Just when we thought Google couldn’t be any nosier, along comes the “spy cycle”.
The Google Tricycle has debuted in Europe, with the ability to go off-road. The search giant has hired two cyclists to pedal through Paris gardens and other pedestrian zones on the cycles in order to take thousands upon thousands of pictures.
“I rode [...]

Continue reading " Google Tricycle Spy-Cycle Probes More Deeply "

The “Vesper Bar & Lounge,” a four story building in Brooklyn, New York, collapsed today just before 2pm ET. There were luckily no casualties and just four minor injuries. The establishment was closed at the time of the collapse.
Images of the collapse were instantly posted to photo-sharing sites (see here and here).
Here’s where things get [...]

Continue reading " New York Building Collapse: Google Street View Shows Crack "

Here’s an interesting idea.
Instead of just showing tweets on a map, you could take things to the next level and display the street that the tweets are from.
This is the idea that launched Stweet, a cool new mashup of Twitter and Google Street View. Stweet takes the coordinates posted by Twitter apps like TwitterFon [...]

Continue reading " Stweet = Twitter + Google Street View "

It’s amazing what you can find online when you’re not even looking for it.
Google seems to run into this quite often.  It seems that, in addition to killing deer, Google captures lots of other interesting things on camera when the Google Street View car rides into town.
Makes you wonder why that little town overseas wanted [...]

Continue reading " Red Handed: Crimes Caught on Google Street View "

Angry mob 1, Google Street View car 0.
A mob of angry Buckinghamshire residents in England blocked a Google Street View car from photographing their homes and neighborhood.
It would seem that, following a string of nasty robberies in the neighborhood, the residents there had been on the lookout for any suspicious vehicles.  A Google Street View [...]

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Image via CrunchBase

Is this really even newsworthy anymore?  Yet another privacy group is complaining about Google Street View.
Privacy International has filed a formal complaint regarding Google’s Street View service to the U.K.’s Information Commissioner (ICO).
The ICO has issued the following statement on their website:
“It is Google’s responsibility to ensure all vehicle registration marks and faces [...]

Continue reading " Blah Blah, Privacy Group, Google Street View, Blah Blah "

Google has added geo-tagged Panoramio photos to Google Street View images.
Google’s image-matching algorithms will analyze them at some point to see if they are also a good match for a Street View location.
Google has offered images on Maps for quite a while now, but they haven’t integrated them with Street View like this before.
Now, you will [...]

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Image by mushon via Flickr

Aaron and Christine Boring of Pittsburgh, PA, sued Google back in April of 2008 for posting images of their home (which is located on a private road) on “Street View”.
The lawsuit was seeking $25,000 in damages and the destruction of all photos of their home.
Well, the Borings just lost.
The U.S. District [...]

Continue reading " Boring Lawsuit: Google – 1, Boring Couple – 0 "

Image via CrunchBase

It looks as though Google may have been in a bit of a rush when completing some of their local sweeps for Google Street View.
It appears that a Google Street View vehicle flattened a deer near Rush, New York.  The photos were subsequently (and accidentally) added to Google Maps.
The photos in question clearly [...]

Continue reading " Doe! Google Street View Accidentally Squashes a Deer "

Google has been taking some heat lately for its Street View feature, mostly from privacy advocates.  This week, though, it’s helped police rescue a kidnapped girl from Massachusetts.
Over the weekend, Rose M. Maltais allegedly kidnapped her 9-year-old granddaughter and took her to a motel in Virginia.
Athol Police Officer Todd Neale managed to track down the [...]

Continue reading " Super Google: Street View Helps Rescue Kidnapped Child "