Google's Street View debuts a more portable camera 2:59
(CNN Business) --
Since launching in five US cities in 2007, Google's Street View cars have circled the globe, using roof-mounted cameras to map more than 10 million miles of images. , images that have been put together to build a visual map of much of the world.
However, while these cameras have allowed Google to capture many far away places, they are often bulky, heavy and require a lot of computing power to be added inside the Street View cars.
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Google on Tuesday unveiled a new Street View camera that it believes will make it much easier to take pictures of the world, especially in remote places like small islands and mountaintops.
The camera weighs 4.5 kilos (approximately a tenth of the weight of the current camera, plus all the electronics that the current one requires);
it is modular, so it can be customized with different sensors, such as lidar, when needed;
and it can be quickly attached to a car's grill or roof rack without the need for customization (which will allow it to be attached to many more types of vehicles).
The new Street View camera is more portable and oddly cute.
Like the current Street View camera, it includes seven individual cameras, each with a 20-megapixel sensor, so it can take 140-megapixel panoramic images.
Last week, Google gave CNN Business an exclusive look at the new camera in the Street View garage in Mountain View, California, along with a tour of the array of cameras and vehicles that Street View has used over the years. .
The camera is nice, for a surveillance device.
It's about the size of a cat or small dog, and its top is blue, with a white circle surrounding each of the large camera lenses (which look like large bug eyes).
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Some cuts in the plastic make it appear from certain angles to have a small mustache.
The bulk of its elongated body is silver in color, with two black handles for easy carrying (which, naturally, also look like little arms).
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Maria Biggs, who leads the team that designed and built the new camera, said her team was trying to make the camera so portable that it could be shipped on its own, rather than with a car, to different locations where it could then be attached to vehicles.
To do this, the electronic components that usually go in the back seat of the cars used by Street View have been incorporated into the new camera.
Biggs said that to reduce the camera's electronics, her team designed power and processing boards smaller than the size of her hand.
It can be powered by the vehicle or connected directly to a battery.
Over the past 15 years, Google Street View has attached its cameras to many other things besides vehicles, from snowmobiles, bikes, backpacks, and even sheep, in its efforts to capture places that are also off the road.
(The sheep were part of an effort started by Faroese residents in 2016 to gather Street View images of the archipelago's many islands.)
Biggs said the new camera's portability will make it useful for these other types of imaging, and make it possible to collect images in more remote locations more often.
The Street View team is testing the new camera near its headquarters in Mountain View, and plans to start using it widely next year.
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