On Sunday, May 29, the Google Maps service Street View, which shows streets in a real image, turns 15, and for that, the company presented the company with a list of the most visited and most unexplored places in the world. World.
This service was conceived in 2004 under the premise of creating a 360 degree map of the entire world; something that is now a reality, combining over 220,000 million images from over 100 countries and regions.
It wasn’t launched in five cities until 2007, and a year later the first Street View image of a tricycle was achieved. This format evolved until it reached snowmobiles, because in 2010 the first images of these vehicles were taken on the ski slopes of Whistler (Canada).
Over the years, this service has begun to be implemented on smaller and even waterproof portable devices, as in 2012 it became possible to take pictures of the Australian Great Barrier Reef.
That same year, the Street View camera also traveled in a Trekker backpack format when it was taken to the Grand Canyon (United States) to photograph the arid landscape in question. Just two years later, in 2015, Street View was already available in virtual reality (VR).
In 2017, the Google team also recorded a milestone in service history as the first abseil descent took place from below the Earth’s surface into the interior of an active volcano.
In addition, an aerial view of the Earth was taken with the participation of astronauts in the same year. Due to these developments, the service required its images to be of higher quality and resolution, so its system was updated.
At the turn of the new decade, in 2020, the launch of Live View was announced, which offers a geographically and visually accurate format thanks to augmented reality (AR) technology.
To celebrate this anniversary, the company has launched new features of this service, such as the ability to go back in time and explore cities with immersive maps on mobile devices, and a new camera that will allow the world to be recorded with sound. quality images
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With this, Google is taking the opportunity to zoom in on a collection of exclusive photos of both unexplored places and widely known rooms, offering a new perspective on its spaces and landscapes.
According to data compiled by Google Street View, the three most visited places by its users is the 154-story Burj Khalifa skyscraper in the United Arab Emirates, which has been declared the tallest building in the world.
The second most visited place is the Eiffel Tower in Paris (France), from the top of which you can get the best picture of the French city.
In third place is India’s Taj Mahal, a historical monument included in Google’s special collection of images to commemorate the anniversary.
The tech maker recalled that Street View is not yet launched in India, but is not progressing if it plans to expand this service to that country or selected date.
In addition to remembering which image collections are the most popular in Street View, Google noted that it has started showing four more of them.
These are the pyramids of Meroe (Sudan), a collection in which he uses panoramic imaging technology, and the Duomo of Milan (Italy), the largest cathedral in Italy and the third largest in Europe.
To deliver the best snapshots, the company has worked with Google Arts & Culture and the organization that has preserved the monument itself since 2019.
In addition, it has recently introduced the dome of Les Invalides in Paris, which was the highest point of the French capital before the Eiffel Tower was built.
Finally, Google announced that Street View users will soon be able to enjoy the symbolic ferries of Sydney (Australia), which will be digitally preserved thanks to its work with Transport for New South Wales. These will be available later this year.
special images
In addition to presenting its new collection of exclusive images, Google has made a list of the images it finds most eye-catching and eye-catching in its gallery.
The first is in the crater of the Ambrym Marum volcano in New Zealand, where you can see an amazing display of this natural phenomenon. It is followed by the Greek town of Monemvasía, a rocky fortress that is hard to reach and Google accessible.
The Wieliczka salt mine in Poland is another of the places the company has chosen to celebrate this anniversary, an area declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978.
Located in Japan and currently active, Miharayama volcano is another of the areas highlighted in this gallery of Street View views alongside the city of Petra in Jordan.
Alongside these beautiful landscapes, Street View users can enjoy views from the NASA International Space Station, as well as the waters surrounding the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) and swim with sea lions.
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