Posts Tagged ‘google-maps’

Google doesn’t want any reselling of Google Glass , and it will even shut down some key functionality if you even try to log into a the headset with multiple Google Accounts. But that doesn’t mean you can’t hack into Glass at all. In fact, Google is encouraging hacking, albeit with clear boundaries. Continue reading…

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Google encourages developers to push the limits by hacking Glass

Google Maps is usually for helping you navigate, but a new game based on Street View is about being almost hopelessly lost. GeoGuessr drops you at a random Street View location across the earth, leaving you to move around the map as much as you’d like before ultimately taking a guess at where you’re actually standing. Though you’ll occasionally get lucky and start off right in front of a hotel billboard printed with a city’s name on it, for the most part you’ll be wandering around country roads, scrounging hints off of signs and license plates, and trying to make it back to civilization.

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Helplessness, despair, and Street View come together in ‘GeoGuessr’ Google Maps game

After a massive manhunt that began on the night of the 18th, a second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has reportedly been captured by police following a residential standoff in Watertown, Massachusetts, NBC News reports from the scene. The FBI has confirmed that 19-year-old bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev is in custody, and The Washington Post reports that Tsarnaev was wounded when captured. Continue reading…

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Second Boston Marathon bombing suspect captured by police

Autofocus and dynamic range quibbles aside, Sony’s NEX-F3 still makes for a fine entry-level mirrorless camera. When we took at look at it last year, we came away impressed with its ease of use, build quality, and overall image output. So long as your photo habits don’t call for the added features found in the NEX-5R, NEX-6, and NEX-7, the NEX-F3 really isn’t a bad choice — especially for the price Amazon is charging today.

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Good Deal: get Sony’s entry-level NEX-F3 camera with 18-55mm lens for only $369

If it’s not in my calendar, I have exactly zero chance of remembering to do something or be somewhere. The biggest problem with that is “my calendar” lives in so many different places now. I have a work calendar, and a personal calendar; sometimes I only get invited to things on Facebook.

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Best New Apps: Sunrise

Earth is due for an especially close flyby of an asteroid on Friday, February 15th, and Google Maps is celebrating the near miss by showing off its new panoramic imagery of an ancient impact site in the Arizona desert called Meteor Crater . Continue reading…

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Google uses Street View backpacks to map Meteor Crater

Nintendo’s delayed Google Maps app for Wii U is finally out in Japan. As demonstrated late last year , Wii Street U is based around Street View, and lets you use the GamePad controller to look around your environment while the mapping data is displayed on the TV screen. You can switch between satellite and basic imagery on your TV, and also use it to show Street View — the photography isn’t exactly high resolution, but it looks fine.

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Wii Street U hands-on: Google Maps comes to Wii U with motion control

Earlier today a story circulated on the internet: two crazy kids were spotted doing something sexy in the dressing room in a skateboard and ski shop in France on Google Maps Business Photos . The feature allows businesses to work with “Google Trusted Photographers and Trusted Agencies” to create an inside view of buildings on Google Maps. The skateboard and ski shop, Krakatoa , in southeastern France, has made what we can only term the best possible use of the service. Being curious by nature, we took a look around the rest of the store which seemed at first to be curiously empty: no other customers, no employees. Upon further inspection, however, there are in fact plenty of people visible both inside and outside of the store, in curious…

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Ski shop in France expertly trolls Google Maps in its ‘Business Photos’

While history suggests that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner could one day be a productive part of the skies, that day may not come soon. Experts tell Bloomberg that the investigation into the aircraft’s battery-related fires — which grounded all Dreamliner planes around the world — could take months or years to conclude. Outgoing US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that there’s “no pressure” to get the 787 flying again, and a National Transportation Safety Board representative reiterated that there’s no deadline. Tom Haueter, retired director of the NTSB’s Office of Aviation Safety, told the publication that the investigation could last years, due to the evidence damaged by fire

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Boeing 787 investigation has no deadline, could take months or years

The next PlayStation has three touch screens, six processors, 17 cores, and five Bluetooths. It supports six controllers each with three touch screens (totaling 18 touch screens in all), three clouds (in case two clouds break down), four cameras and five-dimensional gameplay across eight TVs (but just two planes of existence in eight-screen mode). Stories of the day: PlayStation 4: all you need on Sony’s next generation hardware ‘House of Cards’ review: ‘You’ve got to get a grip on who your masters are’ Amazon locks down ‘Downton Abbey’ exclusively for Prime Instant Video Iran’s monkey may not actually have made it back from space alive Thanks for watching — you’re basically our favorite person. Watch more 90 Seconds on..

