Local wine lovers and -tasters will now have a greater amount of South African wineries to visit virtually, as Google has announced that Street View users now have access to five more wineries via its Maps service.

The recently added wineries brings the total available number to 30, which are all included in the most comprehensive database of winelands imagery in the world. New wineries that are now visible online include Boekenhoutskloof Winery, Groot Constantia, Hartenberg, Moreson, Rustenburg Wines and Warwick.

Street View is a very popular feature of Google Maps boasting 360 degree street-level views captured by the Google cars and trikes, allowing Google users to view and navigate through streets, wine estates, vineyards and historic buildings amongst others.

Botswana to pose for Google Street View images next  

The internet search giant has also revealed that it will be collecting images in Botswana for Google Street View within the coming weeks.

Google will be using Chevrolet Captiva models to drive around Botswana and take photographs of a wide variety of places including Gaborone, Francistown and the country’s famous tourist and wildlife destinations. The latter includes Chobe National Park, Moremi Game Reserve, Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pans, Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Images collected by these vehicles will be processed and carefully stitched together, in a technological process that can take several months to complete. These images will then be made available at a later date.

“We are delighted to be updating Street View with more Cape winelands imagery and look forward to bringing our cutting-edge Street View technology to Botswana”, said Julie Taylor, head of communications and public affairs for Google, Sub-Saharan Africa.

“In addition to Street View being useful to internet users and businesses in Botswana, we also want to help Botswana showcase its extraordinary national parks and wildlife destinations to the rest of the world.”

 

In related news Google also recently announced a new service named Bouncer to show malware on its Android Market the door and toss wayward developers to the curb.