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Google's Street View takes to the rails in Switzerland
Google's Street View has made its way around the world and gone off the beaten path in a few places, but until now it hasn't hitched a ride to capture some scenery by rail. That picturesque view above comes from a section of the Albula / Bernina railway in Switzerland -- a UNESCO World Heritage site -- all 122 kilometers of which were recently mapped out and photographed by Google using its usual Street View camera gear. Unfortunately, while that part of the process is done, the results haven't yet made their way onto the internet -- you can apparently look for that to hit Google Maps in the coming months. In the meantime, you can check out the source link below for some more shots of the capturing in progress. [Thanks, Hanspeter]
Google Street View heads to the Amazon, enables virtual river excursions
If being able to see the Colosseum of Rome or trek around Stonehenge from the comfort of your La-Z-boy is your cup of tea, Google has another living room adventure for you. Pretty soon, you'll be able to keep dry on the sofa while floating down Brazil's Amazon and Rio Negro Rivers via Street View. That's right, folks... an expedition to one of the most remote, yet biologically diverse locales on the globe will become a reality for many who feared it'd remain elusive forever -- if you don't mind exploring remotely using your favorite web-enabled device, of course. Teams are currently gathering images from the adjacent forests and local villages using the trike, floating cameras down the river by boat and even training locals to use the equipment. The project is a joint effort between Brazil and U.S. Street View teams alongside the Foundation for a Sustainable Amazon (FAS). Check out the full rundown by hitting the source link below and begin planning your trip -- to the couch, that is.
Google, MapQuest, Microsoft and Aol sued for allegedly infringing 3D mapping patent
The saga continues for Google's voyeuristic mapping service, but this time Microsoft Streetside and Aol's MapQuest 360 View may be the Bonnie to Street View's Clyde. Transcenic, Inc. is suing the tech giants for acquiring the tools necessary to offer 3D mapping by less-than-legitimate means. The Louisiana-based company alleges that all named parties borrowed, without permission, a bit from a patent it owns on a 3D cartography technology that captures spatial reference images and uses a database to navigate them on command. Google has been in hot water for its maps before, but it no doubt hopes this legal tiff ends as well as its one for trespassing, where it only paid a pack of gum's worth of damages. If you're into reading all the current legalese, check out the source for the full complaint. Meanwhile, we'll find out if Cousin Vinny's on the case. [Disclosure: Aol is the parent company of Engadget.]
Microsoft offers up 'managed driving' source code, gets back to location-based business
WiFi-sniffing -- all the major tech giant's are doing it. But it's for your own better-targeted, location-based good... they swear. It's a familiar story that saw Google get served in France and the UK for its fleet of data-collecting Street View cars, and had Apple accidentally storing users' geographic info unencrypted on their phones. Given the history, it's not surprising to see Microsoft take the offensive by offering up source code from its own 'managed driving' program: the cars that collect WiFi, GPS and cell tower data. With the code out in the open, MS can easily side-step allegations of personal data-mining and continue its focus on improving local search services. The move is further evidence that the Ballmer-led company intends to take user privacy very seriously, having already stopped the tracking of individual Windows Phone handsets last May. Location aware devices are an inevitable part of our search-assisted lives, we just wish they all came with a giant opt-out button. [Image credit via WinRumors]
Screen Grabs: Google Street View car rolls on to set of Burn Notice
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. It looks like somebody's got a new publicist. Sure, the Google Street View car's received its fair share of bad press lately -- what with all those invasion of privacy claims -- but we wouldn't feel too sorry for the little guy. A recent episode of Burn Notice saw the camera-equipped auto make its national TV debut. It probably won't win an Emmy for its role -- it didn't have any speaking lines, after all -- but at least it's getting some positive attention. [Thanks, Pat]
GTA's Liberty City recreated in Google Street View, reveals your nearest Ammu-Nation
Type "Liberty City" into Google Maps and it whisks you to some place east of Wichita, Kansas. Yup, Wichita, for Pete's sake. No self-respecting Grand Theft Auto fan can stand for an omission like that, and thankfully now they don't have to. Those hardcore Niko-lovers at gta4.net have not only recreated the real fictional Liberty City using the Google Maps API, they've even cobbled together 80,000 screenshots to provide full-blown Street View too. Man, we haven't seen this much Gay Tony passion since the Trashmaster. Oh, wait a minute -- apparently this so-called Street View leaves out a couple of ramps that gta4.net considered to be "not very interesting." Hush, and you call yourselves fans?
Google Street View invades historic landmarks, makes it unnecessary for you to ever leave the house
The vagabonds of Google's Street View team have struck again, this time conquering classical French and Italian landmarks for their mothership's immense pictorial collection. As of today, you're able to drop your little yellow avatar in Google Maps right atop such famous locales as the Colosseum of Rome or Florence's Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, whereupon you'll be transported right to it (or, in the case of the Colosseum, inside it) in the same way as if they were any old street addresses. This follows, of course, Google's introduction of an intriguing indoor version of Street View for some of the world's most prestigious museums recently and continues the company's trend of bringing the arts, in this case classical architecture, to a wider audience. We just wonder what reason said audience will have to ever step outside with all this splendor at its fingertips indoors.
