“This is the first time that Google Street View is being completely brought to life by local partners,” Miriam Daniel, vice-president, maps experiences, told ET in an exclusive interaction. “After extensive on-ground work, Street View will be available on Google Maps with fresh imagery of ten cities in India. They (the partners) have covered 150,000 kilometers in India. We plan to expand to 50 cities soon.”
This enables better and reliable navigation for consumers in India. Daniel said Google will be publishing Street View APIs to local partners, which have been available to other global partners for a while.
“Real estate firms and tourist companies can take advantage of Street View in India,” she added.
Any geospatial data of spatial accuracy/value finer than the threshold value of one meter horizontally, and three meters vertically can be collected only by entities controlled by Indian citizens, states the Geospatial Policy of India.
Genesis International's partnership with Google aims to increase the offer of Street View to one million kilometers by the year-end. Tech Mahindra will be the logistics service provider for Google.
Other features in the offing are speed limits (Bengaluru and Chandigarh), information on road closures within 30 minutes, project green light to reduce carbon emissions (Bengaluru, Kolkata and Hyderabad), and environmental insights explorer (Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai).
Google’s India-first innovations include landmark-based navigation, information on public transport, offline maps, two-wheeler routes, voice navigation in eight Indian languages, plus codes’ addresses in dense areas, and toll booth information.
Google has collaborated with 250 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 60 universities, 30 government agencies and 15 research organizations in India so far.
Starting today, the new Street View feature is available on Google Maps, but only in Bangalore on a pilot basis. Google told India Today Tech that the feature will then be released in Hyderabad and later in Kolkata. Shortly after that, the Street View will be rolled out to more cities in India, including Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, and Amritsar.
It is pretty easy to access this feature. One just needs to open the Google Maps app, type the name of the location and search for it. There will be an icon at the bottom of the screen, just tap on it to get a Street View look. You will get to know the local Cafés places, and cultural hotspots, or anyone check out the local neighborhood. Street View will help people navigate and explore new corners of the country and the world in a more visual and accurate way, enabling them to fully experience what it’s like to be in these places, right from their phone or computer.
When you’re viewing Street View imagery of a place, tap anywhere on the photo to see information about the location. Then tap "See more dates" to see the historical imagery we’ve published of that place, dating back to when Street View launched in 2007. Browse each of the images to see a digital time capsule that shows how a place has changed.
Google Street View will blur houses for any user who makes a request, in addition to the automatic blurring of faces and license plates. Privacy advocates have objected to Google Street View, pointing to views found to show men leaving strip clubs, protesters at an abortion clinic, sunbathers in bikinis, and people engaging in activities, visible from public property, which they do not wish to be seen publicly.
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