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Jul 11
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Googles Spy Camera: The Daily Mail on Google Street View

By Google Street View

We predicted a front page story from one of the UK’s newspapers regarding Google capturing Street View images and sure enough today’s Daily Mail delivers.

The Mail states that Street View will include close-ups of buildings, cars and people. Critics say the site is a ‘burglar’s charter’ that makes it easy for criminals to check out potential victims.

Its actually an interesting article and not surprising since it makes for good copy, although perhaps more interesting are the comments posted in the online version.

You can read the full story via the Daily Mail site.

Our view? They are only photographing the street – which is not illegal – faces will be blurred out and it’ll be a really useful service when it launches. They are also not the first, various firms have been capturing 360 degree panoramic images for local councils for years.

Although of note – a project we helped out with capturing Camden in London was removed due to complaints of peoples houses being viewable on the Internet so interesting times ahead.

Jul 11
Love0

iPhone GPS First Movie

By GPS, iPhone GPS

Engadget have posted a movie of the new iPhones GPS in use. Embedded below it perhaps confirms the conceans of the small antenna and reduced accuracy/update times:

There have been rumors abound of why various companies were restricted from producing a turn by turn GPS application for the iPhone, the reason could be that the unit simply cant keep up with realtime locations?

If the iPhone is only capable of simpler location based services that would be big disappointment, looking at the applications now available in the iTunes stores the signs do not look good.

We would test it out ourselves but O2 in the UK has made such a botch of upgrading that it could be few weeks before we are able to get hold of a handset.

See Engadget for full ‘unboxing’ and a first look.

Jul 10
Love0

Google Labs Lively Inauspicious Start

By Google Lively


Google Labs new beta virtual world system ‘Lively’ is off to an inauspicious start if users experiences and the types of rooms being created are any guide. The most popular room at the moment is showing sex movies with other sex rooms not far behind in terms of popularity – something which is slightly disconcerting with the ‘cartoon’ look of the avatars.

A number of users are also unable to join rooms and the keyboard navigation keys seem to be mapped back to front. We know it’s a beta but at the moment it doesn’t seem to be in the same league as other Google products.

Once the ‘joining rooms’ issue is fixed we will have some more thoughts…

http://www.lively.com/rooms

Jul 10
Love0

Low Cost Site Survey: FlyCamOne2 + Remote Control Plane

By flycamone2, remote survey

An aerial view of a site is often essential for 3d model construction, camera tracking footage or just for general survey purposes. Remote surveying is often expensive (see 25,000 Euro Microdrone) but with a little imagination you could achieve similar results with a couple of $99 FlyCamOne 2’s and a GPS attached to a remote control helicopter or plane.

The FlyCamOne records video at 640×480 resolution and stills at 1280×1024 – high enough to build a 3d model from. Aikonaazi’s video below provides an insight to the possibilities with a flight around Portland Bill lighthouse:

Chrisbofh has used the FlyCam in a test flight over over Chesil Beach on the 21st – still images are captured every 4 seconds:

See also Chris’s brushless easy star flying up to 1000ft over Weymouth:

If we weren’t Central London based we would be out now buying a remote control plane and a couple of FlyCamOne2’s, who said geography cant be fun…

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