Street View Sniffing

Google has faced no end of legal problems as a result of using its Street View cars to sniff out unsecured wi-fi data around the world. I suspect they won't face any legal challenges to their latest Street View sniffing experiment.

Google has teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund to equip Street View cars with air-quality sensors to detect natural gas leaks from utility pipes under city streets. Using the data collected by the Street View cars Google and EDF can then create detailed maps showing where gas leaks are occurring and where gas pipes need to be fixed or replaced.

EDF has released maps from the experiment in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. The maps reveal that Boston and New York's ageing utility pipes result in a large number of leaks, while Philadelphia's newer gas pipe network is responsible for far fewer leaks.