The infamous camera cars have been out and about over the last year busily snapping up everything from busy city streets to little lanes in the middle of God knows where, there’s even been some Google Path View images captured using specially equipped trikes.

In some parts, such as the village of Broughton, the journey of the car has been somewhat treacherous with outraged protesters lining the streets creating human blockades preventing the car from snapping their streets. None the less, Google got their way in the end and we’ll all be able to go spotting more strange Street View sights in the UK with all these new images.

The Google Street View (UK) mapping service has been somewhat of a success since its inception around a year ago. According to recent statistics regarding the service, 1 in 5 people use it to find their next house! As well as the 60% majority which use it to actually find their way and others use it to spy on foreign countries, perhaps a holiday destination. But all in all, Google Maps has seen a 30% increase in users since the street view arrived.

The UK is not the first, and will certainly not be the last to reap the benefits of the Street View service with dozens of nations coming before with very few, if any real complaints thus far. In its defense over privacy issues, Google had this to say…

“Google has gone to great lengths to safeguard privacy while allowing all British users to benefit from this feature…Google UK has consulted extensively with many privacy and community groups in developing the feature and privacy safeguards.”

“The blurring technology is continually improving but sometimes this means we get some false positives – in some cases you can find we’ve blurred the face on a poster or the face of Colonel Sanders on the KFC signs,”

Clearly they’ve had to face several restrictions since implementing the service, but so far it has only been a roaring success. Ed Parsons, Google’s geospatial technologist, promoted its success in a short statement, “Street View takes mapping to a level not possible before. And with so many practical applications it’s no wonder that over two thirds of people who had tried the service said they would use Street View again.”

So what are your opinions on Google Street View UK? With the blurring technology in place and protecting privacy do you still have issues with it? particularly now it’s expanding so rapidly. Do you use the service regularly? I personally don’t drive so the only use I have found for it for me, is keeping a track on changes in the area in which I grew up, which was limited so the expansion has my highest approval.

Via – IT Pro

Related Pages:

1. Google Street View (UK) Goes Live
2. Google Street View (UK) Cleared Of Privacy Concerns
3. Google Street View (UK) To Get ‘Path View’
4. Google Street View (UK)

Besides, I already use Twitter and Facebook, do I really need another social network? Don’t know what I’m talking about? You can read all about it in this Google Buzz features review.

I’m really not sure about Google Buzz, it seems strange for a company who keeps services in beta for years upon end (like they did with having Google Mail in beta for around 5 years), to release a previously unheard of product onto the world…and one that seemed to care little about your privacy of the contacts that you email regularly, but that perhaps just says more about a bunch of engineers creating and testing Google Buzz and their naivety over how it could be used for more malicious activities, take a look at our most recent technology roundup for more information on that.

Anyway, Google quickly did an u-turn on auto-following your most contacted people which could then be seen by anyone looking at your Google Profile – so well done to them with the quick response, but that too along with the lack of the Beta label almost suggests how highly Google places this in its priorities for further improving its search engine data by having its own social network data to build into its algorithms.

I’ve only had a quick play with it since it got put on my GMail account – on the one hand, I like the way it could pull together different sources of my info and consolidate stuff, but the thought of having another thing to check (as well as Twitter and Facebook) could become too much of a job in itself…especially when it’s sat there within your email interface when I’ve got plenty of work from that to do already. I’ve turned Google Buzz off by clicking the link at the bottom of the GMail page for now.

Buzz also brings with it geographical updates (not for the first time, but these are probably more sensible than real-time tracking that we saw in Google Latitude) which I’ve admittedly not really tested myself as I’m still unconvinced location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla – even if you do use those facilities, I find it’s often a tough sell to your friends to use them and having your friends use them is the whole point surely? If and when Facebook start doing location update/check-ins, that when I’m sure it’ll become more popular. In the meantime you can read up on what the Google Buzz location services can do.

Overall, it reminds me of Friendfeed, which aggregated different feeds into one place, but I never used that because it was so easy to get overwhelmed by it all and ultimately was far too much of a big distraction for me personally. It did feel like more of a job checking it rather than something you could skim over in a few seconds and move on – I like that Twitter has a 140 character limit, it keeps things short and easy to deal with, if I need more than those 140 characters then I can use email surely?

I’m rather cautious when it comes to Google trying social/real-time stuff, Orkut is only really popular in Brazil and I was never convinced by Google Wave from the first announcement video onwards and it’s still looking like an over-hyped collaborative working service.

