Israel Matzav

Google street view is here

Google Street View launched in Israel on Thursday - three days earlier than planned. For now, it's only Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and special locations, but I can tell you that they already made it to my little neck of the woods.

In the first stage, the service only offers street views of Israel's three largest cities - Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. In addition, several specific sites in other parts of the country can be seen as well. These include the Ben Gurion University in Be’er Sheva, the Mini Israel miniature park and Kibbutz Merhavia in northern Israel.

The Internet giant deployed its Street View vehicles last September on the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Mitzpeh Ramon in the central Negev and even the Kinneret and the Dead Sea.

Israel officials authorized the Street View cameras after three months of negotiations to define certain conditions to protect privacy.

In accordance with its promise, Google did not reveal license plate numbers and home addresses before publishing the images online. These items, as well as the faces of people on city’s streets, have been obscured.

Here's a video of them filming in Tel Aviv.

Let's go to the videotape.

Labels: Google Street View

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:12 AM