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December 10, 2008 11:19 AM PST

Google doubles Street View coverage in U.S.

by Stephen Shankland

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

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.

Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (8 Comments)
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by Manhattan2 December 10, 2008 11:49 AM PST
We have some interesting solutions in GPS imaging that Google may be interested in seeing.

AgingInfrastructure.com is using our technologies.
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by Swimatm December 10, 2008 2:08 PM PST
They need to add Switzerland.
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by Seanathome December 10, 2008 2:48 PM PST
Too bad they haven't been through my small town near Philadelphia in New Jersey.
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by jhawk95 December 10, 2008 3:16 PM PST
I thought Philadelphia was in Pennslyvania?
by i_am_still_wade December 10, 2008 7:12 PM PST
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.
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by Shankland December 10, 2008 8:57 PM PST
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.
by akirandres December 11, 2008 12:59 AM PST
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.
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by flareback December 11, 2008 1:54 PM PST
I don't care if they take pictures from the road. It's not illegal.
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