...meanwhile, StreetView imagery for Germany has turned 14 - i.e. in much of Germany (major cities only), StreetView still shows the images from the original drive-through from 2008. After that (and a series of legal challenges which led to a ruling saying that buildings have to be blurred if one inhabitant objects to it being visible on StreetView), Google has apparently lost interest. The "3D buildings" feature, which is not affected by this ruling for some reason, gives a much better overview anyway...
In Slovakia, the StreetView is quite up to date but curiously the satellite/airplane photos are about 10 years old and as a result, some neighbourhoods are hard to recognize.
Last summer in berlin I saw several ‘streetview’ like rigged cars, amongst them a Apple branded car with dslrs(!) mounted all around on a space frame... prolly autonomous driving tests though?
I like Street View and I use it regularly, but it's an interesting case of privacy vs speech/expression. I can see why the Germans might not want Google wandering around and aggregating pictures of all their homes.
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