Here's the same view of Sheffield, captured both by a photographer 110 years ago, and last year by Google Street View cars. I love being able to compare the differences (and similarities) between then and now. The original photographer would not even have been able to conceive that his photo would be available to browse instantly by anyone, anywhere in the world.
Fast forward over a century, and there was a huge tabloid-led outcry about the launch of Google Street View in the UK. With most streets from major cities around the USA and Europe being photographed, some people got caught on camera (amongst other things) coming out of sex shops, urinating in the street, and bending over revealing their thongs or worse - admittedly not things you probably want the world to see, but if you're doing it in a public place then nowadays there's a good chance that someone's watching you...
One aspect of it which is exciting to consider is the potential value to future historians of these views. What Google have effectively created is a visual Domesday book of western society at the start of the 21st century. Can you imagine the value in 50, 100 or 500 years of being able to freely browse around what the streets looked like, what the vehicles looked like, the fashion and the acceptable (or not) behaviour of society captured on these images? What if rather than faces being blurred out, the faces were recognised and tagged so you could see your great-great-great grandparents walking down their local high street or washing their car on their drive?
While some of the pictures are blurry and badly stitched even by today's standards, in the future this will surely be as exciting and mesmorising to watch as it us for us to see the preserved photos from a century ago, the early, scratchy, black and white films of daily life in the late 19th century, or the more recently discovered World Wars in colour?
It's perfectly possible that next century 360 immersive imagery will be the norm; every home will have the equivalent of a CAVE, and be able to immerse themselves in remastered versions of these early Streetviews, marvelling at the quaintness of life in 2009, and the crudeness of our camera technology.
Presumably Google will continue to capture images in the endless task of keeping the "current" Street Views up to date, and will eventually have enough history for archive views of the same streets, allowing you to not only browse through space, but time as well.
I hope that somewhere in the Googleplex the source images are being retained, at their original resolution, without blurred faces and with "voluntarily" removed buildings reinstated, so there is a comprehensive record of our built environment at this point in time. I wonder whether there are any arrangements in place to deposit this is the National Libraries of each country, so that when their copyright expires, they become a national resource, available to all?
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