Google blog today showed pictures of a tricycle loaded with cameras that takes pictures in the places cars and other vehicles cannot, like, Universities, Theme Parks, Landmarks, etc..

Google trike is the brain child of a mechanical engineer on Google’s street view team. He came up with the idea of putting the cameras on a bicycle to make place accessible which were otherwise not accessible to the team.

For example here is one place where the street view car couldn’t have gone but the new trike did. The street view team has also put up a page where you can suggest places where trike should scan the area.

These suggestions will be shortlisted and put up for public voting. Google street view guys will then visit the places suggested by the winners in each category to scan the area.

Nominations are open for US locations only. 28th of October is the last day of nominations.

Places can be suggested under the following categories.

• Parks & Trails
• University Campuses
• Pedestrian Malls (e.g., outdoor shopping areas, boardwalks)
• Theme Parks & Zoos
• Landmarks
• Sports Venues (e.g., golf courses, racing tracks, stadium grounds)

Watch the video to see Google Trike in action..

Today’s newly launched tool “Building Maker” is the best example I can quote. With such tools Google takes advantage of the loyal and tech savvy user base which helps the company localize the product once it is developed.

Google building maker is based on web version of Sketchup, a company Google acquired couple of years ago. Although, the web-based plugin does not offer as many features and tools, the tools offered are enough to make a decently detailed structure.

The secret of making a structure which closely resembles the reality is refining the layout as much as possible. Go over as many images as you can under the “Image views” column on the left, if you are done with the existing images, click on “Load next 2 images” and add more details to it.

Here is what downtown Chicago looks like and the one building that I am currently working on is the University of Chicago (marked with a red arrow).

It’s a fun tool to play with, I remember marking an entire area down when Google Earth was first release and I’ll probably do the same with the building maker!

For those of you who want to do the same.. watch the video below to see how the tool works..

Watch it…

I personally am a great fan of Google Maps and GPS services because they make your life easier to the extent that you don’t feel like a stranger in city or country you’ve visited for the first time. I experienced this first hand when I visited US sometime ago.

Watch the video below which also shows the brand new NYC information center with “COOL” written all over the place!

The mobile application works on iPhone, Blackberry or anyother smartphone. The application can be downloaded here.