High-Def, 360-Degree, Street-Level Big Brother is Watching You

If Google Earth, warrantless wiretaps and constantly buzzing ghetto birds didn't already give you the impression Big Brother is watching you, now comes word that every public street and highway in unincorporated Orange County and its 34 incorporated cities will be added to a database of high-density, 360-degree, street-level images.

Blue Dasher Technologies announced this earlier in the week, revealing that snapping up 6,200 linear miles of Orange County will help the Miami, Florida-based firm achieve its goal of total coverage of the nation's most-populous state. The company licenses its database to third-party providers of commercial, industrial, government and consumer applications.

Apparently, special Blue Dasher "image capture vehicles" will soon be out there on the mean streets of OC, recording 360-degree images every eight to 10 feet. This from the company PR machine sounds reassuring:

[Blue Dasher] users have access to exact addresses, which results in a much more useful tool for a host of applications, from economic development, commercial real estate research, zoning and code enforcement, and residential real estate assessment, to consumer applications, such as planning a trip online. Blue Dasher also provides the ability to embed detailed information, such as multimedia, property data, or advertising into its images at specific geographic locations.  

At least that detailed information is not being embedded directly into our heads . . . yet.