Google Street View coverage

The following is a timeline for Google Street View, a technology implemented in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides ground-level interactive panoramas of cities. The service was first introduced in the United States on May 25, 2007, and initially covered only five cities: San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, and New York City. By the end of 2008, Street View had full coverage available for all of the major and minor cities in the continental United States and had started expanding its scope to include some of the country's national parks, as well as cities elsewhere in the world. For the first year and a half of its existence, Street View featured camera icon markers, each representing at least one major city or area (such as a park). By its 10th anniversary, the Street View service had provided imagery for more than 10 million miles' worth of roads across 83 countries worldwide.^[1]

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Key additions

In 2005, Street View project begins, Google employees started the first tests using a van equipped with cameras on the roof in the San Francisco area.
On May 25, 2007, Street View was announced.
On May 30, 2007, at the Where 2.0 Conference, Immersive Media Company was identified as the contractor that captured the imagery for four of the five cities initially mapped by Street View, using its patented dodecahedral camera array on a moving car. Immersive Media continued to do image capture for Street View until Google developed its own capability to do so.^[2]^[3] Since July 2007,^{[citation needed]} Google has used imagery that belongs exclusively to Google.
On April 16, 2008, Street View was fully integrated into Google Earth 4.3.
On May 5, 2008, Google improves the quality of Street View captures.
On May 12, 2008, Google announced that it was testing face-blurring technology on its photos of the busy streets of Manhattan.^[4] The technology uses a computer algorithm to search Google's image database for faces and blurs them, according to John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Google Maps.^[5]
On June 10, 2008, two other features included in the update were an effective mask of the "Google Car" and the application of face-blurring technology on all photos, which effectively lowered the resolution across all photos, even the formerly impressive high resolution images of San Francisco. Also, many nearby metro areas were included, but they did not receive their own camera icons.
On July 2, 2008, Google Street View was introduced in France and Italy, providing the first service outside the United States and the debut of Google's new 2nd Generation Cameras. On this day, 19 camera icons were added, mostly showing small towns and areas along the Tour de France route and part of northwestern Italy.
On August 4, 2008, 28 icons of major metropolitan areas of both Australia and Japan were added to Google Street View. Included in the update were approximately 40 new U.S. hub cities.
On November 26, 2008, the Street View button and all the camera icons were deleted. Instead of clicking the "Street View" button, this is now accessed using the "pegman" button in the left-hand corner. When the "pegman" icon is dragged over the map, blue polylines appear where Street View is available and a small window will show the current Street View. If this is dropped on the map the Street View opens and takes over the whole map window.
On December 1, 2008, New Zealand was added to Google Street View. Faces were blurred upon recommendation by the New Zealand Privacy Commission, but vehicle registration plates were not obscured.
On April 9, 2009, Street View became available with a full-screen option.
On June 5, 2009, Smart Navigation was introduced, which allows users to navigate around the panoramas by double-clicking with their cursor on any place or object they want to see.^[6]
In January 2010, Google begins to introduce the 3rd generation of cameras, allowing better quality in the captured images.
In mid-June 2010, Google added blue dots to its maps that display user-submitted images in all locations around the world, including land areas where Street View is not available and bodies of water. These images can be pulled up on the screen in the same manner as a Street View image with the pegman by dragging it onto the blue dot.
On October 30, 2012, Google announced that users could contribute to Street View by creating a panorama-like image from the Galaxy Nexus smartphone to share on Google Maps.
On February 14, 2013, Wii Street U was released for the Wii U.^[7]
On June 27, 2013, Google announced that users could contribute to Street View by creating a panorama-like image from the Galaxy non-Nexus smartphone to share on Google Maps.
On November 6, 2013, Google reintroduces Pegman, having disappeared a few months ago, to make way for a new design, and even Pegman who introduces the icons following the location.
On April 23, 2014, a new historical Street View option was introduced to new Google Maps. The date of panoramas can be selected from the timeline.
Starting in August 2017, Google allows users to create their own street view-like blue paths, for the connected photospheres that are sufficiently close to one another.^[8]
On September 7, 2017, Google announces the arrival of a new generation of more efficient and precise cameras on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Street View. This is the 4th generation of cameras, sporting a more refined profile and a blue color.
On December 3, 2020, Google announced that users could contribute to Street View by capturing video using their AR-supported phones using the Street View app.^[9]^[10]
May 24, 2022: Google announces the arrival of a new generation 4 camera on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of Street View for 2023, this one will be able to cover areas less accessible by car thanks to its advantage of weighing less than 7 kilograms.^[11]
May 24, 2022: Google announces the history feature of Street View on iOS and Android, allowing users to view past shots of an area that have been captured repeatedly.

Timeline of introductions

Summarize

Perspective

#For the virtual tours of museums, see Google Arts and Culture#Timeline of introductions

The following timeline lists when each location's earliest set of Street View captures was released. Imagery for each update was captured anywhere from one to twelve months before the stated release date;^[12] for example, imagery from the June 2008 update would have a capture date between June 2007 and May 2008.