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Google Creates Tour de France Video Maps
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:32 PM
from the now-now-let's-not-gush-too-much dept.
from the now-now-let's-not-gush-too-much dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In honor of the Tour de France's start today, Google has used its awesome Street View technology to compile amazing Tour de France route views. A great description of the technology that went into creating this can be found in this LinuxDevices article. At least, I'm assuming these are the cameras — Google acknowledged using Elphel cameras for book scanning and 'capturing street imagery in Google Maps.' And from the article, the cameras have come a long way from the days when crazy cat ladies and other privacy freaks scuppered Street View in San Francisco a couple of years back."
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Submission: Google Tour de France vid-map using by Anonymous Coward
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Really? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, those crazy privacy freaks! (Score:5, Insightful)
the cameras have come along way from the days when crazy cat ladies and other privacy freaks scuppered Street View in San Francisco a couple of years back."
Too right! I mean, everybody should just let Google photograph whoever they want and publish it on the web to drive hits to their website. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a privacy freak!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone who describes cars with video camera's on top of them as 'awesome technology' can hardly be expected to understand privacy issues, can they...
Advance pro-privacy technology (Score:2)
Or, you know, you can counter all google's assault on privacy, using advanced privacy anti-invasion technology such as
"Curtains" (tm) (c) (r)
Remember : if google can manage to take an *occasional* picture through the windows when they do their run *once in a blue moon*, that means the *neighbours* can spy on you *every damn single day of the whole year*.
If you're so much afraid of being seen nude through your windows, put a fucking curtain before the neighbours setup a for-profit live-cam on the net and sto
And the other part.... (Score:2)
And the other part of the point is :
Google take a picture of your cat once every 3 years != You neighboors setup a live web cam on the intertube showing you in the nude
In the first situation, anyone with internet access can, as long as they have the time to loose to search for your location on the map, see your cat.
In the second situation, anyone with internet access and a credit card, can find the live-cam advertised on some shady website and see much more than your cat.
What I mean is that if google can ta
Don't think google is new. (Score:2)
My personnal opinion is that Google isn't new in that field.
Personal privacy used to be limited to a small set of people physically close to you.
I think that this era of privacy ended up when publishing mean appeared that enable a random guy to make something available to the whole planet instantly for free : ie. this privacy died with Internet and the Web.
Google Maps only happened to attract more public awareness around the problem.
But just like forcing Google to obscure strategic building on its "maps" and "earth" sevices won't suddenly stop interested persons finding those informations o
Re:Yeah, those crazy privacy freaks! (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you saying there should be special rules that apply to Google and not to normal photographers?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
No, I don't. I think any person or organisation who photographs everything possible in a city and then publishes them to, say, a publically accessible website without asking the people in the photograph first should come under a similar amount of scrutiny.
Considering there are photos which point inside people's living rooms and are of people on their private property, I think Google should be asking first, not doing it and then providing a mechanism by which someone can have the photo removed after. A photo
Re: (Score:2)
No, I don't. I think any person or organisation who photographs everything possible in a city and then publishes them to, say, a publically accessible website without asking the people in the photograph first should come under a similar amount of scrutiny.
So how many photos exactly am I allowed to take of a city?
And does, say, flickr or panoramio count as an "organization"? If not, what is the essential difference?
Great idea, throw all tourists in jail (Score:2)
You're a German tourist. For the first time in your life you get to visit new york. You find walking around Manhattan impressive, so you happily decide to take several pictures of your girlfriend with the tall skyscraper in the background.
The your holiday finishes and you go back to the airport to go back to your country.
But at the airport customs, the police performs a warantless search of your laptop & camera and suddenly, you see yourself and your girlfriend detained for assaults on privacy.
Why ? Bec
Re: (Score:2)
The Greeks were perfectly fine immortalizing themselves as strangely misshapen people with red skin, I don't see why we couldn't get used to requiring public-space photography published without consent of the depicted to have blurred faces.
