Google Street View car driver answers questions on Reddit

[View the story "Google Street View car driver answers questions on Reddit " on Storify]

Storified by CBC News Community · Fri, Oct 12 2012 11:59:07

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A Google Street View car driver did an "Ask Me Anything" interview on Reddit, on the same day the company announced its biggest ever update to the service. Google updated its special collections, as well as over 400,000 kilometres of roads around the world. Vancouver's Stanley Park, above, was one of the new places Google added to Street View.

Over on Reddit, the anonymous Google driver has over 1,600 comments so far, and plenty of insight to share about how Google takes those pictures.

Below are some of the questions GoogleDriver419 was asked:

Whats the funniest thing you've seen when driving?LaxBro4

Just people trying to be stupid for the camera. GoogleDriver419

What is an example of people being stupid for the camera?ILL_Show_Myself_Out

Mooning, pretending to fight each other, make duck faces, give the peace sign. GoogleDriver419

Any idea how long it takes data taken by your car to make it to google maps? I waved at a car and i have been waiting for it to update to my beautiful face.captainlvsac

Usually 6 months after I upload it. GoogleDriver419

It goes to us qc at randstad so we can license plate and face blur aftergerLdsmash

(QC refers to quality control).

Indeed. GoogleDriver419

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How often does StreetView update in certain areas? The longest delay between StreetView updates? My town hasn't been updated since 2008. The data says "Copyright 2012 Google", but the same car from the previous owner has been parked in my driveway before I moved in.SoundbiteProductions

The copyright usually would display the current year. As for updating, it all depends on how often that area is used with StreetView. GoogleDriver419

Does that mean if someone's address was 'streetviewed' extensively, they would re-image it?bman86

It would have to be viewed by several thousands of people before it really gets labeled as a point of interest. GoogleDriver419

One Redditor, Dog_River_Dave, asked, "Do you have a GPS with a pre-planned route that you follow? Or is it more willy-nilly?"

I get points A and B, as well as any major points of interest along the way. For the most part, the planning is up to us. Obviously we don't do like random side streets, we usually just have a quota of data to cache. The route is up to us. GoogleDriver419

I would have thought this would be carefully planned and heavily optimised...Conradical314

The starting and ending points are, and take into account the area and where they think I'll be going. GoogleDriver419

well yeah, but I thought the whole thing would be carefully mapped out, to hit the important areas and maximise 'importance' of areas, all while reducing backtracking etcConradical314

Indeed. That is part of our job, mapping the routes. Plenty of info is provided to help us. GoogleDriver419

Who does the random streets?chewp911

Well we have quotas to meet. If we need some extra data, we will hit some side streets to meet the quota. GoogleDriver419

This Instagram shot, by Twitter user @mariejoelle, shows what the current fleet of Google Street View cars in New York looks like. 

Photo by mariejoelleparent * Instagrammariejoelleparent

Does Google keep a backup archive of all the old streeview images? I think it would be cool for people to be able to eventually access those older streetview images and look at how things were 10, 20, or 30 years in the past.snermy

Well it is still a new system. But yes they will be archived. Google Maps is archived back to the 90's. GoogleDriver419

I notice that some streets with very expensive houses are not photographed. Why is that?auroraborememalice

Just coincidence. Roads are sometimes picked based on traffic flow and current interest online. GoogleDriver419

when you guys are taking updated pictures, do you try and go through at the same time of day as the original pictures?another-redditor3

The user went on to say "The only reason I ask is that I noticed pictures from clearly 2 different days on the same road, but the time of day in both pictures is almost exact. It seemed too strange to just be coincidence."

Usually it will be the same route as used before, so given the same timeframe, it could happen by coincidence. Other than that, there is software to help blend the images, which also tries to smooth out the differences in light levels. GoogleDriver419

What kind of GPS system does the computer have? Something custom from google?smellybottom

Google Maps lol. GoogleDriver419

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