Where the streets have no name

Whatever your view of Google, it must have taken some serious managerial balls to decide to stick cameras on top of cars and send them out to photograph, well, everywhere. Today they announced that they have snapped more than five million miles of road in fifty countries, and have released their biggest ever update to Google Street View which includes, wait for it, Pattaya!

So now you can cruise around Pattaya without having to come here. And you can take trips around the surrounding countryside, the extent of the coverage is very impressive. Here is a familiar view if you recall the original Pattaya Days layout, taken down a nameless track road out in the countryside:

We knew a Pattaya update was on the way because a Google Street View car drove by a restaurant where we were having lunch one day. She who must be obeyed, media whore that she is, was straight out on the road and snapping a photo of the passing car to put on Facebook. And of course the Google car snapped her; so she was straight onto Google Maps this morning to check out if she was featured.

Oooh, look, there I am! But why has my face been blurred out. Oh dear, has it? Yes, look. Why? You must have failed the GAT. What’s the GAT? The Google Attractiveness Test. If they decide your face is not pretty enough then they blur it out.

A little more exploring and she discovered that everyone’s face is blurred out on Google Street View; but by that time I had decided I had an urgent appointment and had left the building.

Comments 🔗

2013-04-23 | The Heavyweight says

Did the story really end there? Or did it continue when you came home, and you found yourself with some yoghurt over your head on the sofa that evening ;-)

2013-04-24 | Grant says

Trust you’ve been back to face the music? It’s a fine shot they’ve taken, mind you don’t get replaced on more than one level…

2013-04-24 | Richard H says

“Where the streets have no name”… that’s Japan, isn’t it? They don’t see the point of giving names to the empty spaces between buildings, so they just number the blocks and employ extra policemen to direct the lost postmen and other visitors.

2013-04-24 | Spike says

U2.

2013-04-25 | AmazonBlockView says

Often forgotten, is that Amazon photographed store fronts with its own fleet of cameras before Google played catch up. They launched a search engine A9, with a feature called ‘Block View’ showing photographs of blocks at street level. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com

So it didn’t really take Google managerial balls to put cameras and photograph everywhere. They had a new competitor, A9 and were rushing quickly to play catch up.

2013-04-25 | Spike says

Coverage of buildings in 24 US cities is not quite in the same league as covering five million miles of road in fifty countries.

2013-04-25 | Chang Noi says

Well our town here upcountry has no street-view at all … and I like it that way.

But I was wondering Spike … is your face already blurred by SWMBO?

2013-04-25 | ChristianPFC says

Where is this lake with all the pavilions in the water?

2013-04-25 | jon says

There’s been a similar facility available for a while……….. http://www.pattayaphotoguide.com/ Will look at the google version to see how much things have improve during the interviening years :-)

2013-04-25 | Spike says

http://bit.ly/Y6yova

2013-04-25 | Spike says

Massively

2013-04-25 | Spike says

Not so you’d notice.

2013-04-25 | Grant says

But in a country where 49% of the adult population believe in angels 24 cities could easily be considered to be bigger than the rest of the world, and more important…