Google Streetview Arrives in Vancouver

Google Streetview has arrived in Vancouver! Now one can simply type in an address in Google Map, there will be a "yellow man" icon in the upper left corner.  Simply drag this icon to the map to show a 360° street view of that location.

No question this service can bring much convinience to users. For instance, if you are looking for a place you have not visited before, then you can check out the driving directions, and the surroundings ahead of time. With this kind of tool it would be difficult to get lost. Google's next plan will like be combining this technology with GPS, resulting in a powerful navigation system.

With this kind of technology, this is good but of course there will be bad. Many people worry that their privacy are violated. Their concern might not be unfounded, in reality, Google is almost like the "Big Brother" of modern society. All they have to do is to analyse their search engine stats, and they can tell what the mass is thinking. If you use Gmail, then they can technically search through your email messages rather easily. In fact, since Youtube has been acquired by Google, there have been countless examples of censorship and hit count manipulations...

While bringing everyone convinience on the surface, is this Google's one step in helping pushing the world to an Orwellian world?