RIVER BENDER - April, 2011

First, let me say that as of this writing, Street View has not yet been mapped in all of River Bend but it's getting very close. It's now available on US-17 so you can move along and see both sides of the road. However, if you turn into Shoreline Drive at the stop light, you'll find you can't proceed any further than the Old Pollocksville Road crossing. But surprisingly, you can enter Governors Mill development across US-17 at the light and even go up US-17 towards New Bern and turn into Barbara Drive in the Springdale development which is part of River Bend, so the town is getting mapped a little bit. New Bern, of course, is well mapped.

What is Street View? Google Maps has been around for awhile and is used by everybody to get a map by simply typing an address, such as "45 Shoreline Drive, River Bend, NC" in Google and clicking on "Maps." That's our town hall address but you won't see Street View yet, so google "US-17 River Bend, NC" and you'll see a little red marker on the map of US-17 between River Bend and Rhems. Click on it then click Street View and you'll find yourself looking down US-17 on the wrong side of the road. To go back towards River Bend's entrance, hold down your left mouse key and drag the picture 180 degrees around to head back towards New Bern. Now move your mouse and click on the arrow on the road and you'll begin to travel down the road. To move faster click on the white oval you can project ahead with your mouse. Finally you'll reach the stop light at River Bend, where you can drag the map around to make a right or left turn. After a little practice you'll get the knack on moving around.

Notice when you first go to an address in Google Maps you'll see a zoom toolbar on the left side of the map. Use it to zoom out for a larger map area. Also hold down your mouse key and drag the map along and you'll see that you can follow a particular route. On top of the zoom toolbar is a little icon called a "Pegman." If it's yellow, it means Street View is available in the area you're viewing. Click on Pegman and drag it a little and all streets in the viewing area that turn blue have been mapped for Street View. If you wish to start looking at Street View in a particular area, click and drag Pegman to that area. This is really great stuff!

How does Google do Street View, not only for America, but worldwide? We even used it to see Kandahar Afghanistan where our grandson is stationed. Google uses cars equipped with directional cameras for 360-degree views, GPS for positioning and laser range scanners. They are pretty much limited to public roads but occasionally get permission to enter private attractions such as Disneyland in Paris. Eventually with their new "Trike" they'll be going down bike trails, parks and gardens.

We found it fun to go back and wander around in old neighborhoods where we used to live to see how they've changed. It's also fun to see where relatives and friends live and stores look like before visiting. I think Google's Street View is fantastic and will be used in all sorts of ways in the future. To read more about it go to http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/

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