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Google Earth 6 Gets Seamless Street View And 3D Trees
Google has announced the release of the latest version of its digital atlas service Google Earth 6.The company said in a blog post that with the new Google Earth 6 will have a more realistic virtual experience with the new additional features including deeper Street View integration and 3D trees. Users will also be able to easily explore historical imagery.
Google hopes that 3D trees will offer a more realistic experience. Dozens of tree species have been included on the service, ranging from the Japanese Maple to the East African Cordia.
According to the company, full integration with Street View means that users will be able to easily explore a particular area or city simply by zooming down the street.
Google has provided Pegman alongside navigational controls. so that when users see blue highlighted streets, they can drag Pegman to a specific part of the street to zoom to it.
“Once there, you can use the navigation controls or your mouse to look around. And unlike our earlier Street View layer, you can now move seamlessly from one location to another as if you’re walking down the street by using the scroll-wheel on your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard,” the company explained.
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Google Fans Egg Blurred German Street View Houses
Fans of Google’s Street View service in Germany are punishing their countrymen for getting their houses blurred out from the controversial mapping service by pelting eggs at their houses.Citing a report in a German newspaper, Search Engine Landreported that some of the houses in the Bergerhausen area of Essen that had opted out of the Street View service were pelted with eggs by misguided Google fans.
The unknown egg throwers also pinned a message to the mailboxes of the houses, saying: “Google is cool”.
The search giant had launched the mapping service in Germany this month, but provided people with the option of getting their houses blurred out of pictures to address the country’s privacy concerns.
Google has faced serious criticism after it was discovered that it had unknowingly stolen sensitive Wi-Fi data from unprotected connections while taking pictures for Street View.
Commenting about the incidents, Google said in a statement to Search Engine Land: “We respect people’s decision to opt out and by no means consider this to be acceptable behaviour.”
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Mystery Of Naked Man On Google Street View Germany Solved?
Users of Google Street View managed to unearth, a rather weird image of a naked German guy emerging from the trunk of a convertible car, with what appears to be a gallon of oil (or at least some sort of yellow fluid) a few feet away.There have been a number of suggestions regarding whether the picture (see here) is that of a man looking to clean the inside of the trunk of a car without ruining his clothes.
There’s also a broken umbrella next to what looks like a sleeping dog and a lot of bric-a-brac. The photo appears to have been taken either in summer or spring but has been removed from Street View with Google saying that the picture is under review and “will be available soon”.
Our (educated) guess is that the naked man just wanted to pay an homage to hit animated TV series “Family Guy” by emulating the “Greased Up Deaf Guy” (check below).
Seriously though, it’s probably one of these random pictures of that often pop up on Google due to the nature of the service; which might explain why nearly 250,000 German households asked for their dwellings to be removed from the database.
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Street View Wi-Fi Data To Be Deleted By Google
Google is to delete the Wi-Fi data, including e-mails and passwords, that it illegally collected when its Street View cars mapped the UK.The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will not be investigating the matter further after Google agreed to improve its staff’s privacy training and to delete the data it had accidentally collated. The Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said that he was, “very pleased to have a firm commitment from Google,” on the matter.
Google has also managed to escape punishment over the incident, despite calls from critics for the company to be fined.
Deputy Commissioner David Smith told the BBC that: “We’d have had to find that there was substantial damage or distress to individuals from the collection of snippets of e-mails, URLs and passwords. We’d have to meet that criteria for a penalty to be imposed.”
The incident was first brought to the attention of ICO by the Hamburg data authority last year. Google later admitted to accidentally collecting the data.
ICO will audit Google’s compliance with the ruling next year.
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Google Street View Helps Police Catch Drug Dealers
New York police have arrested a gang of drug dealers after they were photographed by Google’s Street View mapping service.The drug dealers were caught selling heroin and marijuana outside a grocery store in Brooklyn, New York when they were photographed by Street View.
The police had began their operation after local residents complained that the gang had turned the neighbourhood into a drug market.
The police mounted a surveillance operation on the street and made 20 drug-related purchases from the gang before making a move. When they arrested a drug dealer, the police found 20 vials of heroin in his basement and a large amount of marijuana. They also discovered a packaging lab.
Google’s Street View, which has been criticised by many as a useful tool for burglars, is quickly gaining a reputation for helping police with their enquiries. In the UK, the police are already using an image taken by a Street View car of a man considered to be the prime suspect of a caravan theft.
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FCC Probes Google Street View Data Collection
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched an investigation into Google’s Street View service.The investigation will determine whether or not the search giant broke privacy laws by collecting user data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks.