That said I didn’t like Twitter when I first looked at it and it was only when it developed and looked into its possibilities in greater depth that I was sold on it, so who knows, Google Buzz might become huge, no doubt it’ll get fully integrated into future versions of Android, so it might become much easier to use on your mobile phones such as the Google Nexus One.

For me Google Buzz as a social network does need that further development, but I’m also sure it’ll get that given it seems Google is taking this project seriously, perhaps in a few months time I might then take another look at it, especially if I do have an Android mobile phone by then!

Related Pages:

1. 7 Social Network Aggregators
2. New INQ Social Networking Mobile Phones Announced
3. GMail Is Finally Out Of Beta!
4. Virgin Media Customers To Use Google Mail

Given the choice, I think everyone would prefer it all to be on one site rather than having to flick between separate services from each channel – which was one of the driving forces behind the Kangaroo online TV service which got cancelled before launch, SeeSaw is what has been created from the ashes of that service.

But that’s just an idea, a principle, a basis to build upon. The real question is, how have they executed it? Well, after testing the site for a while over the past couple of days since it’s public release (after previously having tested out the SeeSaw TV Online beta), I have found the site to be an interesting addition to the UK online streaming TV landscape.

The major criticism I have of the service, is the quality of the video itself. Many people these days use media centre PC’s in their living room from which they can access services such as this. I tested the service on a 19” 1400×900 monitor and found the quality to be somewhat grainy and overall quite poor.

I can’t imagine watching it through a 42” HDTV or something similar. With the world moving on and on in terms of high resolution, high definition TV, and with the introduction of BBC HD and others coming hopefully later this year, I am somewhat surprised to find such poor quality. Although there are 3 options to choose from; low, medium or high quality, I feel that the high option isn’t quite a fair description, but nevermind, let’s move onto the positives!

I have to give SeeSaw credit as the website itself is brilliant. The layout is clear and extremely simple to navigate. You can find all of your favourite shows (as long as they are available) within a few clicks. Couple this with some nice graphics and impressive presentation, I feel that they have successfully provided a simple, yet attractive site.

In addition to this, there is a nice feature which allows you to dim the portion of the screen not in use to watch the video when viewing it in windowed mode. Obviously you can switch to full screen if you like too. All of these features can be accessed via some discreet yet clearly labelled buttons within the player itself.

Another aspect to the site that pleased me was the access to entire seasons of shows which is an improvement over BBC’s service which only really offers recently aired episodes. For example, I managed to easily find access to an entire season of Waterloo Road. That’s what I call proper catch up TV, so on the content front, SeeSaw are definitely doing well, hopefully they’ll do better than Joost which recently ended up being sold and doesn’t seem to have got that far, but then they were one of the pioneers of online TV and perhaps struggled because of it.

Overall, I believe the idea certainly has potential. I would love to see this service take off and perhaps expand bringing in more channels and even more variety. A couple of other additions they could make are desktop and mobile apps, most notable an iPhone app would be very welcome and on a smaller screen make up for the picture quality issue I mentioned earlier.

I’m convinced the SeeSaw TV online streaming service could become more successful with the addition of mobile online TV functionality, but until then remains a welcome addition to the options open to us here in the UK and hopefully this will help spur on more UK streaming TV development.

Related Pages:

1. SeeSaw Online TV Service Beta – Register Now! (UK)
2. Sky Songs – Online Music Streaming and Download Service
3. Joost – Invites Available to Try Out the Beta Online TV Service
4. BBC iPlayer (UK)

There will always be people to defend them – mostly a mix of gaming enthusiasts, the occasional scientist and games manufacturers PR departments – but the results of a recent survey are fairly condemning where they show that kids are spending nearly eight hours online every day!

If you don’t quite appreciate how bad that is, assume if you will that the child cannot access the web at school (although with mobile internet and IT lessons that isn’t strictly true, but bear with me) then you have to come to the conclusion that they spend that eight hours online when at home, and if they get back at 3pm that takes them all the way to 11pm at night (presumably their bed time).

That leaves very little time not spent online, and it would appear from this that ‘being on the Internet’ is becoming nor just a pastime but somewhat of an obsession. Add into the equation multitasking (such as playing on Xbox Live whilst being on the laptop) then the kids surveyed were racking up about 10 hours.

If that’s not bad enough, then the question of what they actually do online has some pretty sobering answers. Sixty two percent (310) of the 500 children said that they lie to their parents about what they look at online, and fifty three percent (265) regularly delete the browser history so that their parents cannot see what they have been on.

