Google Street View launches in Finland

[NanaM]

Finally!!.... ...I had read sometime ago that it would be coming to Finland in 2010.....and it looks to me like they haven't been fooling around....the coverage is excellent and very extensive.....

That same satellite technology apparently extends to virtually every place on all of planet Earth, everywhere, and perhaps those in control of that technology could also delete any pixillation. Indeed, just how fine of a resolution could such technology produce?

Those in control of "this technology" cannot overrun the technical limitations of the sensors that have been sent into orbit. Of the currently available optical imaging satellites for the general public (research, public and private sector), the highest resolutions are from QuickBird-2 and GeoEye satellites, both available in GoogleEarth/Maps. QuickBird-2 has a resolution of around 0.6m in panchromatic ("greyscale") and 2.4m in multispectral (red, green, blue and near-infrared channels). Recently this resolution has been overtaken by GeoEye satellite : 0.5m panchromatic, 2m in multispectral. An even finer resolution on GeoEye (0.41m/1.65m) is not available for commercial purposes, i.e. it is only for US government. GoogleEarth/Maps also has aerial images in some locations, which have usually even finer resolution than the finest satellites.

While GeoEye-1 can collect imagery at 0.41-meter ground resolutions, the Company’s operating license from the U.S. Government requires re-sampling the imagery to 0.5-meter for all customers not explicitly granted a waiver by the U.S. Government. Under current licensing constraints, only the U.S. Government would be allowed access to imagery at this highest resolution.

In practice, data from such very high resolution satellites is not acquired continuously over the whole Earth, but on an order-basis from customers for various applications. This archived data can then be available on GoogleEarth/GoogleMaps for visualisation purposes - Google orders the images they are interested in from archives, I guess they also place orders themselves for new imagery. But technically it is not possible to acquired the whole Earth continuously from these very high resolution satellites - because of e.g. limitations in data transfer rate back to Earth vs data size. Some satellites at lower spatial resolution are designed to handle a continuous coverage. To give you an idea, recently DigitalGlobe had extra acquisitions of QuickBird images over Haiti to cover the post-earthquake situation and made this data freely available. One QuickBird image is 16x16km, summing up to about 1 Gb only for the panchromatic channel. Around 800 Gb of data in total.

The military has even more expensive and fancy toys, but by definition only them know exactly what they have, we (outsiders) can only specualte about it. However even they cannot get around physical limitations, e.g. with regards to orbits and spatial resolution.

This could bring an end to pot farming!

Actually there has been studies on using satellite data to detect illegal activities, including illegal wood cutting, oil spills, pot farming...etc... For example this study or that one (using hyperspectral data, usually lower spatial resolution but much higher spectral resolution, which is useful for distinguishing crop types).

[tuulen]

...The military has even more expensive and fancy toys, but by definition only them know exactly what they have, we (outsiders) can only specualte about it. However even they cannot get around physical limitations, e.g. with regards to orbits and spatial resolution.

Yes, we outsiders can only speculate. Every year and for many years the US government has given money to universities for research, many different kinds of research, but the details of a new technology could become a secret. Yes, the military might get a new technology, and then there are other government agencies which might get that same new technology, too, but just who gets the new technology could be as secret as the technology itself.

This could bring an end to pot farming!

In addition to satellites, apparently there is a thermal imaging technology which can be flown at low altitudes in an airplane or a helicopter for detecting pot and other drug crops. That helps to eliminate drug crops in the US, but apparently some other nations depend on drug crops to make money, for instance, cocaine from South America and heroin from Afghanistan, and the trouble is that no other crops in those nations could be as profitable, so no matter what other crops could be suggested it is those same drug crops which continue to be grown.

[NanaM]

...The military has even more expensive and fancy toys, but by definition only them know exactly what they have, we (outsiders) can only specualte about it. However even they cannot get around physical limitations, e.g. with regards to orbits and spatial resolution.

Yes, we outsiders can only speculate. Every year and for many years the US government has given money to universities for research, many different kinds of research, but the details of a new technology could become a secret. Yes, the military might get a new technology, and then there are other government agencies which might get that same new technology, too, but just who gets the new technology could be as secret as the technology itself.

I believe the military already has better resolution on their satellites, and it has been the case for long. When old imagery becomes declassified one realises that they were then much better than existing "public" technology.

[tuulen]

...The military has even more expensive and fancy toys, but by definition only them know exactly what they have, we (outsiders) can only specualte about it. However even they cannot get around physical limitations, e.g. with regards to orbits and spatial resolution.

Yes, we outsiders can only speculate. Every year and for many years the US government has given money to universities for research, many different kinds of research, but the details of a new technology could become a secret. Yes, the military might get a new technology, and then there are other government agencies which might get that same new technology, too, but just who gets the new technology could be as secret as the technology itself.

I believe the military already has better resolution on their satellites, and it has been the case for long. When old imagery becomes declassified one realises that they were then much better than existing "public" technology.

Yes, I believe you are right, that the government has technology which the public knows nothing about.

[Rip]

I haven't taken anythin!
http://maps.google.fi/maps?hl=fi&client ... 52,,0,15.5

That one is gone now, but changing the point of view by a few meters, the guy on the bench: How drunk do you have to be for the whole world to see you in two?
http://maps.google.fi/maps?hl=fi&client ... 33023&z=16

[paha_noita]

Well I just took a virtual walk through the town where I lived as an exchange student and the nostalgia was crushingly sad. ;-; Still great though. I noticed all the pictures were from Finland's peak season when everything is green and alive, I doubt that was unintentional. ;) I remember the first time I found out about this google street view thing, my friend had looked my house up and then taken a screenshot and sent it to me, causing me to freak out thinking someone is spying on me and taking pictures of my house. Hahaaha.

[Jukka Aho]

I noticed all the pictures were from Finland's peak season when everything is green and alive, I doubt that was unintentional. ;)

Depends on which place you’re viewing. Some of the pictures are from the early spring – with grayish-brown dead lawns from the previous year, traces of snow still in lingering in shadowy nooks and corners and the leaves missing from the trees...

[Upphew]

I noticed all the pictures were from Finland's peak season when everything is green and alive, I doubt that was unintentional.

I'd say its fully intentional, but not for the reason you suspect. Taking photos needs a certain amount of light, which is more readily available during summertime, easier to wait few months than build blindingly strong flashlight... and then using it in traffic...

[maxxfi]

In addition to that, if you want to make a service that helps people to
really find places, you won't go taking pictures at wintertime, when
everything is uniformly white (whether it's street, house, field or lake).

[maurine]

the Google street view is really cool, too bad i wasn't there when they captured the view but at least my car had to pose for the shot
so she kind of got lucky:)