Google Art Project offers gigapixel images of art classics, indoor Street View of museums
Google's been hard at work over the past 18 months on something not many of us have been paying attention to lately: art. Specifically, the search giant has hooked up with 17 art museums around the world to offer tours of their internal galleries, using its familiar Street View tricycles, while also doing high-res images of 1,061 artworks that may be viewed on the newly launched Art Project web portal. Also there, you will find 17 special gigapixel images -- 7,000-megapixel versions of each participating venue's proudest possession. The resulting level of detail is nothing short of astounding and we've got videos of how it's all done after the break.
Street View Shocker! Google pays Boring couple $1 for trespassing
It's hardly a surprise that there's a cadre of individuals who aren't too fond of Google's seemingly omnipresent Street View fleet, but the ending of this dispute is downright absurd. Back in 2008, Aaron and Christine Boring were looking for a little excitement, and decided to find it in a courtroom; the duo sued Google for trespassing on their property while collecting photographs for Street View. According to them, Google's Street View car ignored the "No Trespassing" sign planted out front, and while they noted that they would've accepted a simple apology letter, they had no qualms pushing for damages when that wish fell upon deaf ears. The payout? A single dollar. Let's repeat that: 100 pennies. A buck. Barely enough to buy a Whopper Jr. in Portland, and definitely not enough to do so across the way in Vancouver. We suspect both parties are eager to put the whole mess behind 'em, but if you've been looking for a story to prove that America actually isn't as aimlessly litigious as the world thinks they are... well, this one ain't it.
Google fanboys egg the homes of those who opt out of being shown on Street View
You might have heard by now that some German folks didn't much fancy having their homes displayed on Google's Street View service and consequently opted to have their domiciles blurred out. Only trouble with their plan, it seems, was that they didn't account for some Google-loving zealots over in Essen, who were so outraged by the action that they ended up bombarding the offensively blurry homes with eggs and some eloquent signs. What did those placards have to say? "Google's cool." Pithy. A spokesperson from Mountain View has been quick to distance Google from the silly behavior, while also noting that it has been an isolated incident... so far, anyway. [Thanks, Milind]
FTC accepts Google's privacy apology, lets Street View off the hook
When Google admitted its Street View cars had collected sensitive data after all, it sparked a new formal inquiry in the UK, but the very same apology was just what the Federal Trade Commission needed to drop an investigation in the USA. The FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection wrote Google a formal letter today noting "concerns about the internal policies and procedures that gave rise to this data collection," but satisfaction that the company's agreed to change all that and appoint a director of privacy. "Because of these commitments, we are ending our inquiry into this matter at this time," the document reads. Does that mean we can stop using this picture of Ross' old apartment in our posts? Only time will tell.
Google revises internal privacy practices, appoints director of privacy
Google's run into quite a number of privacy concerns in the past, and things hit something of a tipping point earlier this year when it was revealed that the company was snooping on WiFi data while it was collecting Street View images. Now Google has finally come back with some answers to some privacy questions it says it's been studying for the past several months. First and foremost is the appointment of Alma Whitten as the company's new directory of privacy, who will manage Google's privacy efforts across both engineering and product management, and ensure that the company builds "effective privacy controls" into its products and internal practices. Backing that up is some expanded privacy training, including a new program that all employees will be required to take beginning in December, and some new internal compliance procedures, which includes a requirement that every engineering project leader maintain a privacy design document for each project they're working on. Hit up the source link below for the company's complete statement on the matter.
Google's wardriving days are over, says Canadian privacy commissioner
When Google's Street View cars glide through your neighborhood next, you can leave the WPA2 encryption off -- Canada says that the company has "discontinued" the practice of snooping on unsecured WiFi networks with its mapping vehicles, and "has no plans to resume it." That's one of several findings in a report by Canada's privacy commissioner today, which also claims that the controversial data collection feature was the work of a single Google engineer, and that Google intends to use smartphones to pinpoint WiFi networks from now on. Naturally, the latter caused the commissioner concern that Android phones might capture the same data as the cars. Perhaps you'd best keep those shields up after all.
Google's Street View goes worldwide, Antarctica and all
Google's Street View still needs to add a lot more data on the lesser traveled roads of the world, but there's no denying that the virtual vacation assistant has evolved quite nicely since launching in May of 2007. Back then, only five US cities were programmed in; today, there are street-level views of locations on every single continent, including Antarctica (shown above, as if you couldn't tell). The additions of Ireland, Brazil and Penguinland allow Google to make the claim, and we couldn't be happier about it. Though, we still aren't canceling our scheduled reader meetup at McMurdo -- details coming soon!
