US software giant Google said Friday it had removed several images from its Street View software, which allows web surfers to view parts of 25 British cities, after users raised privacy concerns.
Street View displays 360-degree ground-level images captured by roaming cars using digital photography equipment.
The cars began taking images last summer, and continue to capture images across the country, allowing the service to expand after its launch here on Thursday.
Just 24 hours after its release in Britain, however, Google said it had removed several pictures, including ones that users found embarrassing, such as one of a man leaving a sex shop in central London's Soho neighbourhood, or another one of a man vomiting outside a pub in the east of the British capital.
A spokeswoman for the American Internet company declined to confirm the precise number of photos that were removed, but said it had been "less than expected."
Individual Internet users who do not want either their image or that of their home to be used in Street View can request it be taken off Google's database by filling out an online form.
Google says it has developed sophisticated software that ensures that individual's faces and vehicle license plates are blurred.
After initially being launched in the United States in May 2007, Street View is now available in Britain, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
Two years after winning the top blog award at an indie festival in the deep south of the United States, micro-blogging site Twitter has grown in size and popularity.
On September 2007, internet tracking company Nielsen Online found Twitter had 533,000 US users.
One year later, it had 2.4 million users. That's a 343 per cent growth, making Twitter the fastest growing social networking site for the US in September 2008.
Famous personalities using Twitter include British comedian Stephen Fry (@stephenfry), pro cyclist Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) and US actress Demi Moore (@mrskutcher).
Here, Twitter's growth has been greater. It had a 520 per cent increase in the same time period, local web tracking company Hitwise reports. Users were spending 30 minutes on the site, 19 minutes more than the average time spent on other sites. Top federal politicians PM Kevin Rudd (@KevinRuddPM) and Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) have adopted the 140-words-a-post platform.
British technology commentator James Harkin wrote that Twitter "more than just a social networking site: Tweeting is changing the way we think." Even Facebook was impressed with Twitter - it started talks to buy it out - but they fell through.
But Twitter, as its name suggests, is like a large aviary of birds - with all the birds bursting into song at the same time. While the bare-bones nature of the site's interface encourages new users, making sense of all the dialogue taking place on it is harder.
So how do you differentiate from one user to another? How do you find people with similar interests? How do you make your tweets sing louder than all others?
A range of Twitter-related websites and apps have sprung up to deal with such questions. They attempt to categorise, spruik and manage users' tweets.
Here's 10 of the many we've found out there:
1. WeFollow
WeFollow is a user-powered Twitter directory that aims to group users according to labels that are determined by the users themselves. Twitter users just need to send @wefollow #yourtag #yourtag #yourtag (replace '#yourtag' w/the tags you'd like to be listed under, example: #blogger - max 3 tags)
2. Monitter
As you can tell from the name of the site, Monitter is a web tool to help people monitor tweets through keywords and locations. It's real time, and so a great way to get on-the-spot reactions.
3. TwitterLocal
It's an app you can download to filter tweets by location.
4. TweetStats
It helps you generate graphs from your tweets to analyse your tweet timeline (tweets per day), tweet density, aggregate daily tweets, aggregate hourly tweets, interfaces used to access twitter and even replies to (@personyouarereplyingto). It also logs the latest trending stats, trend clouds and the top 50 trends of all time.
5. twistori
A random visualisation of what people are tweeting on six themes - love, hate, think, believe, feel and wish.
Trying to get the attention of another Twitter user? This web app allows you to enter a Twitter username to get the time within a week when they are most likely to be online. The only problem for Australian users? It gives the the results in US or UK local times.
Looking for work in the US? Twitter Jobcast simplifies your search of the site for available jobs and for those looking for one. You can narrow down your search by choosing one of 32 US cities.
8. Twitrans
Exactly what it says above. Send your tweets to @twitrans in English, specifying what language you want it translated to, and hey pesto!, it comes back to you translated. Great since there are many users out there who surf the net in another language.
