A Brief History of Google Street View

in 2005 the very first Google Street View car was driving around San Francisco in reality it was a camera strapped to the top of Larry Page's van one of the co-founders of Google and while none of what it captured has made it into Street View today it was a very exciting proof of concept for one of the most interesting Technologies of today and now we're going to look at how far it's come in almost 20 years now seeing it's just a camera strapped to the roof of a car is downplaying how impressive the technology is considering we are seeing many of the first implementations of street view technology implementing lasers to measure out distance between the car and the buildings giving the 3D feel but it wasn't until May 25th 2007 that Google Street View was launched and available to the public this first coverage was released in five major American cities San Francisco New York Las Vegas Miami and Denver however even in the first year Google was eager to cover as much of the us as possible with street view although most of it wouldn't be published in 2008 almost every single state in the US got coverage except for Hawaii and some of that coverage hasn't been touched sense genuinely there's stuff that Google hasn't covered since 2007 this coverage is old enough to have a driver's license even in 2007 it wasn't just limited to the US there were Google cars in Canada and cars weren't just limited in North America either Australia and New Zealand were also getting Google cars in them even though most of this coverage wouldn't be seen by the public until much later it was still impressive how much Google was doing in the first year in 2008 about one year after making their debut Google would already be upgrading their camera quality all the coverage so far been covered using a generation one Google camera known today for its exceptionally low quality but in may they started using the second generation of Google camera while the quality still wasn't the best it was a massive leap from gen one but was a very distinctive blur on the bottom of the camera and a sort of halo around the top the countries first covered using this camera were France and Italy these countries were also the first two outside the US to actually be published they did also receive some generation one coverage mostly along the tour to France route for that year and some nearby areas a little bit of Northwest W Italy shortly after the introduction of Gen 2 Google would also begin introducing its face blurring technology starting with Manhattan although I got to say like what faces can you recognize in generation one coverage like this and license plate blurring technology would be seen in pretty much all Google coverage from here on out but surprisingly enough there wasn't too much of the US covered using the generation 2 Google camera most of the coverage from this year was still using Generation 1 but some other countries got some generation 2 coverage as well including the Netherlands the UK Spain including a couple of the canaries and Germany which I'll come back to later in the video to discuss Street View in Germany interestingly enough Romania got coverage this year the only one out of that handful that would be published is Spain by the end of the year as well as Australia and New Zealand and over in Asia some countries were getting generation 2 coverage maau Hong Kong and Taiwan this year was also the introduction of the Pegman that's right this little guy is called Pegman Pegman while in 2009 there wasn't any major updates to the technology there was an insane amount of new countries getting covered Belgium czechia Luxembourg Ireland Denmark Norway Sweden Finland including alland Portugal Greece Hungary Poland and Austria along the border with nearby countries since the coverage here was so sparse and only along the border my best guess is that there was a lot more Austria coverage that got deleted something will come back to a couple of times but that was just in Europe Asia was getting South Korea Singapore and Japan covered now supposedly Japan had coverage earlier in 2009 but I couldn't find any evidence of it so maybe it got deleted and maybe those were just rumors it's kind of tough to tell some of the earlier years not as many people were keeping track of it but wait there's more Mexico also got coverage as well as two new continents South Africa being the first country to get coverage in Africa and Brazil was the first country in South America to get coverage getting some coverage around Bella Horizon now all of these new countries were being covered in Gen 2 but they were still using gen 1 in the US for some reason a lot of it thankfully this was the last year the generation one camera was being used not a lot of Gen 2 in the US but Hawaii did get some coverage as well as Canada got a lot of updated coverage with Gen 2 camera plus Australia and New Zealand but also this year we got one of the most obscure pieces of official Google coverage that being the national museum of Iraq in Baghdad there's a generation one Museum treer in Iraq this is also one of the first known instances of a treer or at least I believe it's a truer in addition to having cars on top of cameras Google also made special backpacks with cameras attached to them they're very bulky but they can be used to cover a lot of cool spots that aren't accessible to cars such as hiking trails or in this case indoors and as per usual it usually takes a few months for coverage to get published so not all of the things that were covered this year were published