Streetview is awesome, but always a bit out of date.

Mount Streetview cameras on the roof of taxis. They're constantly driving all over the city anyway.
-- Worldgineer, Apr 12 2014

Related Google_20Instamaps
Google Instamaps [Voice, Apr 18 2014]

Virtual Observer http://www.virtualobserver.com.au/
System uses GPS to interrogate and display all mobile cameras for a given time and place. [AusCan531, Apr 20 2014]

And how long before the casual exhibitionists figure out which cabs are streaming live video to the internet?
-- Alterother, Apr 12 2014


I'm fine with that.

Though they'd probably develop a filter for that eventually, like they do for faces.
-- Worldgineer, Apr 12 2014


And they'd be uploading stills all the time, so the filter could just postpone the update photo until the next pass. You might want to switch off at night, although an option to select a view corresponding to current local time might sometimes be a feature.
-- skoomphemph, Apr 12 2014


That would be a nice feature. See if an area is well lit and populated before travelling there.
-- Worldgineer, Apr 18 2014


might be an interesting way to monetize (or rebate) installing CCTV cameras everywhere, even inside properties. What's going on in Macy's on the 3rd floor right now, search it, see it, and advertise around it
-- theircompetitor, Apr 18 2014


Great idea. Missed this. +
-- blissmiss, Apr 18 2014


I suppose any picture missed due to face recognition could generate a tally of faces counted in the missed shot, and that quantity could be added to the "traffic report".

Or pixellate out faces and be snazzy.

Ooh look, place de la Bastille! There must be a party there...
-- skoomphemph, Apr 18 2014


Weight and drag? Are you kidding? Cameras that fit on my thumbnail are walking around in the pocket of every smartphone owner, and the big plastic thing on top of a taxi that distinguishes it as a taxi is mostly hollow, save a couple of light bulbs. Stick the camera(s) in there. The hack's radio antenna creates more drag that a camera would.
-- Alterother, Apr 18 2014


What's in Streetview for them right now? They seem to do awesome things and try to figure out how to make money from it later.

Oh, you mean the taxi driver. I imagine they'd pay the driver a bit each month for the roof rental.
-- Worldgineer, Apr 18 2014


Same as the advertisers who rent signage on that big hollow plastic thing on the roof.
-- Alterother, Apr 18 2014


No, I haven't seen a Streetview car. I live 100 miles north of nowhere, remember? The last time a Googlemobile went by my house was before we moved here, unless they've updated it recently. I try not to use Sreetview or Google Earth beacause they're such bandwidth hogs.

On the other hand, we just got 3G last week. I should check it out.
-- Alterother, Apr 18 2014


Nope, they haven't been around for the last few years. They've updated the sattelite view, though! I can see my Jeep and my deuce and my Dad's dead Porsches...must've been late last summer, there's the family tractor outside my shop with the front end torn apart. No VW, we must not have been home. I wonder where we were?
-- Alterother, Apr 18 2014


[Bliss], your ability to remain consistently sweet and polite confuses and troubles me. Praytell how you do it.
-- Voice, Apr 18 2014


Two words [Voice], heavily medicated.
-- blissmiss, Apr 19 2014


This is basically baked [link]. A Perth based company (Virtual Observer) has a system for organizing mobile camera systems on buses, taxis and so on so that video can retrospectively be viewed for any given place and time as collected by those camera- equipped vehicles which happened to be passing by.

When the Iraq war was on, I thought this would be a brilliant solution for back-tracking the source of car bombs. After an attack, the vehicle could be retrospectively followed back to its point of origin by viewing video in concentric circles for each intersection it passed through all the way back to where it was modified with explosives. Put as many cameras on traffic lights, aerial drones, buses, Humvees taxis as you can to create as much coverage as possible. I contacted the company in question but didn't really want to end up in Baghdad myself nor send any of my people there either so dropped it.
-- AusCan531, Apr 20 2014



random, halfbakery