Google Street View hits the UK

Posted by David Walker on Thu 19 Mar 2009

I can see your house from here

If you're pining for home or just want to see someone else's home, Google Street View offers it up in photo-like detail. And it's just hit the UK via Google Earth and Google Maps for Mobile

Well, not all of the UK, just 25 cities to be precise, including the likes of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester and Oxford. And you can wander 'round them all at 360 degree street-level. But sadly you can't walk through any doors, although there's no reason why you can't do a spot of window shopping or check out the look of a restaurant before you book.

So is this nothing but an invasion of your privacy by a faceless corporation? Not a bit of it, says Google, which claims to have
'gone to great lengths' to safeguard privacy, as well as blurring out any faces from images - just in case you were somewhere you perhaps shouldn't have been on the day of shooting. If that doesn't work, you can flag up an image to Google for removal.

Or you can forget all of that and enjoy the images. And with so many cities to discover, it just might bring a premature end to your working week. Or month.

Link: Google Street Maps