Google's South Korean offices raided by police as part of Street View investigation
Google may be trying to make nice and play ball with all the thoroughly outraged governments affected by its unintentional WiFi snooping with Street View cars, but that apparently hasn't been good enough for South Korea. Earlier this morning, Google's Seoul HQ was subjected to a raid and search operation by the cyber crime unit of the Korean National Police Agency, due to suspicions that it may have collected and stored data from WiFi networks without authorization. So it's the same old complaint the rest of the world's been dealing with, only the zeal of the methodology seems to have been turned up to 11. It'll be interesting to see if this raid uncovers anything more salacious than what we already know; we'll keep you posted if it does. [Thanks, D. Kim]
Graduate student erases pedestrians from Google Street View
We love Google, oh yes we do, but there's no question the company could use some brownie points when it comes to privacy. That's not to say Mountain View doesn't try -- the firm does blur license plates and faces in Street View when it's not unintentionally snooping our WiFi. However, a UCSD graduate student has a more thorough idea: simply make the pedestrians disappear entirely. Arturo Flores' algorithm does just that, determining what to erase and what to keep using two adjacent frames. Because Google's roaming cameras end up taking images of the same subject from multiple angles, the program can grab bits of the background (in this case, the sidewalk, lawn and building) from either side, then layer them over the pedestrian in the foreground to hide him from view. It doesn't yet work on persons who are walking the same direction as the camera, or when there are many in the frame, but these obstacles can be surmounted at a later date. Here's hoping Google's PR team gives Arturo a buzz, so we can finally enjoy architecture without all those pesky humans in the way.
Street View cars mistakenly nabs personal data over open WiFi networks, says Google
Let this be a very strong reminder to password-protect your WiFi networks... but first, some backstory. In 2006, a Google engineer "working on an experimental WiFi project" wrote a piece of code for collecting "all categories of public broadcast WiFi data" -- basically, all information (known as "payload") downloaded and uploaded from an open / non-password protected network. That code -- by mistake, as VP of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace says -- wound up a year later into the software Google's Street View cars used to collect location-based data. Eustace addressed the situation in an official blog post today -- the revelation of the payload data reportedly discovered after an audit requested by Hamburg, Germany's data protection authority (DPA). The original intention, he said, was to obtain only SSID information and MAC addresses, but that just wasn't the case. Offering an open apology, he reassured that this affected only open networks and, given the cars being "constantly on the move," only fragments of data were collected -- fragments that he says were never looked at or even noticed until the audit. Plans are currently in action to remove the extraneous info -- "we want to delete this data as soon as possible, and are currently reaching out to regulators in the relevant countries about how to quickly dispose of it." Additionally, all affected Street View cars have been grounded, so that great idea you had about dressing up as a Power Ranger and getting yourself a spot in Google Maps coordinates? Looks like that loss of privacy might've afforded you some extra time to paint the helmet.
Google's Street View snowmobile takes your voyeurism to the Olympic slopes
There's something deliciously futuristic about the fact that Microsoft and Google are patrolling our roads, documenting their every nook and cranny with large multidirectional cameras strapped to SUVs. But what about the unpaved wilderness? Well, Google's after that too now, with its new Street View snowmobile it's unveiled just in time for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Sure, it's a bit of a gimmick, but also it's surprisingly thrilling to chase down the various slopes in use for the Olympics, and Google Earth even has most everything mapped out in 3D for your aerial viewing pleasure. Check out a video of the snowmobile in action after the break, or hit up that source link to "hit the slopes." If something gets in your way, turn.
DIYer concocts homegrown View-Master, relies on HTC Magic and Google Street View (video)
It's been far, far too long since we broke out the View-Master from the admittedly dusty toy chest, but now we're guessing it'll be at least a score before we get the urge again. Why, you ask? The View-Master 2009. These homegrown virtual reality goggles are surprisingly impressive despite their ragged look, and by utilizing some form of cardboard enclosure, an HTC Magic and Google Street View, the designer was able to mimic that "immersive" environment we've grown to know and never forget. Don't believe us? Have a look at the vid just past the break, and hang in there 'til the end if you're scouting a how-to guide.
iPhone software 2.2 features Google Street View, mass transit directions
The T-Mobile G1's Google Maps Street View implementation is one of the slickest features of the first Android phone, but it looks like Apple's going to keep feature parity -- the latest builds of iPhone OS 2.2 seeded to developers have Street View, as well as the ability to give mass transit directions. That's pretty useful for cityfolk like us -- and we're also stoked that line-in audio is now supported in the SDK, giving devs the ability to create voice recorders and other interesting audio apps. Of course, there's no word on when 2.2 will actually arrive, but until then we suppose we'll live with regular, non-data-augmented streets. Lots of screenshots of the new features at the read link.[Via MacRumors]
