Smile, you might be on Google camera

I've always dreamed of being a Google Street View driver riding around the world taking photos.

Not really, but it would be an interesting job. I've seen a Google car in this area over the past two weeks, but have not been able to get a photo until this week. Hey, I might end up on the Route 1 shots.

Street View is part of the Google Maps program that offers viewers a chance to see their own neighborhood or explore places around the world through 360-degree street-level imagery. You can explore world landmarks, view natural wonders, navigate a trip, go inside restaurants and small businesses from locations around the world.

The car was parked at Wawa in Lewes, but it pulled out of the parking lot before I could stop and find out more about the driver. I have along list of questions. At the top is: How do you get a job like that?

According to the Google website, cars are out working in 38 states this week.

Since Google started photographing street scenes in 2007, technology has been updated so that much of their work is being done over. There is chance you could join those who have been captured by Google cameras. If you want to see what people – and animals and vehicles – have been captured doing by Google, go to streetviewfun.com or 9-eyes.com. Some of the photos are a little disturbing so use caution with this one.

Google started Street View as an experimental project with several computers packed into the back of an SUV with cameras, lasers and a GPS device on top. Since Street View launched in five U.S. cities in May 2007, the 360-degree panoramic views have been expanded to include locations on all seven continents.

Google went from vans to a fleet of cars and from a rack of computers to one small computer per car. After several tries at car and camera technology, today's cars have 15 lenses taking 360 degrees of photos. They also have motion sensors to track position, hard drives to store data and small computers running the system and lasers to capture 3D data to determine distances in Street View images.

You can go to maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/learn/where-is-street-view.html to see where Street View cars are working and what areas have been covered.

Keep this in mind: When you see the Google car working in the Cape Region, don't do anything stupid because you might end up on a website for all the world to see.

Go to maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview for more information about Street View.