Recently, Google posted a blog post that gave a sneak peek into future updates for Street View and satellite imagery. Google plans to improve satellite imagery by removing clouds, shadows, mist, and haze, allowing for a crystal-clear view, powered by AI. The updates will also allow access to historical satellite images spanning up to 80 years, but most importantly, Google confirmed that they are working on releasing and updating 80 new countries. Interestingly, some of these updates are known about and some are not known. Additionally, another country could be updated soon based on a separate job offers!
Google also confirmed that they’re still working on releasing smallcam, and with all these updates, we can expect it to release soon, especially with how it’s phrased.
🇺🇾 New/Updated Countries
Firstly, Google has just made one of the biggest announcements, with them confirming that they’re updating Street View for over 80 countries! For new countries, Bosnia, Namibia, Liechtenstein, and Paraguay are in for updates, which has already been confirmed via spottings and previous news articles, although omits countries like Oman, which was intended to release in 2025, will most likely will still be published and Vietnam, which was deleted, which will probably remain unreleased. Not every country was mentioned in the post, after all, 80 countries, but it is interestingly that they’ve skipped some notable ones.
Interestingly, regions like Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Rwanda, Serbia, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, and Uruguay will get new updates. While many of these nations regularly receive updates, others, like Serbia, Switzerland, Costa Rica, and Iceland, which receive updates far less frequently, which means that they’re working on driving and releasing these countries soon, or at least confirming them. With this information, we can confirm that Google has started to drive in Serbia, as previously mentioned, and Google is still working on releasing Switzerland and expanding coverage in Rwanda, with Iceland already being released.
However, the most interesting country on that list in Uruguay! This country’s Street View hasn’t been updated since 2015, leaving its coverage stuck in the older Gen 3, but, this will change soon as mentioned in the article. While we don’t know much about the details, it’s likely that Google plans to use Gen 4 Trekker trucks to provide coverage as seen with Serbia. Uruguay is one of the few Latin American countries, along with Guatemala and the Dominican Republic still using outdated Gen 3 imagery, making this update long overdue. We can also predict that Google will cover the entire country, possibly more extensively this time.
🇧🇴 Bolivia
Along with Uruguay, another Latin American country seems to also be getting an update: Bolivia!
Recently, a job listing by JSAN Consulting Group, the same company that hired Google Street View drivers for Serbia, Cyprus, and Albania, has opened up a position for a driver in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s largest city. Although the listing doesn’t explicitly state it’s for Google Street View, the vague details somewhat sound like a Google offer, and a similar Google Street View job offer was posted for Bosnia and Herzegovina, albeit more detailed. Bolivia, like Uruguay, has been stuck in Gen 3 since 2015, and while we haven’t confirmed the camera, we can expect it to be Gen 4 trekker, as done in Serbia. If confirmed, Bolivia’s update could be full coverage, unlike the partial coverage captured during its initial Gen 3.
It looks like Google is focusing on Latin America a lot recently, with several countries recently being announced to receive their first Street View, or gain Street View in the future. As is the case with Uruguay, we have no knowledge on the details of the job offer for Bolivia, but we can expect full coverage compared to the partial coverage of Gen 3, and the coverage will most likely be done by trucks. Bolivia was last updated in 2015.
It’s clear that Google’s focus on Latin America is increasing, with the majority of countries in the region receiving their first or updated coverage. With all these updates, we can possibly receive coverage in countries not mentioned in the original 80+. Since Google rarely posts about badcam coverage, we can expect all of these countries to receive Gen 4. Now the question is, which one will get Gen 4 first?