A trike typically used to capture street scenes for Google’s free online mapping service launched on August from the village of Tumbira in a first-ever project to let Internet users virtually explore the world’s largest river, its wildlife and its communities.
The project was the brainchild of Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS) which two years ago went to Google Earth with an ambitious vision of turning “ Street View” into a river view in the lush and precious Amazon Basin.
Trikes have cameras that continuously snap images in every direction. The pictures are woven into Google Maps and Earth services so people can virtually peer about as if they were there.
Satellite positioning equipment on trikes pinpoints where images are gathered. “When I saw this I thought of the first probe they sent to Mars,” Jose Castro Caldas said as he took refuge in the shade next to a Street View trike in Tumbira. “There must be masterminds at Google working on this,” he continued. “But it is funny to see how rustic it is, too – it is a bike with spoke tires.”