By Rebecca Boyle Posted 08.19.2011 at 4:33 pm 8 Comments

Street View Boat Google will use its modified Street View tricycle, seen here mounted on an Amazon riverboat, to record some of the world's most remote places. Google

Google’s Street View is already available on all seven continents, providing pedestrian-level vistas of everything from Stonehenge to Antarctica to your own childhood cul-de-sac. Soon, it will be available in some of the planet’s most remote places: The villages of the Amazon rainforest.

Google is documenting the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers, floating the company’s Street View-equipped tricycle atop a riverboat. Local residents will help take some of the pictures, and Google plans to leave some of its equipment in the Amazon so locals can continue doing the work, the company says on its blog.

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Technology, Rebecca Boyle, amazon, amazon rainforest, brazil, google, google earth, google street view, rivers, street view
Workers will pedal the Street View trike down dirt paths in remote Amazon villages, documenting regions that have never even heard of computers, let alone the Internet.

This is all being done in partnership with the Foundation for a Sustainable Amazon, a local non-profit conservation group. Google says the FAS approached the company two years ago and invited representatives to the area. The FAS believes an Amazon Street View (River View?) would help people understand the area on a more intimate level — they’ll see what a village really looks like, and what it would be like to work in an Amazon school.

“It is very important to show the world not only the environment and the way of life of the traditional population, but to sensitize the world to the challenges of climate change, deforestation and combating poverty,” said FAS project leader Gabriel Ribenboim, speaking to the BBC.

Google is starting out with a 30-mile stretch of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas. No word on whether the native populations are worried about their privacy.

[Google Blog via BBC]

8 Comments

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Emmahenrygus
08/19/11 at 4:59 pm

That is so awesome.

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vt007
08/19/11 at 5:32 pm

NEXT STEP: MARS STREETS (rover path) ^^

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rridgway
08/20/11 at 2:24 am

Google Rivers, anyone?

Will they do the same treatment to hiking trails, next?

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BubbaGump
08/20/11 at 9:41 am

@rridgway, The Amazon River in Brazil is consider very much a highway, so I understand why " Google’s Street View " is doing this.
The river is the principle path of transportation for people and produce in the regions, with transport ranging from balsa rafts and dugout canoes to hand built wooden river craft and modern steel hulled craft. To truly understand the importance of the Amazon River, I suggest you Google and take in the scope of its size.

The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by water flow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined. The Amazon, which has the largest drainage basin in the world, about 7,050,000 square kilometers (2,720,000 sq mi), accounts for approximately one-fifth of the worlds total river flow.

Google is starting out with a 30-mile stretch of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas. I wonder how much further they will actually go, since the size and length of the Amazon River is immense?

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Dublin992233
08/20/11 at 10:20 am

Didn't they offer the equipment for people to use on their own - install on their own cars? If that's the case, put them on merchant vessels that travel the Mississippi and other water ways. And of course throw it on the occasional pleasure craft or municipal government boat. That would solve the river question. As for hiking, that's a great idea.

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BubbaGump
08/20/11 at 1:05 pm

beantown79, you do not understand the Brazilian people. They are constantly robbing each other daily and none of them are responsible. Also, I am sure Google is experience in the desire result they wish to achieve. If you give these to people and let them do it, it will be hap-hazzard.

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Dublin992233
08/21/11 at 8:12 pm

@bubbagump - I was responding to rridgway's comment. As I'm sure you are aware - astronomy and meteorology have hundreds of thousands if not millions of willing volunteers who perform similar tasks. It's called crowdsourcing and I think it's fair to say, it's an idea which could work pretty well virtually anywhere in the world.

You should assume and preach less...thanks.

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BubbaGump
08/21/11 at 8:59 pm

@beantown179. " Pltzzzzz to you! " You ever visit Brazil? It's not USA. I am just being realistic.



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