Not only does this display a massive amount of dishonesty (and looking at inappropriate material) but looking between the lines nine percent obviously don’t feel the need to delete their history despite lying to their parents which suggests either that they think their parents are incapable of monitoring what they do, or that they have no control over the child in question: neither of which is really ideal.

But unfortunately it doesn’t stop there: 2% have met a stranger in real life that they first met online, 11% have been bullied, 5% have been on a webcam with a stranger, 25% have sent or received inappropriate content… the worrying statistics go on. But can we realistically do anything about it, or would it just be a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?

Well to a degree, no. We live in the information age and we are surrounded by so much ‘stuff’ that it is far too big a job to try and push it all back – you won’t be able to get rid of sensationalised TV, scantily clad models or swearing comedians all of whom, it is claimed, have had a detrimental impact on kids. And what if you do take your little boy’s internet away? There will always be a way for him to get around it – this kind of stuff is everywhere.

So surely the only answer is education and teaching them how to be safe online. Not just to the kids (porn = wrong, pirating = wrong, going and meeting with strangers = very wrong) but also the parents, to show them what their children are really doing and try to help them restrict what they can see and do without restricting their freedom and privacy. Admittedly it is a very fine line, but as it stands I don’t think anyone (apart from perhaps the owners of these websites) will be pleased by these stats, and unfortunately many may be surprised – people just don’t know what their kids are up to, and perhaps it’s time that they did.

Via – PC Advisor

Related Pages:

1. How To Be Safe Online – Internet Security/Safety For Students
2. ‘Milo’ Artificial Intelligence – The End Of Society As We Know It?
3. Growing Importance Of Geographical Location On The Internet
4. IPTV – TV On The Internet Is Coming!

I’m an avid user of Facebook, but don’t always want to go to the full website to check the statuses of my friends or update my own. When I first tried out the beta of Silverlight’s Facebook client (currently in Beta), I was wowed by the stunning interface, even if there are some features that didn’t make the Beta.

If you haven’t used any Silverlight applications before, you’ll have to download the Silverlight client, which is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. When launching the client for Facebook for the first time, you’re required to enter you username and password, but this is only for first time use; next time you launch the client you’re straight in to Facebook.

While maintaining a familiar interface to the design of the Facebook site, the client makes many aesthetic changes. Your news feed is located in the middle of the window, and a blurred grid of photos is displayed in the background. If you hover over any of these, you can select them to view the album where they came from.

Using the filters on the left hand side of the window, you can choose to view only certain updates in your feed. If you want a different view, you can choose from full feed, grid or photos feed which displays a grid of randomly selected photos from your friends.

The client contains most of what you’d need from Facebook, with a great view for viewing feeds, photos and messages. Despite this, there are still glaring omissions, including a chat feature, which is an essential part of Facebook for many. There are also some strange UI decisions, for example I can’t scroll through my feed, I have to drag the slider down to view posts. Again, the Facebook for Silverlight client is a Beta, and you can bet we’ll be seeing more features added in future releases!

Via – Tim Heuer

Related Pages:

1. Windows 7 Beta Released
2. The Facebook Redesign…Redesigned
3. Facebook – Pirate Language Added!
4. Microsoft Office 2010 RC Download Released

You may get the opportunity to attend quite a few of these kind of events if you’re based in the south, especially around London, but obviously there’s less of these available here in the north, so if you’re based up here, then here’s your chance to attend a conference without having to travel so far as you might normally have to, plus it’s also takes place on a Saturday, so you don’t even have to take a day off work! Think Visibility 3 is taking place on the 13th March 2010 at the Alea Casino Conference Centre in Leeds, West Yorkshire and tickets are priced at £119 (cheaper than some other similar conferences).

I’ve been to the previous two conferences that took place last year and took a lot of knowledge, networking and motivation away from these events, so for example, if your work involves websites or if you’re a northern blogger looking to learn more, Think Visibility 3 could be ideal for you. You can take a look at my Think Visibility 2 Review (Sep 2009) which covers all the sessions that I attended and find out the kinds of things that got on at this event.

Think Visibility 3 Speakers

The list of speakers that will be giving speaking at Think Visibility 3 is a combination of established names as well as some new to these kind of events, which is another of the great things about “Think Vis” – you really do get a good mixture of people talking about whatever areas that they have expertise in. Here’s the list of those people who have already been announced as speakers. (click through to their bio page on the Think Visibility website for more information)

• Judith Lewis
• Tom Critchlow
• John O’Donovan
• Al Carlton
• Paul Carpenter
• Illiya Vjestica
• Patrick Moogan
• Sarah Goodwin
• Alun Rowe
• Dom Hodgson
• Kenny Goodman
• Stephen Pavlovich

The Final Think Visibility Speaker is Announced!

