Tag: STREETVIEW

Google has decided to stop collecting Street View photos in Germany, where regulators have spent much of the past two years railing against the search giant for violating the privacy of German residents. A company spokesman confirmed the decision in a statement sent to the Register, explaining that the images gathered across 20 German cities will remain available online, but reiterating that ...

As lame as it may be, we occasionally hop on the ol' Google Maps, and meander our ways down scenic city streets from our desks. Paris, New Orleans and Buenos Aires can all be ours, regardless of where we lay our laptops. Thanks to an update from Google, we can now wander off the streets of Rome and into the Colosseum. We'll get some work done next week. ...

Google's ongoing legal battle with European regulators has shifted to Switzerland. Today, the company asked a Swiss court to lift restrictions on its Street View service that have been in place for more than a year. The curbs were originally implemented in response to demands from authorities and privacy advocates, who claimed that the feature violated individual rights to privacy. Speaking ...

Last Spring, the street artist Gaia began archiving his graffiti exploits with Google Maps. Now, courtesy of Red Bull and the Loducca advertising agency, Gaia has an illustrious -- and expanding -- crew of Google graffiti compatriots. Composed entirely of graffiti art, Red Bull's new Street Art View project aspires to become "the biggest art collection in the world" by incorporating various ...

Google Street View has known its share of controversy and embarrassment in the past, but a new project could do wonders for the virtual tour-guide application's reputation. Google has partnered with 17 international art museums to provide virtual walking tours of their legendary halls. By visiting the Google Art Project, art fans can roam the halls of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, ...

Before Street View launched this month in Germany, Google allowed wary residents to refuse the service, if they so wished, by blurring images of their homes. While that decision appeased privacy advocates, it apparently didn't appease everybody. According to Deutsche Welle, Street View-blurred homes in the Bergerhauser area of Essen were recently splattered with eggs. (The pro-Google pranksters ...

We've seen a lot of weird stuff in Street View before, but this is -- by far -- the most unsettling. That is a naked man, either climbing into or out of the trunk of a convertible. And we think there's a pretty good chance that dog on the ground is not among the living. We think we can officially stop doing strange Street View posts now. Nothing will ever top this. ...

While we've discussed Google Street View's propensity to catch criminals, all of the service's arresting images don't have to do with arrests. Tumblr user Jon Rafman has compiled an album of incidentally captivating pictures that document natural wonder, human eccentricity, situational irony, accidental surrealism, and urban destitution. (Oh, and lots of urban prostitution, too.) ...

The NYPD just busted a ring of alleged drug dealers that had reportedly cornered the heroin market in Brooklyn's North Williamsburg area. The group of seven was caught on surveillance cameras openly selling drugs on a street corner near the Cooper Park housing projects; they were even recorded hiding their product in a magnetic lock-box stashed behind a metal sign. And if you've ever wondered ...

A few weeks ago, Google publicly admitted that its Street View cars had inadvertently collected personal data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks, and promised to implement tighter security measures to prevent future breaches. The company's mea culpa was enough to satisfy the Federal Trade Commission, which closed its investigation into the incident shortly after the announcement. The FCC, on the ...

Google's Street View cameras have caught plenty of embarrassing images in the past, but one family thinks the service may have just identified the man who stole their camper. As Jalopnik explains, 11-year-old Reuben Soames first discovered the suspect while looking up his family's home in Derbyshire, England on Google Maps. The site's Street View images of the Soames' front yard showed their ...

As much as Google has shrunk our world for the better, we fear the all-seeing G might, in the same motion, strip it of the wonders it holds. Then, we see something like this game. Giving you a Street View image, a gridded world map and fifty guesses, it asks you to pinpoint the spot it was taken, and remember the uniqueness of every vista and street corner. ...

The investigation by attorneys general across the U.S. into Google Street View vehicles' voracious data gobbling will continue, as will investigations by authorities in Britain, France, Germany and Spain, among other governments. But the Internet giant just received some good news; in a letter sent to Google Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stated that it was putting an end to its ...

Google CEO Eric Schmidt continues in his brazen creepiness whenever he opens his mouth in public. On CNN's 'Parker Spitzer' program last week, Schmidt said that anyone concerned about their home appearing on Street View "can just move." (This follows Google's damage control regarding the revelation that its Street View cars had captured personal data.) As for his comment, Schmidt merely laughed, ...

Google knows that it messed up. In May, the company admitted to inadvertently collecting unencrypted Wi-Fi data with its fleet of Street View cars. Now, Google's offering a little more insight into what kind of information those cars actually gathered. When the scandal first broke last spring, Google wasn't entirely certain about what data it collected from unsuspecting Wi-Fi users -- it just ...