Remember: the more information people have, the more they can screw you with it. Does your face appear on the sidelines in Stage 13? I guess your boss knows you weren't sick after all. Has a voyeur circulated nude photos of you taking a shower to his friends on the int
Re: (Score:2)
No, there need to be stronger privacy laws all around. However, Google is doing privacy advocates a service by doing it so publicly, and on such a large scale, that it may raise enough awareness to change minds.
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So you don't think photographers should be allowed to take any pictures they want in public spaces?
Re: (Score:2)
But that's not the issue. They're taking pictures of private people in private places.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they are not. They are in public places, taking pictures of their surroundings. Anything private they happen to catch was visible in public.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think they should be allowed to publish them without permission.
It's a bit of a slippery-slope conundrum, but my opinion remains that legal protection of privacy wrt photographs, etc ought to be a great deal stronger.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think they should be allowed to publish them without permission.
So no photos of crowds any more?
Re: (Score:2)
If the photo is depicting something newsworthy, or everyone gives permission in advance, maybe.
According to the courts, if you're out in public you have not reasonable expectation of privacy. That may be, but I certainly think you have a reasonable expectation of not having your face plastered all over some guy's website just for walking around outside.
A person's face should be his trademark.
Re: (Score:2)
So no tourist photos? No art photography with people or houses in them?
Re: (Score:2)
So approximately how many photographs am I allowed to take of a city, then?
Re: (Score:2)
It depends. The competing rights are relatively fuzzy. BTW, the right to take pictures of everything in public view does not exist everywhere. The Eiffel tower nighttime illumination is copyrighted, for example. Even though it's there for everyone to see, the French law does not give you the right to photograph it.
Actually, the copyright on the lighting prevents commercial use; photographing for private use is ok.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank goodness no one seems interested in aggregating and geolocating [panoramio.com] all those random photos [geobloggers.com] and combining them [live.com] into a cohesive image. [openphotovr.org]
Yep, if we just shut down Google Street view we'll be guaranteed privacy in any public location, yes-sir.
Seriously, Google Street View is basically useless in terms of "evil government surveillance". Even if we had Star Trek technology capable of identifying any citizen in a country of 300 million from a bad photo, the chances of catching someone in some recognizably suspic
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly so. If your standard of privacy is that high, don't expose yourself to public streets.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, yes. If those people are in public, or easily visible from a public place.
Or do you think Google should be subjected to anti-photography rules that many people are fighting against for other photographers?
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, so on the one hand we have the submitter, who characterized anyone who has privacy concerns as being a "crazy cat lady", and on the other hand we've got people like you, who seem to be freaking out about a company publishing photos taken in public (just like, as others have noted, hundreds of thousands of amateur photographers and flicker users already do).
That really sums up Slashdot, doesn't it? Everything is teh bestest thing evar unless it's teh worsets thing evar.
And these are supposedly the *sma
Re: (Score:2)
Can you point out where I 'freaked out'?
I don't think I'm the one suffering from two-tone perception disorder here.
Re: (Score:2)
The pictures Google takes are visible to all and if you are in them you can have the removed. The surveillance cameras are recording footage you are never allowed to see
Re: (Score:2)
Your point would work if surveillance camera footage was published on a website for everyone else to see as well, and the government was using it to make money.
Hey, I'm fast at this.... (Score:2)
I can click through stage 1 faster than Alexander Valverde can ride it.
Re: (Score:2)
Le Tour! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is a bit off-topic, but my friends and I decided that the Tour should declare that the race is so hard that no one can win, and disqualify anyone who looks to be doing too well. They did that last year during the race (including Rasmussen, KlÃden, and Kaschechkin, who were kicked for being suspected of maybe having the opportunity to dope, during the off-season). They did it the year before, too, mostly before the start of the race, on the evidence of a list of names in some doctor's lab. Inclu
Re: (Score:2)
That would cut out a lot of the drama that keeps the Tour in the news year round. From a marketing standpoint they really need to catch a couple of big names every year in the doping net....not enough to deplete the field but a couple of well known names...a Castre or a Hincapie type guy this year would be good. Both of those guys would looke really good in a commercial, where footage of their accomplishments was played in reverse to shame them.
