Having sat at the computer all day working, last night I needed some exercise so I went for a brisk walk around my neighbourhood on the lower north shore of Sydney. I was almost back home when I spied an unexpected sight: a Google Street View car resting for the night.
Given Google’s habit of taking photos of everywhere, I thought this would be an opportunity to do a little of the same. So I grabbed my Panasonic DMC-TZ7 camera and took a few snaps (which I’ve shrunk in size for the web).
1) Sitting relatively unobtrusively in a grey carpark of a tyre repair shop:
2) A closer view (it appears to be a late-model grey Holden Astra hatchback):
3) Confirmation: it’s a Holden (for overseas readers, that's the Australian subsidiary of General Motors):
4) Side-on View showing the Google Maps sticker (note the rear wheel appears to be the spare: I’ll return to that later):
5) How does a Google Street View Car know where it is? Roof-mounted GPS receiver, of course!
6) To get under low-bridges, etc, the camera tower can be lowered. Here is a better view of the linkage mechanism which holds it upright, supported by what look like two hydraulic struts facing rearwards:
7) A closer look at the roof-mounted camera tower:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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