and available for the public to see in 2010 we got three new countries with coverage Switzerland and then the two micronations of Monaco and San Marino as well as two of the UK's Crown dependencies Jersey and the island man those two haven't been updated since and neither has San Marino kind of but in 2010 the camera technology would be upgrading once again as Google was already testing out the third generation of Google camera in California then the third generation of Google camera was by far the highest quality much better than generation one and minimal blurs on the car compared to generation 2 this year was also the introduction of the blue dots on the map that display User submitted images and by the end of the year basically every country with some coverage had had it published in 2011 even though the Generation 3 camera existed this year there were still plenty of countries receiving generation 2 coverage including some countries that hadn't received coverage yet like Russia receiving coverage around Moscow and St Petersburg and Andora also this is the first year of any official coverage in India now another form of official Google coverage is the tripod these are pretty rare usually being used to cover indoor spaces but it was the first instance of official Google coverage in India with a generation 2 tripod near bangaluru the Genry camera was becoming much more prevalent as new countries were being covered like Estonia and lva Croatia Thailand Ukraine Got Five Cities covered and also jalter got coverage and a lot of countries were getting upgraded coverage with Generation 3 like Italy czechia Poland Romania Sweden Finland Japan Hong Kong Singapore Brazil Canada and now at least most of the US had some gen 3 we have now entered the era where Generation 3 is the main way to cover countries in 2012 we saw some new countries Lithuanian Bulgarian Europe Balon and lutu for Africa and Chile and Columbia join Brazil and South America this is the last year from what I can tell that generation 2 camera was implemented there's generation 2 treer in Malaysia of all places a bunch of new countries got added to the Gen 3 Club this year with France Spain UK Ireland Norway Russia Denmark Greece New Zealand Japan Taiwan and South Africa now seems like a good time to mention that interestingly enough generation 2 was almost never used in the United States being used mostly in a few major cities some Hawaii and Alaska and a lot of ski resorts for some reason then 2013 got some more new countries Slovenia I mean technically had coverage before but now i' like actually been covered o some Serbia then over in Asia had Bangladesh Cambodia and Indonesia had the islands of java and Bali covered and then over in South America Argentina and Peru were added then some countries that haven't gotten like full coverage since maybe a couple trekers but we have Iceland Bhutan and eswatini in fact this was so long ago that at the time it was known as sasil land also another handful of countries that have been covered using trekers we have China and a few tourist spots Egypt near the pans and a couple other attractions Martinique Pakistan and Nepal coverage started this year the United Arab Emirates also got some coverage specifically some tripods in and around the bur Khalifa and some of the most isolated islands in the world the pit Karan Islands got some trer coverage as well this year every continent had finally been covered as Antarctica got some treer coverage the galpagos also got treer coverage although I should have put it in the new country section because they got coverage before Mainland Ecuador did which I did not realize until just now also some notable upgrades and coverage Malaysia now has like actual coverage along the peninsula they covered quite a bit more in Russia this year in Switzerland and finally Australia joins the Gen 3 Club feels like it took a while for Gen 3 since it is like one of the first countries being covered 2013 was also the year that geoguesser was released if you are unfamiliar it's a browser game in which you are placed onto a random location within Google Street View and try to guess where you are and despite some of my criticisms about the state of the game right now without it I wouldn't be making this video right now so I figured I should mention it in 2014 the new countries getting coverage were Slovakia turkey the Philippines Lao Sri Lanka and they started to cover Bolivia as well as quite a few trucker countries like Greenland Madagascar the little bit of Tanzania there is a few American territories the Northern Mariana Islands Guam and American Samoa also the faland got coverage Nepal got a little bit more truer coverage than it did last year Malaysia got some more coverage on the Borneo section and Netherlands joins the Gen 3 Club as well as Portugal also introduced this year a major help for this video was the ability to check coverage on previous dates in 20155 we're going to start with the countries that this is the only year they got got coverage North Macedonia Uruguay and KGAN then Mongolia had part of it covered finally get Mainland Ecuador and then senagal and Uganda although Uganda just being the city of kalala we got reunion which is still just France but you know it's far enough away that it's like its own thing and a couple British territories Bermuda and a British Indian Ocean territory Ukraine has full coverage before it was just in five cities Indonesia now gets more major islands covered with Sumatra C Monona Indonesian section of Borneo and suoi Philippines got some more Islands covered turkey