All the latest news that's fit to print about Twitter.
Yes, this is about managing your daily tasks such as remembering to buy that carton of Low Fat High Calcium Strong Bones etc etc Milk. Just add @rtm as your friend, sent @rtm a direct message with the task and the time you want to be reminded about it. (It was first set up by a Sydney team in October 2005, long before Twitter went live.)
And ... if you are looking to access Twitter on the go, here's a few mobile apps:
iPhone
Twitterrific, Twinkle, Twittelator, TwitterFon, Twitfire.
Blackberry
TwitterBerry, Tiny Twitter, Twibble, BlackBird.
Windows Mobile smartphones
Are you among the proud owners of Nokia's recently launched 5800 XpressMusic, or planning to soon buy the touchscreen phone? Here's an important piece of news for you.
According to a Russian tech website Mobile-Review, nearly all 5800 XpressMusic devices manufactured before February come with defective speakers. The ones that may not be showing problems now are likely to go defective sooner or later.
In an official statement from Nokia, Vitoria Eremena, head of Nokia PR for Eurasia, reportedly told Mobile-Review, "The problematic speakers were replaced with speakers from another supplier, both in production and warehouses. I’d like to emphasise that we have replaced not only the speakers but also their supplier, i.e. at the moment we use speakers from the new supplier at our manufacturing plants, as well as in our service centers. It is very easy to confirm this, because the new speakers are visually different. Service centers started receiving the new speakers during the last decade of January, so all users who replaced the speakers since then shouldn’t face this problem."
The mail which is a translation from Russian says, "If you had to replace your speakers, from the end of January -- everything should be all right; if you bought the phone earlier and you have problems, now they can truly be solved in service centers by replacing the speakers."
However, so far there is no official confirmation on whether the shipments to India too have been affected or not.
Interestingly, the touchscreen phone that is available at almost half the price of its other touchscreen rivals, including Apple iPhone, recently made headlines for a new sales record in India with over 58,000 units sold within three weeks of its launch.
Twitter has spawned a new way to communicate by limiting messages to 140 keystrokes. So here's a way to describe the internet's latest craze within Twitter's space restrictions:
It's a potluck of pithy self-expression simmering with whimsy, narcissism, voyeurism, hucksterism, tedium and sometimes useful information.
One vital ingredient has been missing from the mix so far - revenue. That raises questions about whether the nearly three-year-old service can make the leap from intriguing fad to sustainable business.
Twitter intends to start testing ways to make money this year. And co-founder Evan Williams promises it won't drive away the more than 6 million people who have set up accounts on the unconventional communications network.
"We don't see any reason why this can't be a very large and profitable entity," said Williams, the San Francisco-based company's chief executive. "We have enough traffic on our website that we could put ads on there and maybe we could make enough to pay our bills, but that's not the most interesting thing we can do."
Williams, 36, won't say what he has in mind besides selling ads, but he and the handful of other people who own privately held Twitter seem confident the mystery strategy will pay off - even as a devastating recession destroys much-larger companies.
Just three months ago, Twitter rejected a $US500 million takeover offer from an even bigger phenomenon, Facebook, the owner of the world's largest online hangout.
Although shooing away Facebook was risky, Twitter still isn't under immense pressure to generate revenue. The 29-employee company has already raised $US55 million, including a $US35 million round recently completed with Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.
Like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other communal websites that have become internet sensations, Twitter gives people a stage where they can express themselves and connect with kindred spirits.
Twitter's twist is a more succinct approach, which has been likened to the 21st-century version of a telegraph.
Here's how Twitter works: After setting up a free account, people are encouraged to post frequent updates about what they are doing, seeing and feeling. The messages, known as "tweets," must be limited to 140 characters and can be sent from a mobile phone or a computer.
Although the updates are available for anyone to see, Twitter users usually set up their accounts to monitor the tweets of people they know or admire. These "followers" are automatically fed tweets from the people they are shadowing.
