Kuala Lumpur (28 August 2013) – With the strong support of Tourism Malaysia, today Google will begin to drive its Street View cars through Malaysia’s streets for the first time, and is publishing special Street View imagery of several sites around the country in order to create new ways for people around the world to view and experience Malaysia.
Street View is a popular feature of Google Maps, already available in more than 50 countries, that allows people to virtually explore and navigate a neighborhood right on the map through 360-degree panoramic street-level images. Starting with Kuala Lumpur, Google will now begin driving Street View cars equipped with special cameras to collect street-level imagery for Google Maps with Street View. Google will continue to drive across the country, and this activity represents a long-term investment with the objective of capturing imagery across Malaysia over the next few years.
Today Google is also publishing new Street View imagery of 18 sites across Malaysia, including Taman Tasik Titiwangsa, Sri Subramaniam Temple Batu Caves and Masjid Sultan Sallahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah. This 360-degree imagery, collected using the Street View Trike, a tricycle-based camera system, will allow Malaysians and people the world to virtually explore these scenic Malaysian destinations right through Google Maps.
Google is also introducing the Street View Trekker, a wearable backpack camera system, and the Street View Trolley, a pushcart camera system, to Malaysia. With the Trekker and Trolley, Google aims to later capture more of Malaysia’s off-road sites and make these landscapes easily accessible for everyone to experience online.
By bringing Street View to Malaysia, Google hopes to provide Malaysians with more relevant and useful online map services and more ways of exploring both favorite and unfamiliar local spots, while also helping foster the country’s economic development through better maps.
“We have always embraced technology and through this partnership with Google we hope to engage more people, both around the world and here in Malaysia, in discovering and re-discovering the unique heritage of our country,” said Dato’ Mirza Mohammad Taiyab, Director General for Tourism Malaysia. “Google’s mapping technology will offer various benefits and help us create a new experience of Malaysia online.”
Google goes to great lengths to safeguard privacy on Google Maps while enabling all users to benefit from Street View imagery. Google has developed highly sophisticated technology that effectively blurs human faces and license plates of vehicles to render them unidentifiable. In addition, Google is very responsive to any requests received from users to further blur any images that feature them — to submit a request, people can use the ‘report a problem’ tool available on the bottom right corner of Google Maps.
“We are delighted to work with Tourism Malaysia to begin driving and capturing imagery of Malaysia through Google Maps with Street View. Malaysia is a diverse and constantly growing country, and by providing users and businesses alike with more useful map information, Street View can also help create lasting economic impact. We are excited to share the new panoramic road imagery of Malaysia on Google Maps when the imagery launches at a later date,” says Sajith Sivanandan, Country Manager, Google Malaysia.
Google looks forward to announcing when the images collected for Malaysia are ready to share, and these will be available at maps.google.com.my.
