Photo by VisitFlorida
Agoraphobics rejoice, the beach is coming to you -sans all the sandy people.
After four months, every slouchy corner of Florida’s ocean-front goodness has been recorded for the eventual perusing of anyone with a browser and questionable time on their hands.
This week concluded the painstakingly thorough capturing of Florida’s 825 miles of beaches in images for Google Maps. The enterprise was a partnership between Google and VisitFlorida, the state’s tourism and marketing arm, that will produce an interactive first-person view of Florida’s famous natural attraction.
And by partnership we mean Florida put up $120,000+ to use Google’s 360 degree cameras, and the search engine giant agreed to pay the Sunshine State a token amount to buy the pictures. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Google will pay $1,000 for the detailed pictures of all the state’s coastline.
The state would have gotten more had they accepted just ONE share of Google stock; currently at $1,032.47.
Governor Rick Scott thinks this lopsided deal will ultimately be favorable to Florida: “This technology from Google will allow anyone in the world to see how vast and beautiful Florida’s beaches are, which will create more opportunities for tourism.”
The Jobs-Governor is using the new-music-industry rationale that if one gives away the album, people will go to the concert.
“While this technology will better connect the world to Florida?s beaches, there’s no substitute for the real thing,” said Scott.
Google employed the same camera technology it uses for its’ Street View option. For the streets, they pimped out a car with a nifty orb on top of a pole. That orb has 15 lenses that work in concert to create a panoramic view.
For the beaches, the system was adapted to heavy backpacks. The carriers were trained by Google Map experts, and were broken up into two-person teams who attacked the coastline at a rate of 50 miles a week.
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