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90 Seconds on The Verge: PlayStation 4, ‘House of Cards,’ and monkeys (maybe not) in space

In a talk earlier this week at the University of Texas, Valve founder Gabe Newell explained that many of the economic, content distribution, and piracy issues being encountered in the video game realm today will probably apply to “a much wider range of industries” in the near future. Newell also discussed Valve’s history, its unique lack of organizational structure, and the company’s underlying values in the wide-ranging talk, Polygon reports. Valve wasn’t always the gaming powerhouse it is today — in fact, when Newell and co-founder Mike Harrington were first hiring, many developers turned the pair down. Newell said, “We were like ‘Let’s go, let’s storm the castle!’ And then it was like, ‘Where’d everybody go?’” Through a combination…

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Gabe Newell discusses Valve’s history, gaming economics, and hats

Google has added over 9,500 ” panoramic images ” of the Grand Canyon to its Maps service. Accessible via the StreetView option, the images give breathtaking views of the Bright Angel Trail , Colorado river, and other landmarks. To capture the panoramas, the company used specially-designed “Trekker” backpacks.

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Grand Canyon trails beautifully captured with Trekker, Google’s new Street View backpack

Google is undergoing a design renaissance , and at the heart of this is its new-found approach to iOS apps — Google Maps , Gmail 2.0 , and YouTube all share the same beautiful and simple DNA. Now, you can add the news aggregation app Currents to that list. It wasn’t a particularly ugly app before, but version 2.0 brings it right in line with the rest of Google’s iOS portfolio; liberal use of Helvetica Neue and all. Overall it’s a solid upgrade Navigation has been altered in line with the new look: instead of swiping between pages within a particular publication, all the stories appear in a vertical stream, and horizontal swipes take you to the next source. There’s a new breaking stories section, too, which aggregates content from Google…

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Google overhauls Currents for iOS with faster navigation, breaking news, and more

We try not to be surprised by what Google’s Street View cars record as they make their way around the world’s roads, but Google found itself in a bit of trouble this week when users pointed to a series of photos in Botswana that suggested that one of its drivers had mowed down a donkey. The search company has seen it fit to provide definitive proof that it hadn’t perpetrated a hit-and-run by releasing the original source images used in the 360-degree street view panoramas. Unlike the processed Street View imagery, the pictures show the car’s direction and prove that the donkey stood up and moved out of the car’s way after lying in the road — not the opposite. Google Maps’ group product manager Kei Kawai says he’s “pleased to confirm… Continue reading…

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Google says ‘never ass-ume,’ proves Street View car avoided hit-and-run with donkey

The latest numbers indicate that Windows 8 isn’t boosting the weak PC notebook market, causing some manufacturers to blame Microsoft for poor sales . But Paul Thurrott, longtime Microsoft enthusiast and founder of SuperSite for Windows , argues that Windows 8 isn’t dragging down manufacturers — it’s the other way around. “Many of [Microsoft's] 20 million Windows 7 licenses each month,” Thurrott writes , “went to machines that are basically throwaway, plastic crap.” Blaming netbooks particularly, he says that cheap notebook sales conditioned customers to “expect to pay next to nothing” for Windows machines, a strategy that backfired when Microsoft started optimizing Windows 8 for more expensive touch-based displays. His sentiment echoes… Continue reading…

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Windows 8 sales woes: are netbooks to blame?

Facebook has been seeing huge growth in the amount of traffic it sees from mobile devices, but so far making money on that traffic has been a struggle — CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently noted that mobile only makes up 14 percent of ad revenue, despite 60 percent of its users accessing the service from mobile devices . The Wall Street Journal reports on the company’s changing mobile ad strategy, including a Black Friday partnership with Walmart for the biggest mobile ad campaign in its history. The retailer mounted its 50-million-ad offensive by prepurchasing the space ahead of its competitors in an Apple-like move to corner the market.

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How Facebook tested new mobile ad tactics with Walmart

It may come as a surprise that Rhapsody has gone this long without a presence on Apple’s iPad, but the company has finally rolled out a music streaming app tailored for the iOS tablet. Android users received similar treatment back in February , though the iPad app places a heavier emphasis on visuals than text. As for what took so long, the company claims its iPad app was built “from the ground up” and offers “stunning” design and swift responsiveness. Performance seems solid enough, though it’s by no means head-and-shoulders above offerings from Rdio and Spotify. Nonetheless, Rhapsody is offering a free 30-day trial in hopes of pulling you away from whatever service you’re streaming tunes from now, though you’ll need to head to mobile..

