Sheep View 360 Invented Because Street View Wasn't There

I've been looking for a new house to rent and I can tell you that it is very annoying when I want to hit Street View to see the neighborhood only to find that Google hasn't cruised by and recorded the area yet. This must be the same irritation that drove Durita Dahl Andreassen and other resident's of a small, remote archipelago called the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean to invent Sheep View 360.

The townsfolk wanted people to be able to explore their island and since Google wasn't doing it, they chose to harness up one of their most common island features to do the work- sheep. The island has 49,188 humans and about 80,000 sheep. Andreassen and her cohorts took special harnesses and 360-degree cameras and fixed them to the back of five sheep that roam the island.

The cameras get power from solar panels and send images with GPS coordinates back to Andreassen. At that point, she uploads the images to Street View. The resulting images aren't exactly a human's perspective of exploring the island, but you can see what a sheep gets up to during its day.

One goal of Andreassen is to pique the curiosity of tourists and have some of them turn up to check out the island in person. She also hopes that Sheep View 360 might lure Google to send out a car, bike, or backpacker to explore the island for official images. The sheep certainly captures some cool images and the island chain is a beautiful place indeed.

SOURCE: Engadget