By Ted Slowik
Naperville is now one of a handful of cities on the globe where people can take a virtual tour of streets using Google's Street View mapping feature. But checking out block after block of residential neighborhood begs the question, where are all the people?
First, props to Naperville for being included in the latest round of Street View. It seems that Google mappers decided to include Naperville when they mapped Chicago, but virtually no other towns. Granted, not all of Naperville is mapped yet, either. Mostly the downtown is covered for starters, but it extends into several neighborhoods.
One who takes Google's virtual tour of Naperville neighborhoods will soon encounter many of the privacy issues that make Street View controversial: "There's a neighbor with a garage door open; let's zoom in and see what's inside."
Soon another realization becomes apparent, one that may be unique to Naperville. At least in Google's photos, there are hardly any people out and about. Though Google is pretty mum about is photography methods, certain facts are plain. One, it's summer, the trees and lawns are green, the sky is blue, it's a gorgeous day out. Second, judging from the shadows and angle of the sun, it's evening in many of the pictures. Yet there's nary a person in sight, working in their yard. Hardly any children are seen playing, no dogs being walked. Where is everyone, inside watching TV on such a beautiful day?
Check out Google's Street View and see what you think. Tell us about any cool or interesting street scenes you find in Naperville. Feel free to comment on the privacy issues, or any benefits of the feature, such as checking out a neighborhood where you're thinking of buying a home.
It rained all day the day those pictures were taken. Well most the day. So, that is why no one is out. Notice Centennial Beach is closed/has no patrons in it yet it is afternoon/early evening in the summer. So yes, Americans are getting lazier and lazier but this is not the proof we were looking for...
I just googled my block, and it looks like it was recently raining/currently raining. Also, because there were no cars in the driveway, I know where many people were- -AT WORK to pay for their lovely homes...
I wonder why they picked all of Chicago and only Naperville in the suburbs. Is there something more devious at work here? I'm not wearing an aluminum hat, but I think the mayor's comments about it being "wonderful" are premature. Why is Google's eye suddenly turned on Naperville and nowhere else outside of the Windy City. What are they up to and for what purpose? There's an ominous overtone to all this unless I'm just being paranoid.
I like it! it's a great way for potential visitors to become familiar with the downtown area. I don't think it leaves any opportunity for criminals as a person just cruising the neighborhood is able to collect a lot more intelligence than provided on Google.
It's clever, cool and entertaining. Hopefully, it will be updated periodically as Naperville is always adding some thing new downtown.
Good job Ted. Nobody will mistake you for Sherlock Holmes. I guess you didn't notice the soaking wet roads or the cloudy sky.
Look a little more, guys. Plenty of the pictures were taken on a sunny day.
As for where all the people are, it should be obvious: This is suburbia. They're all in their cars.
I for one welcome our new overlords. :)
This is what the Google Street View cars look like: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/eye-on-you/google-streetview-camera-car-fleet-set-to-invade-america-279222.php
I've seen a couple tooling around the Aurora area lately. Either way I think it's very useful, I recently bought some junk off Craigslist and the person was located in Chicago. It was really awesome to be able to pull up directions and get the street view on a couple confusing looking intersections before I even left my house. I just hope they expand upon their printable directions to include turn by turn (or selected turns) with attached photos. That would be amazing.
I have a hard time getting worked up over potential privacy issues with this, all the photos are taken on public roads and they're not high resolution enough to look inside of your windows. Supposedly Google has been pretty friendly about removing (or editing) photos with people that don't want to be seen online or license plates which are clearly visible. All you have to do is email them.
Another really cool service that Google has which not many people are aware of is GOOG-411. All you have to do is dial 800-GOOG-411 and you can look up almost anything with voice prompts. It is EXCELLENT for when you're driving in the car and decide to get pizza but don't have the number in your phone, they'll even automatically connect you for free.
More information on GOOG-411 is available here: http://www.google.com/mobile/goog411/
Make no mistake about it, I'm a total Google fan boy. If I didn't love my job so much I'd be doing everything I could to be a part of their team. If you're bored, check out the other neat things Google is working on here- http://labs.google.com/ My personal favorite lab item right now is Google Trends. It shows you what the most popular search terms are which is really interesting to watch what people are searching for based on current events... It even tells you where the people are searching from.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=Naperville&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0 ...So the real question is, why are so many people from West Chicago checking out Naperville?
This feature is very addictive. Be careful using it or you might find that hours have gone by as you toured the virtual streets. I had a lot of fun "driving" around Wrigleyville, apparently just after a game had ended.
I agree with Eli. Google is doing amazing things right now, helping everyone to have a huge amount of information about everything. Their inventions will change our lives, and in 100 years people likely will compare them to the Edison laboratory.
Hey Eli,
Why don't you get a real job instead og spending all of your time "googling?"
SouthsideJohnny,
I do have a real job, do you think I could afford to live in Naperville if I didn't? Google is responsible for ~65% of all U.S. searches and ~25% of all web traffic on the internet. I assure you, being fully aware of how to integrate with and take advantage of Google's various services is extremely relevant to anyone who works in Internet technology, myself included. The search engine optimization industry is huge- companies live and die by their Google page ranking. I cannot even begin to impress upon you how important Google is to the online economy. Your ignorance on the matter is amusing, if nothing else.
Either way, I'm beginning to wonder what the purpose the comment moderation queue on this "blog" serves when off topic posts and blatant trolls are allowed to sail right through. Keep up the good work, I suppose.
Can't we all just get along?