Google Deploys Street View Cars in 'Earthquake-Hit' Japan

Four months ago, the world looked on helplessly, as one of the most technologically developed nations, Japan crumbled in front of an earthquake first, and the horrendous tsunami, that swelled later. Since then, the nation has been putting up a brave front, and has begun picking up life from where it stopped on that fateful day. Those of you who followed our reports closely that time, would remember that Google had launched the feature called ‘ Person Finder’ feature. The tool helped thousands of displaced people get to know the whereabouts of their relatives, family, and other acquaintances.

A quake hit stretch in Japan

Reports now point that one of Google’s most controversial and spoken about service, Street View has been deployed on Ground zero. Street View cars from Google have been plying on the earthquake ravaged streets of North Eastern Japan bringing in digital images of the affected areas using the nine cameras mounted on the car, which give a 360-degree, panoramic view of the location. Google’s popular service, although hit roadblocks in major nations, was welcomed with open arms in Japan.The mayor of Kesennuma, one of the cities in North Eastern Japan was particularly glad with the Google Street View cars plying around the city. In a statement,  he said that he was glad that they were here to record Kesennuma, and that he would want them to come back again, and record Kesennuma after it had restored itself to its original self.

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Getting the Street View

The Street View technology, especially in Japan would track the extent of the damage, for starters, and would also gauge the progress in reconstruction. Google, had initially rubbed the Japanese the wrong way with the Street View technology. Privacy loving Japanese did not like it when Google’s Street View cars started recording the most detailed images. They were allowed to proceed only when they reshot their entire sequence with less detailed images. Now, however, Google and several of its key features, like the above mentioned Person Finder, Street View and others like Google Maps have become indispensable to the lives of scores of Japanese, which most definitely is good news for Google.