Google has teamed up with Tourism Malaysia to poll Malaysians on which national tourist treasures and unique Malaysian sites should be featured in the Google Street View, a Google Maps feature that allows users to view and navigate 360-degree street-level imagery. Malaysians can vote and suggest their favourite locations at the website — maps.google.com.my/svtrike — which will remain open for the rest of the month. Pollsters will be able to choose places in five categories: Historical, Tourism, Cultural, Urban and Architecture, and Nature.
The poll will also include a write-in suggestion box for any place not listed under the categories. The public have until 11:59pm on Sept 30 to submit their ideas. Google will tally the votes and identify interesting ideas from the write-in suggestions before announcing the ‘winners’. The winning sites will be prioritised as the Street View trike makes its way across the country. Throughout the entire process, Google is committed to working closely with the relevant organisations to collect images of privately-owned locations that have been included in the poll.
The imagery of the Malaysian sites will then be captured through the Google Trike — a specially-designed bike mounted with a camera that can capture and collect street-level imagery in places less accessible by car. The trike has already collected images from hundreds of places around the world, many of which can be visited in Street View today, such as Stonehenge in UK, Pompei in Italy, Legoland in California, Versailles in France and the Esplanade in Singapore. Images collected by the trike will be processed and carefully stitched together, a procedure that can take several months. As with all Street View imagery done worldwide, Google will blur faces and vehicle licence plates to protect people’s privacy.
“We are happy to work with Google to showcase Malaysia to millions of people all over the world through Google Maps. The trike will help us feature even more of Malaysia’s culture, heritage, charm, attractions and landmarks that make us such a unique and compelling destination,” said Tourism Malaysia acting director-general Datuk Azizan Noordin. “We look forward to receiving great ideas from the public on what areas the trike should cover. By featuring Malaysians’ suggestions of their favourite parts of our country, viewers from around the world will be able to discover the best of Malaysia through local eyes,” Azizan said.
“We are working hard to get Street View up and running for Malaysia, and the trike is an excellent way to start adding amazing imagery to showcase Malaysia’s history and culture,” said Google Malaysia head Sajith Sivanandan. “We want the public’s votes to help us determine where we should go, so we encourage everyone to head over to the voting site to select and suggest their favourite spots,” Sajith said. Source: TheStar
