I was standing in front of my house outside Vancouver, BC today when I saw a grey Chevy with California plates drive down my street. It had a rig on the roof which looked like a bicycle/ski rack complete with a 3 foot mast and a GPS unit mounted on the trunk. It seems that Google is taking the unprecedented step of taking pics using a 360 degree camera... Just imagine if MS and Google partnered, it would make for one heck of a low level flight. Anyway, seems pretty cool.http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/eye-on-you/goog...rica-279222.php

It is my opinion that the proliferation of cameras is one of the reasons that the population of this planet is driving itself mad.

"It is my opinion that the proliferation of cameras is one of the reasons that the population of this planet is driving itself mad."LOL! Substitute 'Mobile Phones' for cameras and I would agree whole heartedly.Mike

Gee! Now the bad guys can case your house from the comfort of their own home. Isn't technology wonderful?VicQ6600 G0 CPU 2.4 o/c 3.6Evga 680i A1 with P30 BIOS 2G XP2-8500 DDR2 1066FSB Mushkin 996535 RAM 5-5-4-12-2T320G 7200 HD partitioined for XP/Vista/Programs 2 - 74G Raptors in RAID0 500G 7200 HD for backup SATA DVD burner Evga 8800GTS 640 PCIx Kandalf LCS case w/ built in liquid cooling 850W Thermaltake power supplyVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/

What's the point of this Google program?Where's the value in it?I can see GPS mapping software being of use, especially for ambulances, etc., but do they really need a picture of my house?Bryan

Maybe not your house, but views of small shops could be handy. If you're planning to drive to a new store you've looked up in Google, this would give you a preview of what building to look for as you travel down the street.On the other hand, there have been lots of privacy concerns raised, e.g. "Why is my best friend Bob's car parked in my laneway while I'm away at work?" or "Isn't that Bob coming out of the triple-X shop?" Google says that it's not recording anything that isn't already visible from a public street, but there's an inherent difference between a fleeting moment and capturing it for all time.Edit: Back to original post, it would be cool if they could automatically use the images as a texture source to map on 3D models of buildings. Then your (very) low-level flying would be able to show some amazing detail.

> it would be cool if they could>automatically use the images as a texture source to map on 3D>models of buildings. Then your (very) low-level flying would>be able to show some amazing detail.Now that would be very cool. :-rotor Maybe we'll see this in the future?

They should pass a law that every building/ house must submit a computer 3D moldeled replica of the structure. Then we can truly have a 3D world, LOL, that would be crazy.