Great Barrier Reef underwater panoramas in Google Maps (googleblog.blogspot.com) |
Great Barrier Reef underwater panoramas in Google Maps (googleblog.blogspot.com) |
"Well, we've finished with all the planet's landmasses...can you make this thing waterproof?"
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/street-view-goes-on-r...
I'm a huge fan of street view, and I love being able to virtually drive to where I'm going, and find landmarks to help along the way, like for example, a large orange building next to the shop I'm planning to visit. How is ocean street view practical in anyway though? If it's for the user experiencing the ocean or planning their trip, they could upload a quick video of common snorkelling and diving points around coastlines and islands. It would give the user much more information. As of now, it's like flicking through a slideshow, and the navigation is brutal. I'm scratching my head here trying to come up with one thing this does well. As someone else said, I'd like to see more trails added to street view, or even more streets.
Google, since you have free time, here are a couple of ideas...
1. Street view for different seasons. In certain countries, towns and streets look completely different depending on the month. I frequently use street view to browse areas I'm looking to live, or travelling. It would be useful if I could switch the images to summer, winter, etc.
2. Video street view. Much more time consuming to create, since the camera would need to stay in a single spot for a minute at a time, and blurring sensitive information would be more challenging. However, imagine choosing a location on the map, and feeling like you're in that area of the city, or on that quiet road in the middle of the forest where you rotate the camera and follow a bird flying by.
I personally have never seen anything like this and thoroughly enjoyed it for a few minutes. As someone else pointed out I was blow away by how well it worked from the google maps app on my phone. And I'm not convinced something like Planet Earth on blu-ray or "HD video on youtube" gives you the same experience unless you could pause it at any point and look around in any direction.
You can't control a video to see what you want to. You have some control with this underwater Street View. It's the same reason why I find Street View much more valuable than watching videos on YouTube of people driving.
http://www.nimmobay.com/media/360-video/360-video-nimmo-bay-...
Attach one of those to a diver at popular destinations. On Google maps, show a little video icon. Click the icon, watch, and look around as they swim the location. It's now easier to navigate, and gives you a better representation of snorkelling or diving in that area.
The same can be said for coral reefs, rivers, etc. 'Coral bleaching' is a real problem and reflective of global weather events.
Regarding #2 - In a more idealistic vision of 'Underwater Google Maps', the Voyager Project [1] made an interesting plea to Google to do something similar and provide HD video feeds from UAVs [2].
[1] http://www.underseavoyagerproject.org/
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4iDQsXIi3I
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Edit - Additionally, existing 'undersea documentaries' tend towards visual hyperbole (ooh a yellow fish, damn sharks are scary, etc) - rarely exploring the topography of the ecosystem they're covering. Being able to wander aimlessly underwater may prove more valuable to a student's imagination and provide a more lasting feel for far flung places and culture (or the life of a crab) - as apposed to from a TV, the deck of a cruise ship, or a car window.
It doesn't matter that information about X is available if you can't find out that X exists in the first place.
If they had denser panorama coverage it would be better. I agree that this isn't the most usable Street View.
Street View is more convenient as it offers the same 360 degree view as the Immersive Media videos yet more control like zoom and navigation.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=%E5%B5%90%E5%B1%B1%E3%80%80%E...
A backpack-cam, on the other hand would be great, and give a much truer sense of what it's like to be out there in the middle of nowhere.
Plus we know that Apple Maps could use a little help.