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Rhapsody finally debuts music streaming app for iPad months after Spotify and Rdio

Brooklyn-based writer Malcolm Harris has been sentenced to community service after his tweets showed that he had made untruthful statements in his defense. Charged with disorderly conduct during an Occupy protest, Harris’ defense revolved around whether or not he knew the police had warned protestors to stay off the road. His lawyer wrote that the police had announced “through a barely audible bullhorn” that marching on the roadway was forbidden. The case has drawn attention because of its use of tweets as evidence.

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Occupy protestor sentenced after subpoenaed tweets prove guilt

Nokia’s new Here Maps app for iOS has made its way to the App Store today, promising free turn-by-turn voice navigation, public transit information, and rich traffic reports. We spent a little time with the new app, which Nokia hopes will replace the much-maligned native iPhone Maps experience, and came away with mixed impressions. Nokia’s maps are far richer than Apple’s Here Maps looks a little dated; if you’ve ever used Symbian in recent years, you already know what to expect. It’s functional enough, though, and the maps are full of useful data and clearly marked POIs that will please those who don’t like Apple’s minimal approach to cartography. The POI information seems lacking in some places, but in both New York and London looked..

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Nokia’s Here Maps out now for iOS with turn-by-turn, public transit, and real-time traffic

A year ago, some engineers and designers at Mozilla released the 1.0 version of a JavaScript library called Popcorn that let web authors remix and extend web video in some new and exciting ways. Well, at this past weekend’s Mozilla Festival the team released version 1.0 of Popcorn Maker , a timeline-based video editing app, built on Popcorn, and written entirely in web standards. The app enables non-programmers to kit out their videos with everything from image overlays and pull quotes to Google Maps, Twitter searches, and Wikipedia entries. These elements are pulled from the web live on playback, meaning your project could be different every time it’s viewed (example below)

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Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker 1.0 lets you turn video into the web

While it certainly been longer than a ” couple of days ,” Google’s updated Search app for iOS is finally available in the App Store. Just as we saw back in August at Google’s search-focused event, the new app uses Google’s frankly excellent voice-recognition software and location-based awareness to provide iOS users with a search experience similar to what you’d see on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Upon trying the app out, we were rather shocked at how well it performs — over both Wi-Fi and cellular data, the app captures your speech extremely quickly and with a high degree of accuracy. For the most part, the app doesn’t try and answer your questions through natural speech like Siri does, it can bring up search results related to your query… Continue reading…

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Google treads on Siri’s ground with new iOS Search app

We all know the feeling. You’re sleepless in the sad hours of the night or stumbling around early on a hazy weekend morning in need of something to read, and that pile of unread books just isn’t cutting it. Why not take a break from the fire hose of Twitter and RSS and check out our weekly roundup of essential writing from around the web about technology, culture, media, and the future? Sure, it’s one more thing you can feel guilty about sitting in your Instapaper queue, but it’s better than pulling in vain on your Twitter list again.

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The best tech writing of the week, October 14

To say that Apple’s new Maps app for iOS 6 have disappointed would be an understatement, but the Google Maps web app is one way to gain access to the former, more reliable data — and it just got more useful with the addition of Street View. You’re now able to get a first-person look at your surroundings by tapping the little person-shaped icon at the bottom of the screen once you’ve searched for a location. Panning around the image works just as in the iOS 5 Maps app, though performance isn’t quite as snappy as before. However, it’ll probably be your best bet until Google manages to get its own native solution into the App Store.

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Google Maps Street View now live in iOS web app

Skype has signed an agreement with hotspot provider Wicoms that will allow the VoIP company to offer free Wi-Fi across the UK. Customers will be able to get online using their Skype account at “high street venues and businesses,” although no specific stores have been named yet. New customers accessing the hotspots need only sign up with an email address. The service will be provided free to consumers, but businesses will need to pay a small monthly fee to Wicoms as well as a one-time equipment charge in order to provide access

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Skype to begin offering free Wi-Fi access in UK stores

Fujitsu gave us an early peek at its upcoming Windows 8 tablet today, and while the company wouldn’t let us test how it performs, we have our suspicions that it’s the company’s first Clover Trail-based tablet. Intel has said Windows 8 devices using its new 32-nanometer chips can be as thin as 8.5 millimeters and weigh as little as 1.5 pounds, which we’d guess is right where this little 10-inch, 16:9 tablet sits. Connectivity-wise, the device offers ports for microUSB and microSD and a 10-pin connector on the bottom for charging, as well as front- and rear-facing cameras if you’re into tablet photography. Unlike ARM-based Windows RT tablets , Clover Trail-based devices use Intel’s traditional X86 architecture, promising both long..

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Fujitsu shows thin-and-light Windows 8 tablet (hands-on)