The future of the Street View Trekker

We told you about the Street View “trekker” a few months ago; the amazing backpack-based camera system for adding Street View imagery from remote locations.

The folks from TechCrunch have been digging deep into Google’s technology (including great insight into how underwater Street View works), and they’ve spent some time looking at the trekker.

The backback weighs in at around 40 pounds, though it’s apparently a bit top-heavy (as you’d expect).  However, humans aren’t the only vehicle that Google is considering for the trekker:

I asked Silverman whether we might see the Trekker make its way to the backs of other beings beyond humans, and he said that they are indeed mulling the idea of strapping versions of it to beasts of burden to help them continue to map the world in images. There are also plans in the works to mount it to remotely operated robots and small vehicles to help get imagery that otherwise wouldn’t be easily reachable by a human Trekker.

TechCrunch writer Darrell Etherington spent a few minutes talking to Google’s Steve Silverman about the trekker, which you can watch here:

Google is really making some bold moves with their various imaging technologies, and the continued expansion of Street View into new areas is only helping to make their products more useful. Check out the full TechCrunch article to learn more.