Apple Wednesday confirmed that it's deploying camera-equipped cars to improve Apple Maps and create a Google StreetView rival. The cars had been spotted across the US earlier this year, but there was mystery about them.
On a new web page, Apple published a schedule for the mapping activity, with cars next month recording streets in the United States, Britain and Ireland. "Apple is driving vehicles around the world to collect data which will be used to improve Apple Maps. Some of this data will be published in future Apple Maps updates," the site explained.
Apple said it will blur faces and license plates, in accord with privacy concerns. Google launched Street View in 2007 and began automatically blurring faces the following year after such complaints.
Nokia is also making recordings with its own cars for their map service, called "Here".