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Knoxville is on the map!

Google has updated Streetviews to include Knoxville and 36 other new places. Pictures were taken around October. Expect to see Chattanooga added soon. Read more at KnoxBlab.

I’m a little disappointed at the zoomed in views. They seem intentionally blurred. I guess Google is trying to avoid those incidental upskirts (okay, that’s a thong showing not an upskirt), revealing marijuana plants, and preemptively avoiding privacy complaints of people claiming the car looked in their windows.

Things that will no longer be seen in Street View are:

Hi-resolution imagery
People’s faces
Previous Street Views of hi-resolution Street View.

Those things were giving Google lots of trouble, so all imagery is now lower resolution.

[Source, StreetViewFun]

That’s a shame. I hope the complainers are happy now. I really liked the high resolution zooms and Google had a process for fixing any "embarrassing" captures. I feel like the end-product is a little devalued now.

Update: John McNair says the servers are pretty loaded right now.