Last night I just so happened to be browsng Google Maps and discovered that the UK maps now come with Street View in 25 cities across the UK. If you thought Google earth was good then you should see this. I was pleased to see that my hometown, Newcastle upon Tyne is also featured on the map and also includes a lot of the surronding areas around the city centre. I live in the suburbs so unfortunately/fortunately my house doesn’t appear on the map. Bad that I can’t be fascinated by seeing my own stuff on the map but good that people can’t snoop and we all love a good snoop.
I was already fascinated by the Street View pictures of Las Vegas Boulevard showing the likes of The Bellagio and all the other big hotels except they were taken at night so the pictures are very poor quality. As the UK pictures are more recent they seem to be extremely high quality and can be compared to an average digital camera which is simply amazing considering the number of images that are taken.
I couldn’t think of anything interesting to look for locally so I just went for the Grosvenor Casino in Newcastle. Tried to get The Gate complex but they shut off Newgate Street to the public so the cameras couldn’t get in.
I’m pretty sure this will come in very handy in the future and can think of dozens of different ways you can use it to your advantage like seeing if someone lives in a shit hole before visiting them. It can also be used on your mobile such as an iPhone or a phone with symbian S60 operating system which could obviously come in very handy. To have a go at it, just go to the normal Google Maps, search your location and then drag the orange man from the zoom bar onto the map and the Street View enabled roads will show up in blue. Once you’re in Street View mode and can drive along the roads and rotate etc. Takes a little while to get used to but before you know it you’ve just lost 2 hours of your life.