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Photos: Take a peek at Google Street View

Up close and personal...
By Staff , Contributor
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Up close and personal...

Google has unveiled the latest addition to its mapping technology, Street View - which shows pictures at street level. However, images such as the one above have raised questions about whether this constitutes a breach of people's privacy.

Photo credit: Google

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This shot shows a young girl crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, one of several US cities to have been photographed in such detail. This image also reveals some of the quirks the system throws up. Google drove around the streets capturing thousands of images and piecing them together. It's quite likely this girl isn't walking with her identical twin but rather she appears in two such married images.

Photo credit: Google

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Over in Las Vegas the Elvis hit Are you lonesome tonight springs to mind...

Photo credit: Google

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And here's how it's done. The Google Street View van photographs itself driving past a large reflective window.

Photo credit: Google

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And here's the entire team, pictured outside Google's office in the Bay Area.

Photo credit: Google

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Now you see them...

Photo credit: Google

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... now you don't. Because pictures are taken at different times, as the van travels in different directions across junctions, and are then pieced together, the street corner outside AT&T Park in San Francisco features a quickly dispersing crowd of baseball fans - there from one direction, absent from another.

Photo credit: Google

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This picture sparked the initial outcry about invasion of privacy.

Mary Kalin-Casey recognised her cat, sat in her window and told The New York Times: "The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people's lives. The next step might be seeing books on my shelf.

"If the government was doing this, people would be outraged."

Photo credit: Google

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From cats, to dogs and these two are caught fighting, or possibly playing, in a public park. The nearby woman looks unimpressed.

Photo credit: Google

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Locked out? Practising his backstroke racing starts? Who knows what this San Franciscan is up to.

Photo credit: Google

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And in case you were wondering when these pictures were taken this should leave you in no doubt. We'd guess around 14 February.

Photo credit: Google

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