Google Street View allows users to contribute with a smartphone camera

The smartphone camera cannot be ignored from the street scene. How useful is it if you can also make a meaningful contribution with it? Google Street View now allows users to participate in Street View.

Contributions to Google Street View

Google Street View is an incredibly useful service. Explore the beautiful Swedish roads and the beautiful streets in cities such as London and Paris. Google makes this possible by sending its Street View cars around the world. However, a car can of course not get everywhere. You can still find Street View images in various places, for example thanks to PhotoSphere photos in which 360-degree images are made. Sometimes people have walked through the streets with a special camera on their back, or images have been added in some other way.

Now Google wants to further expand the number of places where Street View is available. For this, the company calls in the help of smartphone users through crowdsourcing. By registering for ‘Connected Photos Beta’, the camera on the smartphone can be used to visualize the environment. This is done by making a video while walking. These can then be used by Google to improve the Street View service. This includes not only the images, but also names, addresses and other information about companies.

The Connected Photos Beta app uses Augmented Reality, which means that those who want to contribute in this way must have a device that supports it. Unfortunately, we still have to wait in the Netherlands until we can contribute in this way. The service is currently only available in some American cities, Canada, Indonesia, Nigeria and Costa Rica. More regions should be added in the future.