Northwest Arkansas on Google Earth/Street View

[cozmosis]

There were rumors last year about Google street view possibly doing NWA. I talked to someone today who gave me the impression NWA now has street view. But when I looked around I didn't see it. I'm still seeing only central Arkansas having it. Anybody else seen or heard anything?

[jtoddgill]

Yup, NWA's got it now. Here's a quick post we did on it with some instructions on how to use it. They've changed things up a bit.

Google Maps Street View arrives

[Mith242]

Thanks for the info guys. Ironically I googled it and got an older article on the Fayetteville Flyer but not that article. I also checked on Google's street view and it only listed Little Rock.

Hmmm...is it just me or is it really slow? I have pretty good internet but I've been sitting here for a while still waiting for it to load.

[Mith242]

Maybe I need to change some settings or something. I let it set there while I went and got ready for work and it still says it's loading. It gives me a basic html page but of course street view isn't on it.

[Mith242]

Just noticed that it looks like Live Traffic has been added to part of I-540 on Google Earth. So far looks like they have the Fulbright Expressway in Fayetteville south to the end of I-540 near Ft Smith. But I'd assume they'll eventually get around to adding the rest of I-540 northward into Benton County. I use Google Earth pretty frequently and haven't noticed it before., so I think this is a pretty recent addition. I'm also seeing Live Traffic in other areas of the state as well. Looks like all of I-40 and I-30. Also some of the other interstates around central Arkansas. Even one of the highways in northeast Arkansas. Not sure when other areas of the state were done or maybe if it all just came about recently. I tend to focus mainly check out NWA on it.

[strmchsr77]

Yeah, I noticed that on Monday on my iphone on the way back up for the week. It looks like it has all major highways and interstates now. It is pretty impressive, I wonder how it works.

[Mith242]

Yeah, I noticed that on Monday on my iphone on the way back up for the week. It looks like it has all major highways and interstates now. It is pretty impressive, I wonder how it works.

[thewizard16]

Yeah I've wondered how they get that info as well.

[Mith242]

I haven't checked the Coffee House in a while, but I can answer the Google Live Traffic question... There is no current traffic "monitoring" program in place anywhere in NWA (or really, Little Rock). That data, you'll notice, is random and the coverage changes constantly. Sometimes other streets pop up with traffic data, sometimes there aren't any at all. If you look at a city like Dallas, lots of minor thoroughfares have data. The reason that happens is the data is actually collected off of cell phone transmissions. Any cell phone running Google applications that are GPS capable are anonymously tracked by Google and the data including speed and position are plotted against a street map with speed limit data, and voilà, Live Traffic is born. Accident reports and other things in larger areas are obtained through traditional means like radio band monitoring and existing traffic services, but the rest of it is cell-phone tracking. It's a bit creepy from the "Google knows everything" point of view, but it's a remarkable use of data that's already being collected or monitored one way or another to provide a pretty useful service. I used it all the time in Dallas and Houston.