I like the Flandis one, where they busted an Amish guy on the d
Wha? (Score:3, Funny)
I guarantee that came from a 'word of the day.'
Re: (Score:2)
I hear that word really often. Maybe it's because I'm British / read books occasionally...
Have come "a long way", not "along way" (Score:2)
You are talking about distance (even if it is a metaphorical and not physical distance), not whether or not something is with you.
That's nice, the problem is the Tour itself (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me explain: I am an avid cyclist. Furthermore, I like everything bicycle: I built all my bikes, and I fix and adjust mine and my friends bikes.
And I can't stand Le Tour de France or Il Giro d'Italia. I hate the doping (and everything they do to hide it) and how massively it is happening. The commercializaition of these cycling events is disturbing for sure, but I am willing to accept it as a necessary evil. After all, these events have been commercialized long before even the heroic days of Binda, Coppi and Bartali. But what's going on is just bullshitting.
I don't follow these cycling events animore. I may check some of the track cycling GP competitions (less bulshitting, and it lasts a few days instead of weeks and weeks).
Any fellow slashdotter who actually follows the tour/giro?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I do follow pro cycling fairly seriously and always look forward to the coverage of the the Tour. If you are complaining about doping, however, you cannot really talk about the past 'heroic days' without being hypocritical. I cannot speak for the others, but the champion Coppi wasn't clean. Amphetamines and good old fashioned alcohol were heavily used back in the day.
I have as much hatred for cheaters than some, more so than most. In my high school days I was a nationally ranked athlete (not cycling) and a
Re: (Score:2)
I have respect for the overall idea of your post, but sadly, I have to say: bollocks to that, my friend. Le Tour and Il Giro have done more HARM to cyclism, than good. Those that I know follow these events, are just sit-at-home coach-sportsmen. I hope you are an exception. And the athletes taking part in it, with all their expenses paid including their doping and transfusions (and their regularly-replaced carbon bikes), can go eff themselves for all I care. There's more honour in my friends and me going out
Re: (Score:2)
I watch it to see what the latest in bio-technology can produce.
Let them do drugs! (Score:3, Funny)
Then we can bet on who has the best doctor !
Re: (Score:2)
My main gripe is that these events did little to promote cycling as an everyday, and very enjoyable activity - and now they (the events) are doing exactly 0 in that respect.
Typo (Score:2)
Fuck Google and the ground they stand on (Score:3, Interesting)
I am having a Franz Kafka problem with Google. My wife (the worlds worst technophobe) lost the password to her blog. Today I discovered that the alternate email address for the account is not only an deliverable address it's an invalid domain altogether.
Google does not have a provision to fix this. The reset password either goes to the address for which I need the password, or, it goes to an undeliverable address. And every 'form' they have for every single problem on Blogger goes to the same submission form.
But here's the good part. To protect my privacy - Google's official response is to say in effect "We don't believe you, we think you're lying and so we won't and can't help you."
And there appears to be no recourse. No place to send an email no place to explain even in one sentence what this problem is.
So fuck Google and the Chinese Death Squads that use them. Fuck them all.
Re: (Score:2)
Your wife lost her password, and Google won't allow for social engineering to be used to retrieve it (closing a loophole), and you blame Google?
If it was a for-pay service, you could just call them and be identified by the credit card you used to pay for it. Since it's free, you don't have that option, but this is hardly Google's fault. Your anger is misplaced.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't want to create another blog. There's 295 long postings in the original I need to keep. Mostly I don't want to listen to untrainable technophobe family members who can't and won't deal with this.
Re: (Score:2)
You know, I am so totally done with listening to ninny nanners like you tell me why something that's broken is a good thing. Like I said, we kind of figured out how to reset passwords elsewhere in the world, oh I dunno, 30 years ago? Yeah so you keep scolding, that's a good plan.
Really dating myself here but... (Score:2)
Will we see Michael Chambers breakdancing out in front of a shop with a broom?
Google the Poodle (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)