My Google Map Blog

Google released some interesting news today about the WiFi problems and Street View:

Having spoken to the relevant regulators we have decided to start Street View driving in Ireland, Norway, South Africa and Sweden again starting next week. We expect to add more countries in time. Our cars will no longer collect any WiFi information at all, but will continue to collect photos and 3D imagery as they did before. (Google)

Ireland is the only new country mentioned here not yet covered by StreetView. Hopefully they will be able to publish images from Germany soon too.

Where would you want StreetView cars to go next?

The noicy vuvuzela “instrument” used by fans during World Cup in South Africa is now also being used by the Street View Pegman. Luckily, his vuvuzela makes no sound.

Google have announced that Street View will be going live on Tuesday June 8th in South Africa. The release of the images may have been delayed by recent privacy issues regarding google collecting wifi data. South Africa will be the first African nation to get Street View images.

The World Cup soccer tournament will start three days later on June 11. Images from inside the arenas will be available on Street View.

Among the South African cities StreetView cars have visited are:

Johannesburg
Cape Town
Pretoria
Port Elizabeth
Durban

Experience the world in 3D on Google Maps StreetView. Click on the new 3D pegman on any StreetView image. You need special glasses to see it in 3D. Example:

View larger map

Local copy in case you are viewing this after April 1st…

View Larger Map (thanks Andrew Wright of Penrith)

Google streetview have visited the slopes in Vancouver, Canada to cover where the Olympics are taking place.

NORWAY: has been added
FINLAND: has been added
CANADA: Lots more available (looks like the bulk is in Saskatchewan and Alberta)
MEXICO: has a little more added along highways

USA:
More shots in Alaska
(there’s surely a lot more updates than that, but that’s what I saw so far)

View larger map

View Larger Map

Tomorrow, on the 21th of January, Street View Sweden will be available on Google Maps according to IDG.se (swedish).

Streetviewfun.com added this:
It’s a reliable source so I think the info above is accurate. We know that Google went to most of the larger swedish cities including the capital Stockholm, Malmö and Göteborg. I think they also went to Lund, Helsingborg and a couple of other smaller cities. It’s unclear though if all images will be released tomorrow. I’m guessing that atleast the three largest cities will be released.

Most likely more countries and or regions will be added at the same time. Denmark?

Google started to work on taking images in Sweden in april 2009. There are already several similar services available in sweden such as Hitta.se, Lokaldelen and Eniro. Image quality in those other streetview type services are higher than Google. But Google Maps is obviously a more complete solution than any of those.