Who watches the watchers?
Aug. 6th, 2008 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morslaI'm sure most of you have already heard about the addition of Street View to Google Maps this week. If you haven't, take a look - there are 360° street-level views along almost every metropolitan street in Australia, captured by a fleet of vehicles that look something like this.
It's quite bizarre. Sure, the infrastructure costs to set this up must be astronomical. Potential litigation is all over the news services - "I thought you were at a conference that weekend!" "Whose car is that in the driveway?" I find it eerily captivating though. Along any given street, the world has paused for a moment. Families watch from their windows, people walk dogs in the park. Few people remember seeing the funny-looking car sweep past, but it remembers them. Street View doesn't have full 3D, and isn't instantaneous. It's still a fascinating image - like the first images of Earth from space. Google just needs to add a voiceover to the program, calmly explaining "this is the world that was."
I wonder if the vast quantity of data is being archived somewhere? It'd be interesting to look back at snapshots from the history of your home or workplace, dating back to late 2007 when the first images were recorded. If any company had the ability to archive things on that scale, it would be Google.
In other New [Old] World Order news, George Orwell will soon be blogging his way through the 1930's and 40's (despite dying in 1950). Starting on August 9th, the Orwell Diaries will be posting entries from George Orwell's personal diary, beginning exactly 70 years after he put pen to paper. His diaries cover the period 1938 - 1942, so it will be interesting to see how topical he remains over the next few years.
It's quite bizarre. Sure, the infrastructure costs to set this up must be astronomical. Potential litigation is all over the news services - "I thought you were at a conference that weekend!" "Whose car is that in the driveway?" I find it eerily captivating though. Along any given street, the world has paused for a moment. Families watch from their windows, people walk dogs in the park. Few people remember seeing the funny-looking car sweep past, but it remembers them. Street View doesn't have full 3D, and isn't instantaneous. It's still a fascinating image - like the first images of Earth from space. Google just needs to add a voiceover to the program, calmly explaining "this is the world that was."
I wonder if the vast quantity of data is being archived somewhere? It'd be interesting to look back at snapshots from the history of your home or workplace, dating back to late 2007 when the first images were recorded. If any company had the ability to archive things on that scale, it would be Google.
In other New [Old] World Order news, George Orwell will soon be blogging his way through the 1930's and 40's (despite dying in 1950). Starting on August 9th, the Orwell Diaries will be posting entries from George Orwell's personal diary, beginning exactly 70 years after he put pen to paper. His diaries cover the period 1938 - 1942, so it will be interesting to see how topical he remains over the next few years.
