted with Canada's federal and provincial Privacy Commissioners in developing Street View and its privacy safeguards. "
The launch includes both the web-based version of Google Maps and
Google Maps For Mobile, and in addition to exploring the maps, users can also embed the maps into their websites for free.
That Canadians have shown a strong interest in Streetview is something that was not lost on the company. Their studies show that Canadians have viewed more than 150 Million Streetview images from maps in other countries while waiting for the feature to launch within their own. After several international launches, there are now thirteen countries in addition to Canada where Streetview is available, these include: Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the U.S.
Facts & Figures
Google has also released a number of interesting facts and figures from their efforts to collect the imagery and launch StreetView in Canada:
"Our drivers told us the biggest challenge to driving in Canada was the weather ... it rains a lot in Vancouver!
Our drivers said the most fun part of mapping Canada was trying to guess how many Tim Horton's a driver would pass each day.
The optimum weather conditions for capturing Street View imagery are dry and slightly overcast skies; rain, snow, fog and hail are the worst.
Street View on Google Maps uses state-of-the-art face detection technology to blur faces - technology which was added for new imagery in Manhattan in May 2008. This technology is new and sometimes we get some false positives: in some cases you can find we've blurred the face of a horse or even a statue!
Geography, population density, weather, and traffic are just some of the logistical issues that can affect the time it takes to cover a selected area, so it can take several months to cover an area.
The Street View mascot is called Pegman. He's called Pegman because he looks like a clothes peg. He sometimes gets dressed up for holidays and other special occasions. In the past he's been a snowman, a hippie, a witch, Uncle Sam, and riding a bike in the Tour de France.
Street View on Google Maps has been used for some imaginative purposes, including one Google employee who proposed to his girlfriend via Street View. Police in Massachusetts used Street View to find the location of a kidnapped child."
Street View in numbers:
"5 Number of U.S. cities available with the first ever launch of Street View on Google Maps (San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver).
11 Number of Canadian cities and regions now explorable in Street View: Banff, Calgary, Halifax, Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Squamish, Toronto, Vancouver and Whistler.
12 Average number of panoramas someone looks at each time they use Street View.
14 Number of countries where Street View is currently available (Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States).
15 Number of times a day that Street View drivers have to climb on top of the roof to clean lenses, cover up when raining, and check equipment - some use small step ladders to make it easier.
10,000 Number of corrections or additions our users make to Google Maps each hour.
49,400 Number of kilometres of road covered for the Street View launch in Canada.
One million Hours that Google Maps and Google Earth users spend browsing geographic content every day.
Tens of millions Number of images that have been captured for Street View on Google Maps so far.
More than 150 million Number of Street View images that Canadians have viewed of other countries in 2009 alone."
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