When Google Streetview began three years ago, it was only operational in a handful of large American cities. Since then, the service has quickly expanded to include all of the world's continents, most recently, Antarctica.
Admittedly, the first images from the continent aren't to the scale that we're used to. On the mainland, Google uses a specially adapted vehicle with nine directional cameras to capture a 360-degree view. If you look at the images from Antarctica, you can clearly see the group of people that accompanied the Google photographer on their Antarctic expedition. The imagery for Antarctica includes panoramas of a small area called Half Moon Island, but there are a few photos from other parts of the continent that Google users have already contributed.
This is just a start for Streetview in Antarctica. Sure, there are more penguins now on the continent than humans, but with climate change's warming effects far more noticeable in Antarctica, a swarm of new residents might be just around the corner.
Google announced Antarctica's addition to Streetview at the same time it said the service was available in Ireland and Brazil.
Brian McClendon is the vice president of engineering for Google Earth and Maps. On Google Earth and Maps' official blog, he writes, "We hope this new imagery will help people in Ireland, Brazil and even the penguins of Antarctica to navigate nearby, as well as enable people around the world to learn more about these areas."
Google seems determined to attract the attention of the affluent, yet notoriously hard-to-reach penguin population -- whose buying power is ranked number one among flightless birds -- with its Streetview in Antarctica. It has even replaced the human figure in the bottom right corner with a penguin.
Credit: Google Street View
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