German Street View 'Birth' Fake Says Google
1:59pm Thursday November 25, 2010
Jenny Wotherspoon
A Google Street View photograph apparently showing a woman giving birth is not real, the internet giant has said.
The photo was edited to appear as though it had been taken by the Street View team
The image, which pictured two women apearing to deliver a baby by the side of a road, was edited to look like a Street View shot. The picture, taken in Berlin, included a well-placed 'abandoned' car parked precariously on the side of the street with its door ajar.
A man was also pictured frantically waving his arms around while on the phone during what we are led to believe is a call for an ambulance. But a spokeswoman for Google said the picture was "fake" and "nothing like it appeared in Street View, someone just photo edited it".
A number of bizarre shots have been popping up on Google's Street View
On a tour last week of 20 cities in Germany, Google's 9-lensed camera cars captured a number of weird and wonderful images, including a naked man in the boot of a car. The fake photo is just one of a number of pranks that have popped up since Google introduced its Street View technology in 2007.
Numerous photographs featuring bizarre antics have been taken by the Street View team, leading to suggestions that some pranksters are staging fake scenes as the cars drive by. Unusual Street View sightings have included a pair of Norwegians donned in wetsuits engaging in street-side combat. A picture taken in Aberdeen, Scotland, also showed a boy in a burgundy jumper wearing a horses head.
Street View photographers were surprised by what they found in Scotland
While the Street View team have detached themselves from the birth-scene photo, they have embraced the bizarre collection of what they believe to be spontaneous scenes. Communications manager Laura Scott told Sky News Online: "People are really creative. There have been some fantastic examples of smart, fast-thinking people creating these scenes."
Though the website provides details of where the cars will be, Miss Scott said she did not believe the scenes were planned. "It's actually quite tricky. The website is precise as it can be but they don't know how long it will take them to get there. "It doesn't say what street they'll be on at what time."
There have been suggestions that the photographs are a subversive method of turning the tables on Google, whose Street View technology has been criticised for invading people's privacy. Miss Scott added: "We have to look at the facts. Once it's available people love it. "In Germany, immediately after launching imagery there was a 300% increase in usage of Google Maps".
And the fucking floods as well.:oIo:
