Yahoo! News: McCain says using Google to vet VP candidates

McCain says using Google to vet VP candidates

Mon Jun 9, 4:56 PM ET
It turns out choosing a vice president isn't that complicated after all.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain joked on Monday that Google, the popular Internet search engine, had made investigating his list of potential candidates a little bit easier.

"You know, basically it's a Google," he said to laughter at a fund-raising luncheon when asked how the selection process was going. "What you can find out now on the Internet -- it's remarkable."

Vice presidential candidates go through rigorous screening to determine whether they would help a White House aspirant in a general election -- and to make sure there is nothing in their background that could be damaging down the road.

McCain, 71, has faced high scrutiny in his search because of his age.

The Arizona senator, who wrapped up his place on the top of the Republican ticket earlier this year, said he still had some time to complete the search for a number two.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, editing by Alan Elsner)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

TimeOnline: First preview of Google's Android phone

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4032446.ece


From Times Online
May 30, 2008
First preview of Google's Android phone

The device allows owners to unlock it by drawing on the screen, and includes a built-in compass to help with navigation

Jonathan Richards



Click here for a slideshow of Android prototypes and other phones

Owners of the new Google-powered mobile phone will be able to unlock the handset by drawing a secret shape on the screen.

The new 'signature unlocking' tool was among the features revealed during a sneak preview in California yesterday.

Other highlights include a built-in compass that will allow people to orientate maps as they use their phone to scout out a restaurant or venue, and a customisable homepage that lets people bookmark their favourite web pages.

The device - which is unlocked by drawing a shape only the owner knows on a nine-square grid - will also include a magnifying tool, to make zooming in on web content easier on a small screen, and a mobile version of the game Pac Man.

Demonstrating the device at a developers' conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin, who heads up the project at Google, declined to give a release date, but said that the first phones powered by Google's Android operating system will appear in the second half of the year.
Google will not make the phone, but has helped develop the software that handset manufacturers will install in their devices. Samsung, HTC, LG Electronics, and Motorola are among the companies that have said they will produce phones that run on Android.

The device on which Mr Rubin gave the demonstration (a video is here) had a touch-sensitive screen, but the software will work equally well on other devices, he said, including those with a so-called 'tracking ball', which has been used by BlackBerry.

Observers of the demonstration said the software bore a resemblance to that used on Apple's iPhone, which is also a touchscreen device, and which allows owners to place icons linking to sites such as YouTube on the homepage.

Google demonstrated the device to about 3,000 software developers at an annual conference, and said that it hoped developers would create all kinds of applications that owners of Android phones will be able to download from the internet and install on their devices.

Android is what is known as an 'open-source' operating system, meaning that developers can access the code and create software that works with the device. Apple has announced a similar inititiave which allows developers to create software for the iPhone.

Google, which handles about 80 per cent of search queries in the UK, also hopes that by helping to produce a phone that will make it easier to use the web, it will tap a new source of revenue - namely advertisements that appear on web pages viewed on mobile phones.

The search company reported revenues of just over $5 billion in the last quarter, but the vast majority came from adverts viewed on personal computers. In Western Europe, the spend on mobile advertising is expected to rise from $1 billion in 2008 to $1.5 billion this year.

In a bid to take on Google in mobile, Microsoft announced last week that users of its e-mail and messaging tools on mobile phones would for the first time see ads on such services.

According to a M:Metrics, a company which tracks use of the mobile internet, 62 per cent of search queries by UK mobiles are performed by Google, compared with 7 per cent by MIcrosoft.

Breitbart: Google blurs faces in street view map pictures

[I read this article with interest, as I have family member's whose faces apear in Google's Street Level View.]
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080514214733.2n13nqsx&show_article=1
Google blurs faces in street view map pictures

May 14 05:48 PM US/Eastern
Google said Wednesday it is blurring the faces of people in street scenes pictured at its free online mapping service.

The US Internet colossus said it was testing the technology in updated "Street View" pictures woven into its map of Manhattan and, if successful, would put it to work across its mapping website.

While blurring faces may reduce complaints that snapshots of street life posted with Google Maps results could violate people's privacy, that is not the motivation for applying the technology, a Google spokeswoman told AFP.

"It is something we have been looking into for quite some time," she said.
"The purpose of Street View isn't looking at people, it's looking at buildings and locations. Obviously, we want to take steps in protecting people's privacy, but from the beginning we've been committed to doing this."

Google has been working for a year on a way to automatically detect and blur faces in pictures, company software engineer Andrea Frome wrote in a Google blog post.

"Working at Street View-scale is a tough challenge that required us to advance state-of-the-art automatic face detection," Frome wrote.

"We continue working hard to improve it as we roll it out for our existing and future imagery."
Frome pointed out that Manhattan street view pictures were also modified to allow people to look up to admire skyscrapers and the cityscape.

Street View photos were added to Google online maps of major US cities a year ago.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Interesting "Street Level View" photos in Google Maps

I have been amazed by the power and impact of the new "Street Level View" in Google Maps. Tis a very powerful resource that also borders on invading person privacy. This is one of the challenges of modern life. In my own street level view, you can see the neighborhood kids (including my own) playing across the street. It is an interesting time capsule of what was going on at the time the Google Map vehicle drove by.

I found this article that identifies unusual photos in the "Street Level View" of Google Maps
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article1870949.ece
From Times Online
June 1, 2007
10 bizarre sights in Google Street View
Drive around America's biggest cities in a black VW Beetle with a huge panoramic camera bolted to the roof, and you're sure to see something unusual along the way

The Google Street View camera van captured all kinds of street life - now bloggers are hunting for the most entertaining sights - like these two distracted men in San Francisco to not show

Tom Whitwell

Without any context or timeline, it's hard to tell exactly what you're seeing in the extraordinary panoramic images captured by Google's magic van. But in the days since the service was launched, numerous blogs have appeared, linking to the most interesting sights. Here are a selection found at Google Sightseeing, Steetviewr, and Threat Level.
1. Someone apparently climbing over a fence in San Francisco
2. Borat peeking out of a window in San Jose, California
3. The already infamous 'Hot Babes' poster van driving alongside the Google truck in Las Vegas
4. A girl bending over, and two guys watching her...
5. Ambulance driver stops for a sandwich
6. A canine disagreement
7. Strange, headless figures next to what looks like a newly dug grave
8. Giant robot attack
9. The alien invasion begins
10 The moment when the Google van stopped for lunch, and the road takes a detour in the McDonald's car park