How Google’s new Street View cameras are helping algorithms index the real world

By Warren Miller, contributing writer

Google changed the world of digital mapping when it introduced its Street View feature to the public in 2007, allowing viewers to get a panoramic view of many streets around the world. Now, with new cameras built by former NASA engineers atop its iconic mapping vehicles, it may be about to do it again, according to a report by Wired. Google hopes that with never-before-seen image clarity, it can take the next step in indexing, categorizing, and cross-referencing the world.

By providing its own image-recognition algorithms with more detailed imagery, Google is aiming to provide even more comprehensive information about the world around you. Its algorithms are clever enough to sort out business names and addresses — and possibly even store hours — from all of the other extraneous signage that populates city streets. Theoretically, this kind of information would allow Google’s search engines to come to the aid of an intrepid diner looking for an Italian restaurant open in their vicinity or for that place with the green awning over the patio where they met their cousin that time. Google’s system has even begun to understand commonly used abbreviations like “ST” for street and “AVE” for avenue and isn’t fooled by signs in storefront windows like “OPEN” or “ATM INSIDE.”

A Google car rolling through city streets. Image source: Pixabay.

This might not seem like a life-changing innovation if you live in a first-world country, but in less developed nations where residential and commercial geography can change at a startling rate, information this voluminous and detailed could be a huge boon. Google has just recently begun to map Lagos, the Nigerian metropolis that is home to over 21 million people (and growing). India was reportedly laying as many as 14 miles of new roads every day earlier this year. Imagine finding a map in a gas station that could guide you through a neighborhood that didn’t exist at the same time last year!

It might not be time to pop the champagne corks just yet, however. There are a few countries (like Germany and Austria) that have pushed back against Google’s quest to photograph the entire world on the grounds that its Street View vehicles take images that can be seen as an invasion of privacy. With cameras that capture images in even greater detail and with greater clarity, it’s not hard to imagine even greater privacy concerns. Maybe even more worryingly, a research team at Stanford used Street View data to make racial and socioeconomic predictions about residents in certain neighborhoods based on the kinds of cars that were parked in their driveways. That kind of information could be dangerous in the hands of a company operating for profit.

Because Google already laid claim to the most popular digital mapping service worldwide, the new images and information that its new cameras provide will only strengthen its grip on the market.