Alien spymobile menaces Street View

Google had better watch its back, because El Reg has obtained evidence that a powerful rival is about to poke Street View in its all-seeing eye. Check out the following vehicle, spotted on Monday in Banbury Road, Oxford, by reader Ian Chard. Note the sinister, four-camera spypod atop a big black box which doubtless contains …

[kevin king]

Honey I shrunk the Tech!

makes a change from the monster thing they had going around San Fransisco when I was there in February http://www.flickr.com/photos/akira_kev/4343467394/

[serviceWithASmile]

i for one

welcome our google-defying privacy-apathetic pulsed laser-armed overlords

just so long as they aren't snooping data packets and storing mac addresses at the same time.... *shuder*

[Anonymous Coward]

Big black box

I suspect the big black box contains wifi snoop gear.

Oh wait, it's not google.

Carry on.

[max allan]

Good old Stig View

It seems they've had a complete sense of humour failure on the Stig in Scotland issue.

That section of road is now completely non-street-view!!!

If you go http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=57+13'33.82N+4+34'19.81W&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=10.156235,31.113281&ie=UTF8&ll=57.226859,-4.57115&spn=0,0.007596&z=17&layer=c&cbll=57.226859,-4.57115&panoid=QHCb7cgWS-n8T1DBNkL8Iw&cbp=12,216.86,,3,-0.31

You can just about see the stig still.

[Graham Marsden]

Some people say...

... that he has the power to delete whole sections of Street View...

... All we know is that he's called...

The Stig!

[I didn't do IT.]

Some Say...

Some say his very presence makes Eric Schmidt's bones turn to jello...

And some say that Google still can't scan his image during any of their book binges...

[Geoff Mackenzie]

Ah, capitalism

Promoting the efficient use of resources again.

Great stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

If, as navteq say...

"The company has over 1000 geographic analysts who regularly drive the roads and its map database includes around 17 million miles of roads which have been mapped using similar vehicles."

Then why does my bloody sat nav still have no idea about a 10 year old estate, has no idea what "no entry" means and still takes me on the most illogical routes..

[Anonymous Coward]

Only *10* years?

There's a large subdivision here that's over 18 years old that I know of, and still my Garmin says "here thyre bee dragons!" with a big blank area... and this is after I was stupid enough to pay US$150 for the damn update CD.

Garmin can suck my eight-inch non-dairy creamer. Where's the icon for "carpet-bombing from a B-52"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Southwark council seem to have their own fleet of data capturing cars. Saw one the other week driving round Peckham.

[nobby]

saw this (or similar)

it was driving around milton keynes shopping centre a few days ago.

we thought about jumping up and down and making a general arse of ourselves just to be immortalised in the interwebs for ever.

then we realised we were grown men and contemplated taking its cameras out instead.

[graeme leggett]

At least we can guess

that they won't be collecting wireless data after a certain firm's gaffe on that front.

[Code Monkey]

Or..

Or if they do, they'll not cough to it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Another street mapper

I saw a http://www.c3technologies.com/ cam mobile in South London on Monday.

Didn't manage to get a snap, but it had a nice collection of mounted cameras.

[Anonymous Coward]

Four years old

That sign written Scenic is four years old judging by the plates (and the condition). How come they haven't been spotted before? Maybe that's the only one.

[serviceWithASmile]

4 years?

17 million miles in 4 years is fairly good going, if its the only one :D

[MrT]

Yeah but...

... it's a Renault, so it's even more remarkable cos for 2 of those years it'll have been in the garage getting fixed.

[Tigra 07]

Microsoft Street View?

Perhaps they were hired by Microsoft to do the legwork for MSView?

[Craig 28]

Re:4 years

Or maybe, just maybe, the car hasn't had cameras on top all its life? Somehow I suspect that isn't a standard feature.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will our roads be filled...

by a huge traffic jam of "streetview" type vehicles all desperately trying to get their own photos of me and you mowing our frount lawns?

Feeling this popular almost forces me to break wind.