Spain is the second European country in which Google unveiled its Street View system that allows virtual walks through the streets of cities from your computer. Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla are the first Spanish cities to join the service within Google Maps.
For months, the urban core of these cities has been photographed by a few cars equipped with special cameras to capture images that allow 360-degree views and are simultaneously located on the street map.
Google says that it has taken “ten thousands of images”, and does not give any more details on the investment or time to incorporate the first four Spanish cities to the Street View program. The result is quite surprising, and it provides new street usage opinions for both users and businesses.
“You can perform digital tourism or find out how the new neighborhood in which we are going to move is or know what it looks like down the street from the restaurant where we stayed. There are many applications and we hope that there will be many users. more.” Said Clara Rivera, owner of Google Maps, who also explained how many companies are already using View in Vico for business such as real estate the Spanish websites Fotocasa and Idealista, or the Lanetro hospitality portal, which will provide gastronomic routes from this system.
Google provides free tools to incorporate this application into other sites that want to use the street view system. in 360 degrees.
To access Street View, you just need to click on the appropriate tab within Google Maps and have street photos at hand. The user is represented by a small icon that can be moved from one place to another simply by dragging the mouse inside the table.
Google Earth also integrates this option so that you can get a perspective from space in the center of the city.
However, her face and license are disturbed.
Despite the moving aspect of this application, the vision of being able to walk the streets of the states from your computer has also generated a large amount of controversy. Many citizens of San Francisco and Las Vegas, the first cities to be photographed for this system, complained that in they appeared in these pictures, or that they recognized cars and houses.
Google has found the answer to this controversy with a new technology that can automatically confuse all the faces and license plates of cars that appear on its service. “Anyone who does not want to appear in these images has a tool to request removal and the image will be removed as soon as possible,” said Fernando Delgado, an engineer with Google.
Furthermore, we must remember that Google has consulted with local institutions and organizations on privacy issues to ensure maximum respect for the privacy rights of citizens. Googles also confirms that the search function is not real-time images and their intention is only to open spaces and the streets, and not their individual actions.
Google is slowly incorporating new cities into its service, and they are also looking for pedestrian streets that are difficult to enter, such as Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, which is not yet included due to technical difficulties.
