It’s no speed demon, but when the Google Street View car was snapping shots of the roads around Laguna Seca, it also managed to grab some track time with a few of the ALMS race cars, including the Corvette C6.R, the Flying Lizard Porsche GT3 RSR, the Lola B08/86 Mazda, the Acura ARX-01b and the Audi R10 TDI.
If you take the images from the Google Street View car, such as those captured as it crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and string them together as a time lapse, the result is actually a rather cool look at the drive across a landmark:
If you can land a craft on the Moon, roam around for 500 meters, take pictures with your craft, and then send a “Mooncast” back to Earth, Google wants to give you $20 million.
The Mooncast consists of digital data that must be collected and transmitted to the Earth composed of the following:
• High resolution 360º panoramic photographs taken on the surface of the Moon;
• Self portraits of the rover taken on the surface of the Moon;
• Near-real time videos showing the craft’s journey along the lunar surface;
• High Definition (HD) video;
• Transmission of a cached set of data, loaded on the craft before launch (e.g. first email from the Moon).
The Google Lunar X PRIZE is designed to spur on imaginations and innovation, though I think it’s taking place partly because Google wants to add Street View images of the Moon to their Google Maps software. Plus, it’s going to make for some awesome YouTube videos!