Google Street View launched in Singapore

By Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 02 December 2009 1748 hrs

SINGAPORE: Google Street View has arrived in Singapore - making it the first in Southeast Asia to have a virtual street guide based on photographs.

Cars fitted with cameras went around Singapore earlier this year to take the shots. The technology by Google allows users to view and navigate 360-degree street-level imagery, including the country's most iconic sights.

Google said that faces and licence plates are blurred out, and one can see what already is visible on public roads.

The web-based application can also be used on mobile phones. Businesses and organisations can add their own listings onto the application for free.

Google Street View was launched in 2007, and is currently available in 100 cities around the world.

Countries in the Asia-Pacific that already have Street View are Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

- CNA/sc

Its awesome, it has most if not all roads and streets covered with high resolution 360 degrees panoramas. Check it yourselves:

http://maps.google.com/

After you find Singapore, zoom and drag the little yellow man onto some place on the map. :cheers:

It has arrived, finally! :banana:

That is awesome. I love being able to revisit where I've been - over and over.
:)

next year will even have shots from small roads tat r not accesible to cars

^^ Are you joking or is it for real? If so, can you post any link here?

Google Street View arrives here to controversy

Thu, Dec 03, 2009
my paper


By Joy Fang

A HIGHLY controversial virtual-tour service by Google arrived in Singapore yesterday. And, already, it has polarised Internet users here on whether it infringes privacy.

Street View was launched by the American search-engine giant in the United States in May 2007 and is now accessible for free in more than 100 cities in the world.


Users can embark on a virtual tour in and around the streets of Singapore, enjoying a 360-degree and panoramic 3-D view of roads, buildings and iconic landmarks.

The service is available via smartphones as well.

Singapore is the first country in South-east Asia to get the service. Japan is the only other Asian nation to have it.

While some users welcome Street View, others are not so enamoured of it.

Privacy advocates in countries such as Britain, Japan and the US had complained that images featuring private gardens as well as people sun-tanning, leaving strip clubs or falling off their bikes were captured and made available to all and sundry.

In response, Google started, in July last year, to blur faces and licence-plate numbers.

However, it has been criticised for some poorly-blurred images.

Just last month, Swiss privacy watchdog Federal Data Protection and Information announced that it would sue Google for failing to make human faces and car plates "sufficiently unrecognisable".

Mr Andrew McGlinchey, Google's head of product management in South-east Asia, said users who object to certain images can report them by clicking on "Report a Problem" in the bottom left-hand corner of each image on maps.google.com.sg

While concerns will be addressed within 24 to 48 hours, requests for removal will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Mr McGlinchey said that its pictures are taken from public areas, and hence "we prefer not to (remove them)".

Also, he added that "99.9 per cent of users love" the service. Still, if the images feature private homes, they will honour requests to take them down because of privacy issues, he said.

Marketing executive Sylvia Ng, 24, likes the tool as it helps her plan her itinerary.

"A map is 2-D, so sometimes you can't gauge the actual distance of the next turn. This can provide landmarks. Also, now I can find the entrance to obscure carparks," said the motorist.

She has no issue with having her image taken if it was recorded in a public setting, she added.

However, for project engineer Timothy Lim, the idea of having his image splashed online for all to see is "a little unsettling".

"It feels like Big Brother in the book 1984, where people are watching your every move. I wouldn't want to be caught doing something embarrassing," he said.

Google said that images of Singapore streets, which range "in the millions", were taken between October last year and the beginning of this year.

Cameras perched on top of cars took high-resolution pictures every few metres.

Mr McGlinchey said that the service will be updated "sometime next year" when major construction projects such as the integrated resorts and shopping malls in Orchard Road are completed.

From October, it had also begun using tricycles to record images of small nooks and pedestrian paths which cannot be accessed by cars.

The information gathered will be made available only next year.

Mr Ken Low, assistant chief executive for marketing at Singapore Tourism Board (STB), is a fan of Street View.

He said: "It will raise Singapore's prominence and reach through the Internet. People unfamiliar with Singapore can now get a first look at our city."

^^ Wow, thats an ambitious project. Thank you for posting this article.

My car and I was captured. :)

Lucky man, which street :D ?

At Lor Tanggam. At certain angle, my face could still be seen despite them trying to blur the faces out. Probably due to my face following the strange looking google vehicle as it moves past me twice after hitting a dead end road. I didn't know it was a street capturing vehicle. Thought it was google advertisement. :)