With more than 265,000 people tracking his messages, President Barack Obama has the most Twitter followers even though neither he nor his staff have tweeted since he moved into the White House last month.
Many other politicians and celebrities, such as basketball star Shaquille O'Neal (more than 72,000 followers) and former rap music sensation MC Hammer (more than 55,000) regularly share tweets.
Twitter also has become a way to peek at dramas unfolding behind closed doors.
When Yahoo laid off hundreds of workers last year, some of the casualties used Twitter to provide a blow-by-blow account of their final day at the office. Surgeons at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit recently gave a rare glimpse inside an operating room by tweeting about the removal of a tumor from a patient's kidney.
Twitter also has proven to be a valuable source for breaking news, sometimes even beating long-established media outlets to the punch.
When US Airways Flight 1549 made an emergency landing on the Hudson River last month, a picture of the accident scene was quickly posted on Twitter by Janis Krums, a Sarasota, Fla., entrepreneur who was on one of the ferries that rescued passengers from the water. In November, Twitter provided harrowing, first-person accounts of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 164 people.
But Twitter mostly amplifies the humdrum of ordinary folks with apparently nothing better to do but share their monotony. There's plenty of posts along these lines: "Sitting at Corner Bakery in Frisco, Texas. Lunch was good." Or, "Another boring day at work, ugh." Or even, "I really do enjoy picking my nose." (A widely practiced pastime, based on recent tweets).
Finding out what's happening on Twitter is getting easier through a search engine called Summize that the company snapped up for an undisclosed amount last summer.
Both Williams and another Twitter founder, Biz Stone, suggested the search technology could emerge as their company's crown jewel. Its value lies in its ability to quickly sift through a steady stream of tweets to provide almost instantaneous insights about what's going on around the corner or around the world. Not even Google's internet-leading search engine can match that now.
Stone relates how he used Twitter's search engine to ease his anxiety after he recently heard loud noises around his neighborhood. A quick search on Twitter informed him it was just a local celebration down the road.
The search engine will become even more valuable if people keep flocking to Twitter.
The site attracted 2.7 million U.S. visitors in December, a nearly eight-fold rise from the end of 2007, according to Nielsen Online. But Twitter's traffic increasingly is coming through mobile phones, making its usage more difficult to monitor. Nielsen estimates 666,000 U.S. users accessed Twitter on mobile devices in December.
The service is especially appealing to people between 18 and 34. About one in every five people with Internet access in that age group used Twitter or a similar service to update their status at least once, according to a survey of more than 2,200 adults in November and December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Meanwhile, usage of Twitter and rivals such as Jaiku, Pownce, FriendFeed and Plurk was seen in just 5 percent of respondents between 45 and 54. Only 2 percent of people older than 65 had tweeted, according to Pew.
This matters for Twitter's financial future because most younger people don't make a lot of money, which could make it more difficult for the company to appeal to advertisers.
Even so, corporate America is paying attention.
Several major companies, including JetBlue Airways, have set up Twitter accounts to monitor what people are saying about their brands. The companies sometimes send out tweets offering to address a complaint.
All that chatter could yield a huge moneymaking opportunity if Twitter chooses to mine the data and sell the insights to marketers, said Marita Scarfi, chief operating officer for Organic, an internet advertising agency. "It could be rich vein for brand analysis," she said.
And though Twitter hasn't sold any ads yet, it is being used as a marketing tool. Computer maker Dell Inc., for instance, is offering exclusive discounts to its more than 18,000 followers on Twitter after holiday promotions broadcast on the service produced more than $US1 million in sales.
Both Williams and Stone hinted the company is exploring ways to charge for expanded commercial access to Twitter, but emphasised that all personal accounts will remain free.
Online retailer Zappos.com is a big fan of Twitter, using it for promotions and customer feedback. But the Las Vegas-based company won't necessarily stay on board if Twitter starts imposing fees on businesses, said CEO Tony Hsieh.
