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Filed under: Security, News, Google

Google cleared of grabbing personal data via Street View vehicles

A UK regulatory body has cleared Google of stealing users' personal data via Wi-Fi snooping from its Street View vehicles. Google admitted that it mistakenly snooped packets of data from open Wi-Fi hotspots while taking photos for Street View, and it turned over the data to several governments who wanted to investigate exactly what had been collected. The UK Information Commissioner's Office concluded that the data Google ended up with was "not significant."

This doesn't let Google off the hook in Germany, Australia, or any of the other countries that have opened investigations, but it's a good sign for the company. According to the BBC, the UK ICO couldn't find any case where an individual could have been harmed or compromised by the data that Google gathered, but they said that the company was still "wrong" to collect it.

Filed under: Utilities, Google

Google Earth now displays real-time weather

Google Earth has always been a great way to explore the globe, but now you can use it to explore real-time rain and snow patterns, too. By enabling the new cloud layer and radar layer in Google Earth 5.2, you can track clouds and also see precipitation on a constantly updating radar.

These features are only available in the latest version of the Google Earth desktop app; they are not in the iPhone app or other mobile versions. Google Earth 5.2 also adds the ability to track your speed and elevation by using imported data from your GPS device. You can also see your heart rate and cadence if your GPS records that information.

Filed under: Microsoft

Microsoft Street Slide makes more sense than hopping around Google's bubbles


As the video above explains, moving around panoramic views of a street is great if you can go "bubble to bubble" of a panorama, looking for what you want. That is, a panorama with up and down info is much like a bubble. But if you want to "slide" down the street, you want a more linear view of that street, and what's in the sky or on the ground really isn't that important.

Microsoft Research is really onto something here, allowing you to zoom out of a street view and enter a linear representation of that street, complete with signage for businesses and street names, etc. As with all competition (in this case obviously Microsoft is going after Google Street View), the battle for online supremacy is going to be awesome for the consumer. I can't wait for this to be available! For now it's just a presentation at SIGGRAPH.

[via Switched]
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Filed under: Utilities, Windows

MouseFIGHTER lets you navigate your desktop with your keyboard instead

Like to spend as little time as possible mousing around your desktop? Windows has a built-in feature called Mouse Keys which lets you move your pointer by using the numeric keypad, but not every keyboard has one.

If you're using a netbook or laptop without a number pad and you like the sound of Mouse Keys, check out MouseFIGHTER. It's a free program which lets you use the arrow keys to navigate -- I've never seen a keyboard without them, but I'm sure one of our loyal readers can probably tell us about an exception.

Even still, MouseFIGHTER lets you customize keys for directional control and button emulation -- so it can work on ANY keyboard. Acceleration, brake, and jump distance (as a percentage of your screen resolution) can also be tweaked to your preference.

MouseFIGHTER uses the caps lock key to activate keyboard control - either by pressing and holding it or using it as a toggle (again, your choice). When activated, the app changes your pointer's appearance to let you know it's working.

Know another app which you prefer? Share it with us in the comments!

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Crush the Castle 2 is even more trebuchet-powered mayhem - Time Waster

There are plenty of instances where a follow-up isn't as good as the original. This, however, isn't one of them. Crush the Castle 2 is, in fact, every bit as awesome as its predecessor.
As before, you're in charge of a trebuchet and tasked with destroying structure after structure using a variety of projectiles. They range from logs to iron balls to bombs, and they're all loads of fun to chuck at unsuspecting targets. As you lay waste to the countryside, you'll also accumulated achievements.

If you have a soft spot for trajectory games, Crush the Castle 2 won't disappoint. Share your accomplishments in the comments!

Video Tour: World Factbook Dashboard by IBM is data visualization heaven

If you love data visualization, this one's going to blow your mind: I just found an incredible IBM demo, called World Factbook Dashboard. It basically takes a ton of demographic and economic data (from the CIA World Factbook, I presume) and presents it in several beautiful ways that (mostly) make instant sense. This is one of those rare cases where screenshots simply would not do, so I rolled up ...

Report: Google leads Bing, Yahoo!, and Twitter -- in malware distribution

When you're the big dog, evildoers are more likely to target you with their nefarious schemes. That's certainly the case with desktop malware and Windows -- it's the most popular computing platform by a wide margin, so it gets the most attention from malware developers. The same is apparently true for Google when it comes to distributing malware. In a recent report, Barracuda Labs found that ...

Net Index lets you see how your local ISP stacks up against the competition

Curious about how your current Internet provider compares to other local options? Take a look at Ookla's Net Index, which has compiled user test results from around the world into easy-to-understand rankings. Data is gathered from both speedtest.net and pingtest.net, and covers the entire globe. In total, Net Index has sifted through more than 1.5 billion tests, and there have probably ...

Images of IE9's interface leak, including Chrome-like 'start' tab and download manager

There's only four weeks to go until the next IE9 developer preview, and it looks like Chinese leak site Cnbeta might have got its hands on the new build already. I'm not quite sure what to make of the screenshots, nor the Google translation. The Developer Previews (Internet Explorer Test Drive) are not meant to have a user interface -- they're just there to show off the Trident rendering ...

Torrented database contains public data for 100 million Facebook users

There's no exploitation in play here, just the wholesale harvesting and presentation of superficial data for roughly one-fifth of Facebook's half-billion strong user-base. Ron Bowes, of Skull Security, posted the torrent to the Pirate Bay after realizing that his pet project had become something that others might be interested in. He had basically crawled the Facebook directory, and indexed the ...
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Featured Time Waster

Chromatic is a color-coded platformer with a twist - Time Waster

Chromatic is one of the best time-wasters I've recently come across. It's all about the gameplay -- no Flash graphics here. You play a "circle" (it doesn't really have a name in the game). You move around with the arrow keys, and you change colors with Z, X, and C. You can either be red, blue, or yellow, and you can switch at any time during the game. Each color has different capabilities -- yellow can double-jump, while red has a longer dash (which is like a forward sprint, activated by double-pressing DOWN). Each ...

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