Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Smile, Sydney: You're on Google Maps!

January 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Smile, Sydney: You're on Google Maps!

TAGS: The lighter side

Attention people of Sydney, Australia: You're being advised to tidy up, comb your hair, and for goodness sake, put some pants on this coming Friday, Jan. 26. Why? Because Google is preparing to get some up-close aerial shots of your fair city for Google Maps -- close enough such that individual people may be distinguishable on the resulting digital maps.

That's my advice, anyway: Google is urging you to do whatever you like to get noticed and stand out on Friday -- which happens to be Australia Day. "The company is encouraging people to wear something distinctive, hold up a sign (face-up), draw in the sand, or even arrange themselves into a 'fun formation,'" reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

Whether that charge will result in Google procuring a different type of "moon" map -- thanks to some more exhibitionistic Aussies -- remains to be seen.

The shots will, of course, be taken from a low-flying plane; Google has secured clearance to swoop down as low as 600 meters (approximately 1,970 feet).

This is the first time Google will try anything on this scale, according to the SMA's report: Lars Rasmussen, head of engineering for Google Australia and one of the lead engineers for Google Maps, "said the images will add a 'few more zoom levels' to the local maps and be between three to four times more detailed than are currently available for Australian terrain on Google Maps."

"That would put them on par or better than the Google Map images of the Netherlands where, for instance, one of the aerial photographs shows a woman in a swimsuit sunbathing on the balcony of a low-rise block of units."

A map of the flyover route can be found here.

Posted by Ted Samson on January 23, 2007 03:43 PM

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