"It would depend on what they're charging for," said Hsieh, who has attracted more than 58,000 followers since opening his Twitter account about a year ago. "We don't see it as a marketing channel, but as a relationship channel."
Comments like that feed the doubts about Twitter's future. Its prospects are clouded even further by the resistance that Facebook and MySpace have faced as they have tried to inject ads into forums where people primarily goof off or fraternize.
"It's the same kind of challenge for these sites," said Peter Daboll, who has studied consumer behavior on the Internet for years, including in his latest job as CEO of Bunchball Inc. "How do they build on their great audiences and keep them engaged, without alienating them with a bunch of crap?"
AP
Fast-growing micro-blogging service Twitter has reportedly raised an additional 35 million US dollars in funding and said Friday that it is ready to "begin building revenue-generating products." Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, in a post on the company blog, said a new round of funding came from venture capitalists International Venture Partners and Benchmark. Stone said Benchmark's Peter Fenton will join the board of directors of the San Francisco-based service that lets users share what they are doing at any given moment in brief text messages on computers or mobile telephones. Twitter claims to have more than six million users. "We weren't actively seeking more funding," Stone said. "Nevertheless, our strong growth attracted interest and we decided to accept a unique opportunity to make Twitter even stronger with a very attractive offer. "Twitter is growing at a phenomenal rate," he added. "Active users have increased 900 percent in a year." Stone did not provide a figure for the new funding round but several well-informed technology blogs put the amount at 35 million US dollars. Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has grown rapidly in popularity since it was launched in August 2006 but has been unable so far to generate revenue. Stone said that would change. "We are now positioned extremely well to support the accelerating growth of our service, further enable the robust ecosystem sprouting up around Twitter, and yes, to begin building revenue-generating products," he said. Stone said Twitter's current workforce of 29 employees would expand. "Throughout this year and beyond, our small team will grow much bigger to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead," he said. "With these new partnerships and this new funding, we are in a position to move more confidently toward our vision for a robust and successful Twitter Inc," he added. AFP
Eighty computers have been lost, stolen or gone "missing" at a major US nuclear weapons lab, the nonprofit watchdog group Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has said. The group posted online a copy of what they say is an internal letter outlining what appear to be worrisome losses at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the state of New Mexico. The letter says that 13 lab computers were lost or stolen during the past year, three of the machines taken from an employee's home in January. Another 67 computers are deemed "missing". "The magnitude of exposure and risk to the laboratory is at best unclear as little data on these losses has been collected or pursued," the letter dated February 3 maintains. The letter, addressed to Department of Energy security officials, contends that "cyber security issues were not engaged in a timely manner" because the computer losses were treated as a "property management issue." What became of the missing computers and the "security ramifications of each of the 80 systems" was to be detailed in a written report to lab officials by February 6, according to the letter. AFP telephone calls to the lab on Friday in search of comment were not returned. Los Alamos was created as a secret facility during World War II and was the site for the Manhattan Project that gave birth to the first nuclear bombs. It is a major center for research related to national security, outer space, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing. AFP
Gmail has got another new feature: Multiple Inboxes. The new feature from Gmail Labs allows users to have more than one inbox in their default Gmail view. That is the new tool lets users see up to four lists of email messages in addition to their inbox, all on one screen.
Labels and filters are two Gmail features that allow users to highlight and handle email based on their own search criteria. While these features help them stay organised, a user needs to switch between views to see what's going under each Label or Filter. Multiple Inboxes aims to clean that up and enable users to see all their different lists at a glance.
In a company blog post, Google software engineer Octavian 'Vivi' said, "I'm seriously into filters and labels. All the email I get related to Flash goes under my 'flash' label, everything about paragliding goes under 'flying', and they all skip my inbox because that's how I like to stay organized. But when new email arrives I have to switch to the 'flash' label first, then click on 'paragliding', etc. I wanted a way to see it all at once."