The FCC investigation comes days after the Federal Trade Commission dropped its on-going investigation into Street View maps service.
Michele Ellison, chief of the FCC’s enforcement bureau, said in a statement: “Last month, Google disclosed that its Street View cars collected passwords, e-mails and other personal information wirelessly from unsuspecting people across the country.”
“In light of their public disclosure, we can now confirm that the Enforcement Bureau is looking into whether these actions violate the Communications Act,” he added.
In the UK, the ICO, which had previously said that the data collected by Google was unidentifiable, has asked the company to revamp its privacy policies and has threatened it with an audit.
Conservative minister Rob Halfon has criticised the ICO for not sending “technical people” to investigate the Google Street View data breach scandal.
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Caravan Theft Suspect Spotted On Google Street View
Police investigating the theft of a caravan have found a fresh lead after the owner spotted an individual at the scene of the crime on Google Street View.A white Abbey Adventura caravan was reported stolen from Cauldwell Road, Linton, Derbyshire in 2009. Despite intensive investigations at the time, the police were unable to catch the thief, who had towed away the caravan.
One year later, the owner spotted an unidentified man next to a 4X4 parked right beside the stolen white caravan. The number plate of the 4X4 appears as a blur on Street View but the police firmly believe that the unidentified man may be able to help with their inquiries.
In order to trace the man in the image, the police have released the photograph along with a plea to the public to inform them of his whereabouts.
Police Constable Adrian Mason, who is in-charge of the case, said in a statement to The Telegraph: “It is amazing that we have such a clear image of a man who we think will be able to give us information that would help the police inquiry.It was an amazing coincidence that the Google car was passing at that time.”
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FTC Closes Google Street View Investigation
The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it has ended the inquiry into the admission by Google earlier this year that its fleet of cars had inadvertently collected data from thousands of households and businesses while mapping swathes of land for its Street View service.The US FTC said in a letter sent to Google’s legal team that the company has made improvements when it comes to handling user privacy and had pledged not to use the consumer data in any Google service or product.
Google also named a new privacy director, Alma Whitten, earlier this week, one who will build controls within the company to ensure that privacy within the company’s products and services are respected.
Back in May 2010, it admitted collecting 600GB worth of data (including passwords, emails and URLs) from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 33 countries over a period spanning several years.
The news comes after Italian prosecutors launched an investigation against the internet giant for allegedly invading the privacy of Italian citizens and the ICO (the official UK Watchdog) initiated a simillar process to find out whether Google collected sensitive information in the UK and what steps, if any, would need to be taken.
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Google Street View Password Fiasco Won’t Undermine Public Trust
Search giant Google has yet to explain in details how and why it captured data that was broadcasted over unsecured corporate and domestic wireless networks while collecting pictures for its popular Street View mapping service.
Google has already fessed up to the fact tha tit did indeed make a big mistake and that it was not something it intended to do in the first place.
The original post providing with more details as to how this unravelled earlier this year (with a number of updates), can be found on Google’s official blog.
Interestingly the post had been penned by Alan Eustace, Senior VP, Engineering & Research, a techie, rather than the General Legal counsel of the company, a move that shows that Google doesn’t seemingly acknowledge (back then) that it did anything wrong.
The fact though that Google has collected more than 600GB of data over several months in 30 countries does provide the search giant with a massive database, one that has surely been shared within the company and gives it a competitive advantage over competitors.
Unfortunately, the whole episode won’t undermine public trust in the company, whose influence on our lives, now span from controlling our communication channels (online, TV, video, books, voice) to monitoring what we buy (Google Checkout, Adwords, adsense).
Blaming a single individual engineer as well as a breakdown in communication doesn’t hide the wider picture especially given the fact that the code existed (and has been used for more than four years).
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Italy Demands Three-day Warning Before Google Street View Car Deployment
Italian privacy regulators have ordered Google to give residents 3 days notice before deploying its Google Street View cars.The move is a part of the additional measures outlined by Italian privacy regulators to make the people aware when and where the Google Street View cars will be taking pictures so that they don’t get photographed without prior knowledge.
According to Italian daily newspaper La Stampa, Google will also have to publish the schedule of Google Street View cars in local newspapers and announce it on the radio to make certain everyone is aware of their plans.
The company has also been asked to mark its vehicles clearly to make them more easily recognisable, despite the fact that the cars have a huge camera mounted on top of them.
Privacy Authority President Francesco Pizzetti, said in a statement: “There has been strong alarm and also hostility in a lot of European countries against Google taking photos. We have received protests even from local administrations.”
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