I know where you live…(said in menacing voice)
There’s been one heck of a lot of hype today about the introduction of Google Street View to the UK. At present you can see 24 cities at street level via this innovative (if not addictive) 360 degree view.
Rather than be yet another blog post that goes into detail about what Street View does or what it’s good for we thought we would go over to the Dark Side and think about how technology is making it easier and easier to become a fully-fledged busybody!
Imagine the scene, you’re sitting at work playing with Street View, you decide to have a little snoop round the dodgier parts of town when…
*STOP!*
pan back to the left a bit….
is that?…
It is..!
Yup. You’ve caught a friend/family member/other half exiting a strip club/massage parlour!
Now, joking aside, and as fun as this toy is it does have the potential to feed future news headlines. Already there have been instances of people using social networking websites with tragic results and Google Street View is bound to end up on the news at some point.
It also throws up some interesting questions over privacy and it does move us step-by-step closer to on Orwellian society (and yes I have read 1984). Only last month did a judge dismiss a lawsuit in Pennsylvania after a family complained the Google Maps Car trespassed on their private property and invaded their privacy.
Much as I could dwell on this point I’d much rather have fun with it. As more and more locations are captured I can see it being a great tool for researching holiday destinations etc and I think I’ll become quite a user of Street View.
Just a little disclaimer : We know Google has promised to blur out faces and car number plates but this is tongue-in-cheek and you could still technically recognise someone from an outfit!
FYI : The location in the image above? It’s Seventh Heaven and no, I didn’t spy anyone coming out of it!
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