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Google's Street View lands in the Philippines

Web giant uses backpack-attached Street View Trekker camera to capture 360-degree images from within Manila's walled city of Intramuros.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
Google Street View in the Philippines. Google

Google has made the landmarks of the Philippines more accessible to people around the world.

The Web giant announced Tuesday it has begun capturing Street View imagery from the southeast Asian nation, launching first in the capital of Manila, with an eventual expansion into the country's more than 7,000 islands. Google offered a preview of the service through 360-degree photos captured from within Manila's walled city of Intramuros.

Google's backpack-attached Street View Trekker camera captured the full glory of historic churches and forts, including The San Agustin Church, Baluarte de San Diego, Plaza San Luis Complex, and Fort Santiago.

Expanding Street View in the Philippines is being made easier through a program that allows third-party, volunteer documentarians to borrow backpacks equipped with 15-lens camera systems that pop out of the top of the wearable pack and constantly record images. Each lens points in a different direction so that when combined, all of the images can be stitched into 360-degree panoramic views.

The video below offers a snapshot of the process specific to the Philippines.