Ras Al Khaimah now available on Google's Street View

Google Street View of RAK corniche.

Google launched on Sunday a 360-degree street level imagery of Ras Al Khaimah, making the city the sixth emirate to be available on Google Street View on desktop.
Street View is a feature of Google Maps that lets users explore places around the world like hotels, neighborhoods, and culturally and historically significant sites. Today, anyone with a smartphone can explore the city's unique mountainous terrain or beautiful beaches.
Google collected the imagery by driving the Street View car around the city. The vehicle was equipped with a panoramic camera to collect 360-degree views, laser sensors to capture distances to walls, motion sensors to track the car's position. Now, Google Maps' more than one-billion users will be able to browse through the city's streets.
"Street View will allow millions of people from around the world to see Ras Al Khaimah a new way ----to see and experience useful and beautiful 360-degree imagery of the city's most exciting sites and streets. The launch of Google Street View is often accompanied by positive impact on tourism and and local business, and we believe that people and businesses in the UAE and across the world can benefit on many levels from having this imagery available," said Antony McLoughlin, Google's Program Manager for Street View in the Middle East and North Africa .
Ras Al Khaimah is the sixth emirate to be available on Street View after Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, and Umm Al Quwain. Beyond the UAE, Google also launched imagery of 15 cities in Tunisia in March of this year. In addition to street-level imagery, 360-imagery is available o view in number of landmarks around the Arab world such as the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, the Pyramids of Giza, Petra in Jordan, and many more locations
Street View Process
Street View imagery is gathered by a vehicle equipped with advanced imaging technology--- a camera mounted on the roof of a car that collects imagery and location data. After collection, the imagery is stitched together to create the 360° panoramic images that allows you to virtually move around and explore locations as if you were there. To protect the privacy of residents in Ras Al Khaimah, all faces and plate numbers are blurred before the imagery goes live.
Benefits for users
Google wants to make the everyday lives of people easy whether it was previewing the location before moving into a new neighborhood or discovering the location of a restaurant or cafe. Users can check out a restaurant or hotels before arriving or arrange meeting points. House hunters can save time not only by exploring properties they are interested in but also their surrounding area in advance which will make selection of property they are interested in more efficient.
Benefits for businesses
Businesses can also benefit from the Street View technology amongst other examples by embedding Google Maps directly into their site, helping them to promote a hotel or increase awareness of a local store or restaurant. Tourists will instantly be able to check the surroundings of a hotel without taking a risk.
Google is constantly improving its maps with tens of thousands of updates everyday throughout the world - from the latest road names, business addresses to public transit schedules and photos. Street View  provides easily accessible tools for flagging inappropriate or sensitive imagery for review and removal. Each image contains a link to a "Report a problem" tool where users can report Inappropriate images.

• UAE
• Ras Al Khaimah

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