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More cities get Google Maps street view

Google adds street level to maps for San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando.

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
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Elinor Mills

Google has added four more cities to its Maps street view: San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando, Fla. San Diego is getting the same high-resolution imagery treatment that Google gives San Francisco; I'm not sure why. I asked Google about this and this is the response I got:

"As you probably know, Street View imagery is gathered by Google and a third-party data provider. Imagery in San Diego, like San Francisco, was gathered by Google. Our focus is on providing coverage for as many cities as possible; I don't have any additional details about our imagery collection schedule at the moment, but we will announce new roll outs on the Lat Long blog."

Google Maps' street view was launched in late May for the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami. It sparked a wave of sightings of people caught unaware and concerns about the possible privacy implications of the technology.

Update 5:10 pm PT: A reader pointed out LaudonTech's Google Street View Gallery, which has interesting images gathered from the newly added cities. I'm sure there will be the Houston, LA, San Diego and Orlando equivalents of the peeping thong, cat in window and highway relief images that were discovered after the initial launch of street view, so please feel free to send them in. Orlando during spring break would be a mine field, I'm sure.