According to Google, once a user, turns on Multiple Inboxes from the Labs tab under Settings, he can configure what he wants to see, as well as set the number of messages displayed and the positioning of his panels from the Multiple Inboxes section under Settings.
Many people have sent an email while angry, exhausted, inebriated or just by mistake that they later regretted. Now, Google has way to help protect you (and others) from such a faux pas.
As part of its quest to attract users to its Gmail service, the Internet search company has introduced dozens of features, including one that, after a certain time, makes a user solve a math problem before sending an email, giving them time to rethink it.
Because Google makes money every time email users click on ads, it is enhancing its email service to increase advertising and take market share away from Yahoo.
Unique visitors to Google's sites increased 32 per cent worldwide to more than 775 million last year, according to comScore, which tracks such data.
Yahoo had a 16 per cent gain to 562.6 million visitors and Microsoft had a 20 per cent increase to about 647 million visitors.
Analysts have attributed part of Google's visitor growth to email features that are being turned out at a dizzying rate by the company's Gmail Labs. This month, Google introduced a feature to automatically download mail so users can read Gmail offline in a Web browser. That matches an existing feature in the client version of Microsoft's Outlook but when Outlook is accessed from the Internet it does not have that feature.
The offline mail feature was announced in a press statement, but most other features to Gmail have been introduced more quietly. Engineers created and posted 34 experimental features in the seven months since Gmail Labs launched in June.
"They're able to improve the products much faster than anyone else," said Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler.
Google said those features are for adventurous Gmail users because the rapid addition of them means they may not work smoothly or that they will last.
Tests, reminders
"Mail Goggles" helps users avoid sending regrettable email or Gchat messages, an instant messaging system, by making them pass a simple math test before sending.
Another feature alerts users who forget to upload promised attachments. And another lets users send free SMS (short message service) messages to friends via Gchat.
The new features can be found in "Labs" on the main Gmail account page in the upper right corner under "Settings".
Google engineer Dave Cohen took half a day to code an experiment that lets users add a photo next to a friend's conversation in a chat window. It was available for users to try out a few weeks later.
Cohen said it used to be "hard to take an idea you had and get it out there." Now, he said, Gmail Labs "has increased our freedom and flexibility, and we can do more at a whim when there's something you really want to add."
Analysts said the quick roll out of experimental features puts pressure on Yahoo, Time Warner and Microsoft. Helping to speed development is a "Send Feedback" link in each experimental feature that allows users to make suggestions directly to the developer on how to improve it.
"We didn't ... have that kind of direct feedback between engineers and users," said Keith Coleman, product manager. "Now, we have engineers looking at the raw feedback that they are getting."
'Google Ocean' launched as extension of Google Earth to map the seabed
Posted by Hitarth Jani | 6:16 PM | 0 comments »Google Ocean, which will be included in the newest version of Google Earth, will allow users to swim around underwater volcanoes, watch videos about exotic marine life, read about nearby shipwrecks, contribute photos and watch unseen footage of historic ocean expeditions - all from the comfort of their homes.
Footage of polar bears, beluga whales, sea urchins and king penguins from the BBC's award winning series Planet Earth and The Blue Planet will also be available.
The world's oceans cover more than 70 per cent of the planet's surface and contain 80 per cent of all life on Earth, yet humans have only ever explored around 5 per cent of that space.
Google Earth, which combines satellite imagery, maps and information to allow users to explore streets and cities around the world, has been downloaded 500 million times since it was introduced in 2005.
Google Ocean was developed with an advisory council of more than 25 leading ocean advocates and scientists.
Pen Hadow, the artic explorer and director of Catlin Arctic Survey, told the Daily Telegraph: "This is a watershed moment of shared global understanding of our oceans. My passion for the Arctic Ocean is matched only by the urgency of our need to understand how it works within the global Earth system. Ocean in Google Earth will enable a global audience to follow the progress and findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey, an international scientific endeavour resolving the likely meltdown date of the Arctic Ocean's sea ice cover."
