While the product has had its fair share of controversy, Google has forged ahead. It has become the eyes of all of Google’s vision for how we view the world after launching on May 25, 2007. Starting out as a camera strapped to Page’s car, Street View technology has been added to vans, cars, tripods, backpacks, bikes and even a snow mobile. I spent the day with the founding members of the Street View team to learn about how it went from a gimmick in someone’s mind to a utility that we use without thinking, and in some cases, wouldn’t want to live without. Snapping photos of every nook and cranny of the planet so that people could travel the world from the comfort of their own homes or mobile devices is the hallmark of Google’s approach to the world around it and the evolution of technology. The project started as research at Stanford and then hopped into Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page’s car. With Street View, Google has brought us as close as we could possibly get to teleportation – without the actual physical matter transference, of course. Being able to explore a physical space that is thousands of miles away without having to deal with the rigors of travel seems like something out of a science fiction novel. The concept of moving throughout the world freely without actually having to “physically” travel is the Holy Grail for many. “ Teleportation is the transfer of matter from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them, similar to the concept apport, an earlier word used in the context of spiritualism.”
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