Google releases Street View for its Mountain View HQ

Google has taken its Street View camera home – to record inside and around its Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

Perhaps it’s the sand court in the middle of the campus, the free food, or the retro UK phone booths in reception but Google has a reputation for building fun offices (If you don’t believe us have a look at what their 2,000 strong Dublin staff did in April).

And with this new Street View release, which is dated this year, Google gives users amazing access to the main Google campus.

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According to a notice board in the Google reception the images were recorded during the third week of August 2011.  Although some of the images are copyrighted 2009, suggesting they were recorded at the same time as the Google Street View Trike was released (see the video below).

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The Googleplex Street View takes you right into the campus, showing everything, including Google employees having lunch in the company’s courtyard;

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There’s no sign of the famous Android statues on the Street View images, although they can be seen on the 45 degree view.  This looks like Android and Cupcake, suggesting the  map view was recorded in 2009.

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The release of the Street View images also seem to have been accompanied by an update to the 45 degree view of the Mountain View campus. These higher-quality images show the entire set of offices – and what appear to be solar panels on the roofs – in crisp detail.

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We’ve only had a brief exploration of the campus, if you see anything interesting or strange, let us know. We do, however, wonder what this “sandee mcdonald” is about.