Sylvia Earle, oceanographer and Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society, said: "I cannot imagine a more effective way to inspire awareness and caring for the blue heart of the planet than the new Ocean in Google Earth.
"For the first time, everyone from curious kids to serious researchers can see the world, the whole world, with new eyes."
In addition to Ocean, Google has also introduced other tools for Google Earth 5.0 users, including Virtual Time travel - where users can revisit the past and observe changes in areas where historical satellite imagery is available. For example, users will be able to see construction of Germany's soccer stadiums in the build up to the 2006 World Cup, witness the desertification of Africa's Lake Chad and track the melting of ice on the Grinnell Glacier in Montana.
Users can visit the planet Mars with a click of a button to see high resolution imagery and 3D terrain and a bit closer to home, users will be able to download GPS Tracking, making it easy to visualise and record running, hiking and biking routes.
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google said: "In discussions about climate change, the world's oceans are often overlooked despite being an integral part of the issue. About one-third of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere ends up in the oceans. Furthermore, biodiversity loss in our oceans in the next 20-30 years will be roughly equivalent to losing an entire Amazon rainforest, but this goes unnoticed because we can't see it. This is why today's launch of Google Earth 5.0 is so important - it gives us an opportunity to change everyone's perspective."
Sir David Attenborough said: "It is surely an extraordinary privilege not only to be able to see the great jungles and deserts of the world in Google Earth, but also now, thanks to the Ocean project to be able to explore the bottom of the sea. ARKive's new marine layer illustrates life in the ocean, using the world's best wildlife films and photographs, and includes some of the rarest and most amazing creatures you will ever see."
If you have been banking on Gmail for your communication needs, there have always been times when you have desperately wanted to access your account to dig out that important mail but have found yourself haggling with an unreliable or unavailable connection. Not any more.
If the Google Gears version of Gmail rolls out smooth, you can open your web browser, go to the mailbox, and get to your mail even when you are offline. In a nutshell, your Gmail is going offline.
The logic is simple but it could be a great value ad. If you install the Google Gears plug-in to your browser from the Gmail Lab, Gmail detects when you are offline. The new version caches your e-mail so that you can read it, respond to it, search it, star it, or label it. When you are connected to the Internet again, it sends all the messages that you have prepared while being offline. You can even open attachments.
As Gmail product manager Todd Jackson puts it, "it works exactly the way Gmail already works on mobile phones such as the Android and those that support Gears. The underlying sync engine is exactly the same for Android and offline Gmail."
Here's how it works. Once the feature is turned on, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail. As long as you're connected to the network, that cache is synchronized with Gmail's servers.
When the connection is lost, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode, and uses the data stored on your computer's hard drive instead of the information sent across the network.
Any messages you send while offline will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time Gmail detects a connection. And if you're on an unreliable or slow connection, you can choose to use "flaky connection mode," which is somewhere in between: it uses the local cache as if you were disconnected, but still synchronizes your mail with the server in the background.
According to web reports, Google is making offline Gmail available to everyone who uses Gmail in US or UK English over the next couple of days. If you don't see it under the Labs tab yet, it should be there soon.
The only bad news is some features that require an Internet connection, such as spell check, won't work offline. And while you can open attachments, you won't be able to add attachments at launch. But Google promises to make them available soon!
The system is in beta and accessible through Gmail Labs. But it won't be immediately available to everyone - Google is parsing out access as it experiments with the new feature.
If Gmail lives up to the user expectations, then this would be a big step forward in bringing web mail offline given that presently there are options of offline access to your mailbox, but they all come with strings. You can access your Gmail account through a client like Mozilla Thunderbird. But that doesn't give you all the Gmail functionality like labels.
Yahoo Mail has offered offline access since last summer using Zimbra Desktop. But that also involves using a client on your desktop. For offline access to Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft suggests using their Mail client software.
