Google Earth in your neighborhhood?

[sawdust_maker]

you can also check aerial view from mapquest or bing, the pictures are different. My house view on mapquest is from last summer.

I doubt that someone will be casing my house from these pictures. They could get far more and better information by driving down the road.

Google - the picture there is now about 7 years old. I can tell from a boat that we had roughly that long ago, and where we used to dock it. No view of the house itself, just tree tops in a picture taken in late August, and far too little detail to see anything. No street view anyway. Who would bother to look at our dirt road?

Mapquest - it locates our house in the middle of a ravine (actually a wetlands) about 1/8 of a mile away from the true location. The resolution is so poor anyway that you could never see anything, not to mention that the picture was taken in mid-summer, so the trees completely obscure everything. No house is even seen, just the tops of trees.

Bing - The only site to actually image our house. The picture is no more recent than 3 years old, taken in mid to late october I think from some work being done on our neighbor's house, so the leaves are just fallen off the trees.

Zillow - uses the Bing photo.

Of these sources, Bing had the most recent photos and the highest resolution. I suppose that Bing did not exist 5 years ago, so their photos must be more recent.

So then I tried a few different places, past homes of ours that were not quite so far out as we live now. No locations showed enough to be useful to anyone.

John

 

[Bedlam]

Gosh seems like the computer in the car would be more of a distraction than a texting driver.

 

[Western]

We use Bing to survey job sites on occasion. Like other posters have noted the photos are dated, but for what we are looking at it works out pretty good. Has saved us allot of miles and since these are business locations the jobs usually need little adjustment for errors.

 

[Paystar]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Recently the 360degree pictures of an adjacent road to the farm have shown up on google earth and our other house which is on a corner lot is cleary visible from the paved road images they have taken and posted.

I was wondering if you folks are aware of this and have/would find it an invasion of privacy?

From a real estate, tax assesor or thief point of view this is a great tool.....

Funny you should say this. A couple of my neighbours had their property taxes skyrocket. When they called to inquire why, they were told it was because of the new buildings on their property that were spotted during aerial surveilence. In actuality they were open wood sheds to cover their firewood, but when looking from above all you see is a roof, so they asumed they were buildings. They had to get the assessment people to come look to get it straightened out.

 

[Bedlam]

Brings new meaning to the old 'Bear in the air"

 

[brin]

About the only thing left is microphones in our homes...when will that be here ?

 

[JB4310]

About the only thing left is microphones in our homes...when will that be here ?

I was thinking after bird's eye view and street view, the next one will be window view! !!!

 

[dgl24087]

Ever wonder what life is like as a Google car driver?

YouTube - Google Street View Guys

Awesome!

 

[tugboat-2]

Google Earth has me on an entirely different road. My farm is on the outskirts of a tiny hamlet which "Google" has "re-located" a mile south and a mile east of where it should be. My road doesn't exist on the map as they have it.

I know where I am, but try to explain to first timers trying to locate me via Google. (Most catch on quick like UPS and make their own alterations but I have tried explaining to Google more than a few times.

Eventually,.... Google Earth explained that the "Corrections" page is only good in the US of A and at present Canada must simply accept it,..as is.

UNFORTUNATELY,..... GPS makers apparently depend on Google Earth for their map work and that "apparently" means GPS's get corrected when Google makes their corrections. I attempted many, many times to explain it to Tom-Tom GPS but they are not user friendly.

My new Garmin works much better than Tom, but also needs the correction. I must remind myself, how relatively "new" this sort of technology is and that it takes time to iron out the many bugs.

Young folks growing up "with" it would likely argue, but having used a paper road map and a compass for as long as I can remember,...this "IS".. NEW !! (An environmental investigation I worked on less than ten years ago could have used this stuff as I had to depend on "old Army maps" for elevations, hills, valleys, swamps and wetlands and other important info). SHeeeesh!

CHEERS! . . . and Happy New Year !!
. . tug

PS: . . . interesting tale Paystar,... we'll have to start using "Cammo-Roof-Paint",...eh?

 

[NSBound]

.... Google Earth explained that the "Corrections" page is only good in the US of A and at present Canada must simply accept it,..as is.

UNFORTUNATELY,..... GPS makers apparently depend on Google Earth for their map work and that "apparently" means GPS's get corrected when Google makes their corrections. I attempted many, many times to explain it to Tom-Tom GPS but they are not user friendly.

Tug, try visiting the Navteq website ( NAVTEQ Maps and Traffic ) and see if your location is correct or incorrect there. I used to work for a major auto manufacturer and Navteq at that time was the sole source for mapping for GPS systems. So, if Navteq got it wrong, everyone got it wrong.

I noticed an error in my car's Navi system a couple of years ago, had our engineers report it back to Navteq, and it was fixed for the next release of the software. Mybe if you are wrong in Navteq's maps and report it to them, it might get corrected everywhere else too?? Just a thought.