Google doubles Street View coverage in U.S.

Google Maps Street View doubled its coverage of the United States Tuesday.

(Credit: Google)

Street View is continuing its seemingly inexorable spread across Google Maps, with Google announcing that it's doubled the feature's coverage of the United States.

The states that now have some coverage are Maine, West Virginia, North Dakota, and South Dakota, Google said Tuesday. Cities now covered include Memphis, Tenn., Charleston, S.C., and Birmingham, Ala., and Google filled in many gaps between cities as well; Google spotlighted the Devil's Tower in Wyoming on its Lat-Long blog announcement.

Upon seeing the updated Street View coverage maps posted Tuesday on Google's blog, one co-worker quipped, "It's like a zombie infection!"

Street View, like the satellite views of Google Maps before it, initially raised hackles that Google's all-seeing electronic eye was eroding privacy, even though taking photos from public streets is legal. But it appears to me the ruckus is dying down. Am I right about that? Chime in with comments if you see things differently.

Google also has expanded internationally this year, with Street View scenery now available in France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Spain, and New Zealand.

[Manhattan2]

We have some interesting solutions in GPS imaging that Google may be interested in seeing.

AgingInfrastructure.com is using our technologies.

[Swimatm]

They need to add Switzerland.

[Seanathome]

Too bad they haven't been through my small town near Philadelphia in New Jersey.

[jhawk95]

I thought Philadelphia was in Pennslyvania?

[i_am_still_wade]

Excellent! My house is in the new updates. By the looks of things, the picture they took of my neighborhood was in January to February 2008.

[Shankland]

It got close to the house where I grew up, but didn't go down the cul-de-sac. I think it might be related to the difficulties online mapping sites have with addresses on dead-end streets.

[akirandres]

I think I live in one of the most privacy conscientious country in the world; Japan.

When streetview hit the streets of tokyo, the media went crazy and thousands of phone calls
went to Google tokyo office asking for their house or car be removed from the map.

There's even people who say they see ghosts! lol
Here's a link with the "ghosts" they've found so far.
http://sv.ne.tv/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=1&tag=%E5%B9%BD%E9%9C%8A&limit=5

Once people found out its pretty useful (or google pressure on the media?), it all started to clam down.

[flareback]

I don't care if they take pictures from the road. It's not illegal.