now has coverage all over and there's a lot more Bangladesh coverage one of my favorite weird Google coverage moments also happened this year in the town of Circle Montana at least a couple of roads are covered with Generation 3 camera however none of these highways leading into it are all of them are covered with Gen one why who knows also Luxembourg got some gen 3 for 2016 we there's a lot of countries and territories in the only one year of coverage club we have Ghana Albania monegro Guatemala and then some territories the pharoh islands Puerto Rico and then the US Virgin Islands V wat who also got coverage this trer is notable for going into a volcano which makes it really distinct from a lot of the other like random Tropical Island truers Costa Rica technically not in the one-year gang they did get a couple of trekers the next year but they also got coverage this year mostly in San Jose but then also a couple other little dashes around with the treer similar thing with Tunisia only one year of Car Coverage and they had some trekers in the next year Malta used to be in the one-ear gang until very recently the only country this year that started getting coverage and would continuously get new coverage the though is Nigeria this year they were just covering Legos though and some other notable updates in coverage some Uganda national parks got coverage and part of the other half of Mongolia got covered and St pier and mikong got added in 2017 we got some Middle Eastern coverage in the West Bank of Palestine Jordan some trackers in Lebanon then in Africa we started to get covered in Kenya specifically in Nairobi Vietnam in fact got coverage this year all this coverage was taken in bikes in a few major cities why isn't it showing up on the map well we'll get to it later and a couple more territories Kira in the Caribbean and swal Bard in the north and Austria finally joins the Gen 3 gang now while there wasn't too many new countries in the latter half of the Year Google will be testing out their fourth generation of Google camera which is their highest resolution camera to date they're testing it out mostly in California but there was a couple of other states and a little bit near London in 2018 not too many new countries got covered Belarus got a little bit of trucker coverage in Minsk and then Christmas Islands and Coco Islands both territories of Australia got some gen 3 coverage this was the year Gen 4 started to take off so here's everything that was being covered with a Gen 4 camera in 2018 a bit of Canada Italy Spain Netherlands Luxembourg UK Ireland the nordics Poland and in Asia of quite a few countries were getting covered but only like their major cities like Singapore koala lumur Bangkok Jakarta Taipei and Japan got two with Tokyo and Osaka then Australia got a little bit and so did Brazil Kenya also got quite a bit more coverage this year although it was in gen 3 also this year we got another very interesting obscure piece of Google Street View coverage that being in Afghanistan around Kabul now this isn't normal street view coverage as you can't find it on the map on the Google arts and culture page they have links to a few tripods scattered around Kabul and you can explore museums and classrooms and Courtyards in 2019 even though there's a lot of Gen 4 coverage Gen 3 is still being used quite a bit there's one new country that has some gen 3 coverage and that would be the Dominican Republic only getting coverage in the cities of Santiago deos cieros and the capital of Santo Domingo again we'd be seeing a new camera although this one would somehow be a decline in quality this is the first year to my knowledge that Google started using coverage using this low camera quality I think it technically counts as a generation 2 camera but the quality is somehow worse and it has been nicknamed cam or sheet cam according to my document well Alaska will be the first place to witness this camera it will not be the last but this year quite a few more countries got some Generation 4 including Greece Bulgaria Belgium czechia turkey Portugal Austria Croatia Argentina Mexico South Africa and then basically all of Indonesia Thailand Japan Taiwan and the Malaysian Peninsula Hong Kong got some New Zealand and Australia gets a little bit more now I've kind of stopped mentioning when coverage is getting published because I didn't want to just be like jumping around between like okay this one got covered this one got published you know so I'm just like I'm just going to kind of focus on when things are getting covered when things are getting published it kind of depends on how long it takes sometimes it takes like a couple months and sometimes it takes 2 or 3 years for example while ctia was being covered in 2019 with Generation 4 camera that coverage didn't get published until 2022 although May that had something to do with the pandemic some coverage just kind of stays buried for a while so it's a little bit easier to keep track of when things were covered because that's like information available within street view now 2020 coverage slowed down quite a bit G I wonder why now from what I can tell this was the last year that the Gen 3 camera was in use being used in Nigeria unfortunately the lowquality camera was also used in Finland this year in 2020 the Vietnam coverage was published and the next year it was deleted cuz apparently the government of Vietnam requested Google to take it down had to got the coverage in the first place if Vietnam didn't want it I don't know to my knowledge this is the only time a country's official coverage has