Swiss premiere on Google: Street View is up and running

That's how quickly science fiction can become reality. Two years ago, the search engine multinational launched the Google Maps service on the Internet. Now it is already possible to navigate three-dimensionally through the streets of Bern, Zurich, Winterthur and Geneva. Around a large media conference at its European headquarters in Zurich, Google today launched the Street View service. After millions of photos have been taken in recent months with the special cameras mounted on a car, sights, restaurants, hotels or the future residential district can now be beamed onto any computer or even cell phone with a simple click of the mouse thanks to 360-degree images. Street View can be found at Maps.google.ch. There it is enough to place the small orange man, located on the left under the command bar of the map, on one of the streets that appear in blue. How to navigate there and even zoom in on details is explained on the Info Site explained in detail. A simple trick is also to simply zoom in to the largest possible zoom on the previous maps, then the image automatically jumps to Street View.

For the realization of this new service in Switzerland, Google worked closely with the national data protection commissioner. With this in mind, all faces and car numbers were pixelated with a specially developed tool and thus made unrecognizable. "Everything is compliant with the law," Raphael Leiteritz, Product Manager Europe for Google Maps, was able to confirm at the launch. Anyone who nevertheless feels that their privacy has been violated will find the "Report a problem" button next to the images. A special team at Google then immediately clarifies the case and can remove unwanted images with a "very simple tool." Conversely, users can upload their own photos of details or even historical shots of a particular address. These are then integrated into the system. "Google provides the basic service, then the Internet can continue to play the idea interactively," is the philosophy here.
Homegate.ch and Switzerland Tourism are also enthusiastic about the new possibilities. The two launch partners have also integrated Street View into their own websites with immediate effect. With the pictorial addition, potential buyers or tenants can "virtually explore the surroundings of their new apartment," says Urs Hügli of Homegate. Thomas Winkler from Switzerland Tourism demonstrated how prospective buyers can already look at www.myswitzerland.ch can test whether they like the view from the balcony of the vacation home. So far, the tourist regions in the Drei-Seen-Land, Thun, Grindelwald, and Interlaken have been developed.
Street View is also practical if you want to find out whether there are parking facilities, restaurants or stores at a particular address. In the future, online media will be able to use Street View to virtually place the scene of a news story next to it for their own research. Because Google offers the service free of charge for integration also on other platforms or private web pages, like Google Maps, which are already integrated on 150000 partner sites. Which cities will follow in the future and when, Google did not want to announce at the current time. Likewise there is no information about the costs of the gigantic project. It is financed by the advertising generated by Google.

Andreas Panzeri