Google Trike is ready for your close-up

Not your grandpa's trike. Dan Ratner rides the Google Street Trike. The senior mechanical engineer on Google’s Street View team came up with the trike idea to help with mapping. “We wanted to keep all the same functionality that you can find on the Google Street View car, but put it on a smaller package."

Sure, it seemed creepy at first … maybe even creepy still. But there’s no denying that Google Street View, a function of Google Earth and Google Maps, is also wicked cool. Giving a whole new meaning to “I can see my house from here,” Google Street View provides 360-degree horizontal and 290-degree vertical views of streets all over the planet via a few clicks on your keyboard.

Until recently however, if your house — or any other location — happened to be located down an alley or street too narrow for a Google Street View car — those camera-equipped autos combing the globe for images — it remained out of the Internet's pictures. Thanks to the Google Street View Trike, introduced to the public via a pick-the-next-location contest, that could soon change.

“This mechanical masterpiece consists of three bicycle wheels, a mounted Street View camera and a specially decorated unit with imaging and GPS technology,” gushes Google’s press release announcing the contest. Users were invited to vote for nominees in six categories: parks and trails, university campuses, theme parks and zoos, pedestrian malls (e.g., outdoor shopping areas, boardwalks), landmarks and sports venues (e.g., golf courses, racing tracks, stadium grounds). The winners in each category, to be announced later this month, will be mapped by the Google Trike.