been just completely erased there have been times where the Google car has peaked over a border a little bit and then that has been deleted so we say rest in peace to Paraguay and lakstein coverage they each had like one road that Google removed cuz they weren't supposed to be covered anyways in 2021 things picked back up again no new countries this year kind of but we did get a lot more Gen 4 we got a large amount of Russia we got the baltics a lot in Africa Nigeria Kenya and senagal which all got polished on the same day about a year later Romania got Gen 4 as well as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and Monaco and Chile and Colombia now normally I talk about upgrades but for this we're be talking about some downgrades Bangladesh and Sri Lanka also have some portions now covered by this lowquality camera as well as most of Lebanon Lebanon finally got some Car Coverage more than just trekers starting this year although it didn't get published until 2024 but yeah it it doesn't look great they start off this year and continue in the next coming years it's very dense coverage but it all looks like this so it's like why also this year a major country that had so far only been covered using trekers was starting to get its first car coverage that's right India was starting to get Car Coverage however it would be covered using this lowquality camera some people found out that hey India's getting like full street view coverage is exciting and then immediately disappointing because is covered using this we'll see how much it got a little bit later in 2022 and some of the new countries being covered were Kazakhstan Panama Rwanda and cter all of them using some variation of this large truck as the Google car interestingly enough a lot of the Cotter coverage was after the World Cup Google also started covering Germany with Gen 4 this year Malta got covered with some Gen 4 this year and Ecuador also got some low quality camera then in 2023 we only got one new country that's been covered well that's been covered and published that being South main prpe using the lowquality camera yippee in July of 2023 a very exciting update happened in Google maps that being Germany finally had all of its Generation 4 coverage published Germany was being covered the past year with a new generation 4 camera and there's always been kind of a interesting history in Germany with street view there's always been a lot of concerns about privacy in Germany and a lot of the Old Germany coverage uh a lot of the houses were blurred out and the only coverage you could see on street view was generated 2 and only in a few major cities and kind of some outskirts now Google did Cover Germany with a generation 3 camera however that was hidden and again only in very sparse areas what had once been just this massive Gap in Europe was now filled in very strange thing about it though all of the Gen 2 coverage was just gone they just deleted it well they didn't delete all of it there are some sparse scatterings and now here you can see at the end of 2023 how much coverage India got it is one of the most densely covered countries on street view and all the coverage looks like this unfortunately like it probably has the second most street view after the us because it's so rare for a really large country to be covered this densely kind of exciting to see another country just fully covered but also disappointing cuz come on man why'd you got use this camera and that brings us to 2024 where we've had a whole plethora of new countries that have been published well this year we've seen the publishing of countries we didn't even know we getting coverage like Kazakhstan and we didn't even know Lebanon was getting some new Car Coverage as well as Mongolia Generation 4 coverage also a new Australian Island King Island between Tasmania and Mainland Australia got coverage in March and got published in May the tricky thing with going by when the coverage was taken is that there's countries being covered right now that we do and don't know about as for what we'll see in the future we do know that there have been some sort of either Google cameras spotted or some sort of known agreement in Namibia Oman and Bosnia and ug Goen and there's probably a few more countries or territories that we don't know about are being covered and now or have been covered and are going to get published so I'm excited to see what happens there now I'm sure I missed a few details as to when things got covered or when things got upgraded coverage just happens there's a lot of countries to juggle here so there's probably a few mistakes that I I didn't catch sorry about that hold I'm showing there's a gif on Wikipedia that shows Google coverage published by month kind of makes this video a little bit irrelevant but uh oh well I hope you enjoyed anyway I'd like to highlight some of the tools I used mapmaking app was super helpful for this video as well as map generator and Emily's coverage map so I'll be linking those in the description below if you want to check them out you know I hope you enjoyed the video like And subscribe if you did check out the other ocean man's social medias in the description below got a bunch of other stuff on there and uh this video has been on the back burner for like 3 months now I want to have it done by March and uh the next video it's going to be a doozy 2 so I hope you stay tuned for that bye

Channel: Call Me Ocean Man

Views: 113,251

Keywords: Street view, Google, Geography

Id: Ga-FM3t2fYw

Length: 19min 4sec (1144 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024