Google Street View

Mike and I were cruising south on Route 206 when we saw something that looked like this:

This picture from Google Images.  It's an example of a car equipped for Street View. 

     "What's that?" I asked Mike.
     "It's a car taking pictures for Google," he answered, sounding completely sure of himself.
     It turns out that he wasn't completely sure, just almost sure.  When we got home we did a little googling and confirmed Mike's suspicions.
     Google Street View had modest beginnings in 2001.  Today, the United States, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, Argentina, and the Republic of South Africa are almost fully covered. Russia, Greenland, and most of South America are partially covered.  Only tourist attractions in China appear on Street View.  Most of Africa and the Middle East have no current or planned coverage.
     All good ideas have legal troubles along the way.  Street View has had to deal with privacy concerns.  Google blurs faces and license plates on their images, and they will blur houses if the owners request it.  Google cameras can "see" over fences, so Japan and Switzerland required Google to lower them.  An Edinburgh, Scotland business man heard that Google cameras would be rolling by, so he staged an attempted murder by standing over his friend with a pick ax.  He ended up making an apology to the police for wasting their time.  In 2011 Germany and India ended Street View's operations, mainly because of privacy issues.  Here are a couple of articles:

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217177/Google-Street-View--Please-dont-stand-middle-road-waiting-camera.html

     It seems that after, "Hey, what's that?" the question that follows is, "How can I get a job driving one of those cars?"  Google does not employ Street View drivers.  They use subcontractors, the main one being Immersive Media.  They only strategy for obtaining the job seems to be to apply to Immersive Media or other similar companies and hope for the best.  You'll only earn about $2500 per month, and it's a temporary job.  However, having Google Street View Driver on your resumé is going to impress your next employer a whole lot more that delivering for Domino's.

http://tek-bull.com/2012/02/how-to-get-hired-for-the-google-maps-street-view-car/