I'm not holding my breath. Most of my town was last filmed in April-June 2012, though one major throroughfare claims to have been done as recently as November 2015.

It's going to take quite a while to refresh all the locations, I'm sure. I would imagine Google will work on getting any location with a business done first.
I have noticed some locations were updated, so it must be an on going process.

I also think there may be something being recorded for the self driving vehicles.

Can't wait til the front of my office gets refilmed. Last time they came by, I had a work truck parked outside my front door and the guys were standing around taking a smoke break... great publicity :(

Can't wait til the front of my office gets refilmed. Last time they came by, I had a work truck parked outside my front door and the guys were standing around taking a smoke break... great publicity :(

At my last company smokers were expected to stand outside the loading bay well away from the public going past the main entrance.
"Higher resolution for business names and signs" seems a bit odd when signs are usually deliberately blurred. That is a real pain when trying to check on parking restrictions when visiting a potentiual client.

I just this minute received a scam call about the upgraded street view photo for my business. She said she was from Google numerous times. When she said "there is a one-time fee for..." I hung up then reported the call as SPAM.

Last time they came by, I had a work truck parked outside my front door and the guys were standing around taking a smoke break.

On Google Street View you can see my second-to-last bicycle parked outside the garage. From this I deduce that I had just come back from one errand and was planning shortly to leave for another one. (Darn! If I'd known, I would have looked out the window and waved.) What makes it more fun is that my building has only just been painted a significantly different color. If and when they do update things, I'll know at a glance.

:: detour to look at more stuff ::

Huh. I always assumed Earth and Street View used the same set of closeup images when you get down to ground level. This turns out not to be the case, so when I say Google Earth I actually mean Street View.

Still wondering what database glitch caused it to jump from a certain address in my town to the same address in the next town over. Hmmm. Very unnerving, to be sure: I've gone down that street hundreds of times, and suddenly it presents me with a series of buildings I've never seen in my life.

Very unnerving, to be sure: I've gone down that street hundreds of times, and suddenly it presents me with a series of buildings I've never seen in my life.

like that episode of doctor who.

you saw through G's perception filter. be afraid.

[youtube.com...]

Reports across the web about this scam. Here's just one: [seroundtable.com...]

To be clear, the Google camera upgrade is not a scam. Google calling you and asking money for it is.

Sadly, the scammers are calling all the time, and they can sound convincing as they've had years to practice their scripts.

Anyhow, back to the street view cameras: There's a marketing opportunity coming, and now that people are familiar with it, I suspect we'll see many more fun things on it, too.

Most of my town was last filmed in April-June 2012,

Well you're positively modern and up to date then! In my case, the picture of my house is when it was still under construction, which is to say 2006 or 2007. Probably 2007. No updates to the imagery since then. At least if it were 2012, all of the roof would be on.

About 30% of the buildings in our area post-date the 2007 image capture and most of those are businesses.

This all sounds nice, but is not real time. I suspect there's a bit of tom-jiggery on the current batch of images going on. Time will tell.

2006 or 2007. Probably 2007

Street View shows the year and month. I don't know whether this is a recently added feature or if I just never noticed it until lately. Both explanations are, of course, equally possible. For comparison purposes I zoomed in on random stretches of Market St--February 2017--Karl Johans Gate--April 2016--and Tunnels of Moose Jaw--September 2016. The Googleplex, interestingly, dates back to January 2011. What don't they want us to see?

In any case, I am always surprised to learn of towns smaller and more obscure than mine.

So it does. The photos are from September, 2007 as it turns out. So exactly (give or take a few days) a decade old

I've been looking into getting certified as a Street View photographer, which would allow you to, in theory, add images to Street View as well as virtual tours. Some of the ones I've seen are quite nice... though mostly car dealerships, for some reason.

mostly car dealerships, for some reason

Unsurprising when you think about it. It's a ready-made pool of people who (a) can drive and (b) know about advertising.

No, the tours of car dealerships are all of interiors and the interior of one dealership is virtually indistinguishable from another. Restaurants would make more sense. I think it may come down to a collection of local businesses where you 1) have a lot per town, 2) they have large advertising budgets

And, back to the point of the thread, the resolution requirements are quite high to be a Google Street View photographer. You basically need to be stitching photos from a decent SLR. No low-res stuff.

Whaddaya mean you can't drift down the street with one hand on a bicycle and the other on your smartphone, shooting IMAX-quality video as you go? If they show it in the ads, it must be true.

My most recent digital camera died, and I've never bothered even to learn how to take pictures with the Android. I've got a DSLR in my shopping cart, aiming for before the end of next month. But I still miss my Minolta.

My most recent digital camera died, and I've never bothered even to learn how to take pictures with the Android. I've got a DSLR in my shopping cart, aiming for before the end of next month. But I still miss my Minolta.

My 20megapixel Android takes better pictures than any camera I've ever owned, and I had a couple nice ones.

Nikon must be shaking in their boots. Done in by a phone. Whoda thunk?

Nikon must be shaking in their boots

Oh yes. More so than Cannon or Sony or others who have diversified product lines. A friend was doing a photo shoot for Nikon and they don't allow smartphones on the site lest one show up in the background of a picture.

The bread and butter of these companies for a long time was the small-form point and shoot. The market for those went wild as digital was evolving fast and became a cash cow that fueled these companies... only to see that market entirely destroyed by the smartphone.

Now it's either the phone or the SLR and more and more, it's the phone.

An SLR is still much superior to a camera phone and will be for the foreseeable future. Some things are just plain physics/optics and you can't fit them into the form factor of a phone unless you can convince God to change the wavelengths of light. That said, "best" is not what we want. What we want is "good enough" and most of the time, I don't carry an SLR. One pro photographer friend said one of his photog friends said that last year most of the money he made was with photos he took with his iPhone. I don't know what he shoots, but my friend is primarily known for his large-format film photography... and he shoots a fair number of his photos with an iPhone now.

Can't see limited phone level cameras doing more than making the world "brownie cameras" (if you're old enough to remember, or know what those are). G is already there with their current rendition of Street View. The topic is g using HIGHER RESOLUTION (obviously better than phone cameras) to revisit their Street View.

Sometimes good enough is not good enough.

I've been looking into getting certified as a Street View photographer

If a sheep [theguardian.com]* can do it, how high can their standards be?


* Someone just reminded me of this venture. Except we both misremembered it as goats, which would obviously indicate a higher bar.

I just this minute received a scam call about the upgraded street view photo for my business. She said she was from Google numerous times. When she said "there is a one-time fee for..." I hung up then reported the call as SPAM.

Is it just me or have others experienced an incredible increase in unwanted calls since the US Government implemented the "Do Not Call" legislation.

Telephones seem to have become a nuisance.

I remember the good ole' days when you could just pick up a phone, say "Sarah, get Sheriff Taylor for me" and in a few seconds Sheriff Taylor would be there saying "Hello". Or if he was busy at least Barney would answer.

I wonder if Google ever took a picture of Sarah?

FarmBoy

have others experienced an incredible increase in unwanted calls since the US Government implemented the "Do Not Call" legislation

Of course not. The DNC list actually works pretty well, although some of the pros are using dynamically generated numbers that circumvent blocking.