google skeptic

Looks like somebody didn’t get the memo about how cool it is to see your own backyard on the internet:

My special magic t-shirt protects me from angry villagers.

Street View to capture British landmarks with off-road Google Trike

It has already been accused of intrusion after sending its camera cars to take 360-degree photos of the streets where we live and putting them on the internet.

But if you thought you were safe from the snooping lens of Google’s Street View service because you live somewhere cars can’t go, think again.

The internet search giant is to use tricycles with a camera on top to film previously inaccessible parts of the country.

Google’s cars have been unable to film parts of villages and towns because of narrow roads, but the rickshaw-style carts will navigate almost any public right of way.

It raises the prospect of filming taking place on side roads backing on to gardens or lanes where fencing is not high enough to prevent snooping.

Those who live on marinas, riverbanks, pedestrianised estates or even bridleways also face being filmed for the first time. Google Street View shows 360-degree pictures of a street and allows users to take a virtual walk through towns and villages.

Critics, who have called it a ‘burglars’ charter’, last night raised fears for the safety of the tricycle camera operators because several drivers of the Street View cars have already found their vehicles surrounded by angry residents.

[more] via Street View to capture British landmarks with off-road Google Trike | Mail Online.

Just what the world needed — a high-tech labor-saving aid for stalkers, burglars and disgruntled ex-boyfriends.

Google Widens Its Gaze In Street View

Hide the children and lock the doors. Google Street View is on the loose.

Google on Thursday said that its Google Maps Street View service, much maligned for publishing pictures of public spaces, now offers a new navigation method that allows greater freedom of movement within roadway panoramas.

“Today, we are really excited to introduce a new mode of navigation which liberates you from the road arrows and gets you where you want to go in just a few clicks,” Google computer vision engineer Daniel Filip explained in a post on the Google Lat Long blog. “You can now use Street View’s smart navigation to travel to a new place just by double clicking on the place or object you would like to see.”

Google accomplished the feat of turning periodic panoramic scenes into something more like a continuous corridor of 3-D space by generating virtual building facades and roadway geometry using laser landscape measurements and picture difference comparisons.

The net effect of Google’s clever mathematics is that would-be stalkers, privacy invaders, and busybodies — at least the ones not already outside your door — can explore more of your virtual neighborhood.

[more] via Google Widens Its Gaze In Street View — Google Street View — InformationWeek.

Perhaps a giant portrait of a deceased chicken-monger on the front door would work:

Sir Paul McCartney’s house ‘removed from Google Street View after complaints’ – Telegraph

The former Beatle was concerned when he discovered that photographs of his house in St John’s Wood, North London, were on the internet for anyone to see, reports said.

It is understood that Sir Paul’s security team, who monitor the multi-million pound property 24 hours a day, complained to the internet search giant.

A source told The Sun newspaper: “He was unsettled when he heard Google users could get a 360-degree view of the property.”

Sir Paul, 66, has written some of his most famous songs at the house, including Penny Lane, Getting Better and Hey Jude.

He purchased the property in 1965 for £40,000.

A Google spokesman told the newspaper that anyone could now remove their house from the site by clicking a button.

The spokesman added: “Since the launch of Street View, millions have used it and the vast majority are very happy to have their house included.”

The service, which already lets users take 360-degree virtual tours of huge swathes of the country, sparked controversy when it was launched in Britain in March.

Fears were raised that it could be used by burglars or terrorists to research targets, while many people complained because their faces were not obscured in images.

Photographs of naked children, and people emerging from sex shops were among those which provoked privacy concerns.

It was disclosed this week that Google’s facial recognition technology has blurred out the image of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Sanders from all the fast food chain’s British outlets.

[more] via Sir Paul McCartney’s house ‘removed from Google Street View after complaints’ – Telegraph.