Google New Street View Cameras Use Algorithms to Index Locations Around the World

Wired: “…Street View imagery is about to get a lot clearer. Look forward to sliding through the world from your couch in higher resolution and punchier colors. But Google’s new hardware wasn’t designed with just human eyes in mind. The car-top rig includes two cameras that capture still HD images looking out to either side of the vehicle. They’re there to feed clearer, closer shots of buildings and street signs into Google’s image recognition algorithms. Those algorithms can pore over millions of signs and storefronts without getting tired. By hoovering up vast amounts of information visible on the world’s streets—signs, business names, perhaps even opening hours posted in the window of your corner deli—Google hopes to improve its already formidable digital mapping database. The company, built on the back of algorithms that indexed the web, is using the same strategy on the real world…”