links for 2009-03-27

"Google's Street View service, which stitches together photographic images of public roads and major landmarks in British cities to create a three-dimensional map, have been consulted by activists". Activists who wouldn't, for example, have previously known where the Bank of England, Gherkin, or Canary Wharf were located in London.

"Protesters plan to use Google Streetview and the micro-blogging site Twitter to cause mayhem at next week's G20 summit in London". Because if they used the A-Z, Yellow Pages and SMS messages, it just simply wouldn't be a story.

"I'm not going to repeat it because I think the story, broken in the Sun, should never have been published in the first place, but if you're so inclined you'll undoubtedly be able to find it. I do however hope that the Press Complaints Commission, which was already investigating the initial story, now throws the book at the Sun". I'm unconvinced that the PCC actually possess any particularly heavy books to throw.

"The forum has been running for ten years and provided a base for discussion of technical issues related to the restoration of classic Doctor Who episodes for video and DVD release. In a statement Steve Roberts, who runs the site and is a leading member of the restoration team, cited a number of reasons for the closure. These include incompatibility between the site's original aim of openness and access to the production process and the requirements of operating in a commercial world as well as an increase in the amount of personal abuse in forum postings". Doctor Who has a real knack of attracting a militia of armchair fans who think that the way that material is being remastered is being done solely to pi$$ them off, and that they would do it *so* much better

"Pretty worthless hypocrisy, Google. Who is trying to turn the web into a cesspool full of fraudulent ads and corporate misinformation?"

"Google is running an experiment in their search results, apparently shown to a portion of their users. What happens is that on the search results, say for the query comic books, a link in the top blue bar will read 'Show options...'". Options include longer snippets which is upsetting fair use zealots, and some visual ways of looking at results including timelines and the 'wonder wheel'.

"Here's an idea, Jeremy. Why don't we, the journalists, try and come up with some 'big ideas' of our own? Why on earth would any body want to 'save us' if all we do is bleat about how the owners have taken our toys away without making any suggestions about what we'd do if they gave them back?"