If you have a spherical camera, that is.
Starting today, Google is crowdsourcing Street View with a new app.
The source of Google Maps' most innovative feature — the ability to see what a street looks like from an on-the-ground perspective — had primarily been filmed by the company's own fleet of camera-laden cars until now. However, as Google Maps expands into off-road locales and neighborhood-specific information (often with its own backpack, the Trekker) it's going to start relying more on regular people to show it what the world looks like.
But to do that, people will need to utilize cameras that can capture the 360-degree images that make Street View so compelling. Thursday's announcement of a new Street View app comes in conjunction with the unveiling of the latest generation Ricoh Theta — a handheld camera that shoots photos and video in an an immersive, 360 degrees — Google's newest partner for Street View.
Here's how it will work if you're using the Street View application. First, you pair the spherical camera and your phone over Wi-Fi, open Street View, and the the app will give you an indication that it's now linked to a camera. A blue camera icon at the bottom of the app means you can take a picture, which you trigger from the app, not the camera itself.
The image captured is automatically sent back to the app, stored in Google's cloud, and can be uploaded to Street View for other users to see while exploring the area.
It's also possible to take a Street View picture with just a cell phone — you'll just have to hold still and aim the camera a few times, and let Google stitch the images together for you, similar to the iOS Photo Sphere Camera app it's replacing.
via IFTTT
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