Google Streetmaps
A civilian version of the GKB, Google Streetmaps drives through cities photographing us and publishing the results.
One blog has an image of the vehicle they use, which apparently belongs to a company called Immersive Media.
There's also some discussion of what they might do about potentially embarrassing images like this one. Luckily the service is so far limited to Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
Remember, this is not satellite photography, just somebody phtographing you as you walk in the street and psoting it on the internet. Microsoft are trialling a similar product.
As John Battelle recently asked, "How long till this becomes live video? Think about this for a moment. I am quite sure the NSA and the CIA are...." Hate to correct you, John, but actually the NGA are doing it for them.
Commercially, all these services seem to envisage some sort of gigantic commercial directory, so you can not only find the name and address of the nearest pizza restaurant but even see what it looks like. Yet another case of the insatiable in pursuit of the unusable? How many people, strangers to down-town Denver, but with a laptop and a wifi connection, actually want pizza? No, I mean, I'm just asking. I'm the man who thought that blogging would never catch on.
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