In addition to that impressive list of individuals, here on Zath we now get to exclusively announce the final speaker to be confirmed for Think Visibility 3 is….Andrew Burnett…

Andrew helped Macromedia clients solve their software problems (it’s a feature, not a bug), until the company was taken over by Adobe.

When Andrew’s not staring into the internets he enjoys the music of James Brown (on original American vinyl, of course). Despite being both Scottish & Swiss he neither yodels nor plays the bagpipes but does have penchant for fondue & single malt whisky.

Think Visibility Preview Summary

In addition to the speakers’ sessions, there will also be the opportunity for attendees to have a Free Eyetracking session done on one of their websites (places for this are limited to a set number on a first-come, first-tested basis), it’s a chance to improve your website, it could be a real “eye-opener” for your website and this is a free potential benefit of attending.

At the Think Visibility events there are normally plenty of opportunities to talk to like-minded (and perhaps equally beneficial, some different-minded) people and do some good old-fashioned networking, both during the event itself and also at the two organised Think Visibility networking parties that are being held the night before and the night of the event.

So there you have it, details of the previous Think Visibility events, why you should perhaps be going, information on who’ll be speaking and oh yeah…just one more thing…if you get in quick to register and buy your Think Visibility ticket before the end of 31st January 2010, you can save £20 on the cost of your ticket and get it for £99 instead of the normal price of £119.

Are you planning on attending Think Visibility? I’m planning on being there, so I hope to see you there too! Clearly these people/websites are also going to be attending Think Visibility 3 as they have also blogged about attending this event, so I’m looking forward to meeting and talking with these people…

• SEO Idiot
• Sorbet Digital
• It’s A Family Thing

Related Pages:

1. Think Visibility 3 Review (March 2010)
2. Think Visibility Review (Sept 2009)
3. a4u Expo London 2009 Preview
4. a4u Expo London 2009 Conference Review

Ahead of the public launch for the new SeeSaw online TV service, they’re going to be conducting a BETA testing phase towards the end of January 2010 and are going to allow a limited number of users exclusive access to the SeeSaw Beta service to test out service, sample the content on offer and provide feedback to the SeeSaw team.

If you’re interested in being one of the first to try out this new UK-based online TV service, then you can register your interest by heading on over to the SeeSaw website and hopefully you’ll be able to get early access to this new on-demand online TV service, I’m certainly interested to see what they’ve come up with as you so often hear about the success of the likes of the various online streaming TV services such as Hulu and Boxee over in America, it’ll be great to have more choice over here in the UK too!

UPDATE: SeeSaw TV has now officially launched online and you can find out what we thought to it by heading over to our SeeSaw TV Review.

Related Pages:

1. SeeSaw TV Review (UK Online TV Service)
2. Joost – Invites Available to Try Out the Beta Online TV Service
3. Free TV Video Online (Info)
4. Sky Songs – Online Music Streaming and Download Service

For instance in the case of music, the site is a database of all artists that are similar to the artist you enter in the search box at the top. Anyone who is a user of sites such as eBay or Amazon will know that they regularly suggest items similar to ones you have purchased before. Tastekid works in a similar fashion to this, only with music, movies and books.

For example, when I entered ‘Beyonce’, it returned a vast quantity of results that were in my opinion extremely accurate. Beyonce herself covers a fairly wide range of genre’s and I was surprised to see that Tastekid.com managed to include artists fitting into several of these music tastes and origins, such as Leona Lewis to Jay-Z or even Luther Vandross who she has duet-ed with in the past.

Once you have browsed the results, you can select a few of them that take your fancy and it adds them to your list in order to find even more accurate results with the next batch. This is a great feature as it means you can almost narrow your searches down to an artists that you’re guaranteed to enjoy. As well as this, it also displays a short blurb about that individual artist that you have selected and provides a short music video of their stuff. I’m guessing the video’s aren’t stored locally but streamed from elsewhere, but either way it’s a nice touch.

As well as filtering your favourites, it also displays other artists that it deems to be popular at the current time. Most likely compiled from most popular selections and searches. However I’m not one that enjoys simply slotting into a crowd, however to stand out, so I prefer to stick with my own search results.

Some extras included on the site include links to their Twitter or Facebook pages, which if followed send you regular recommendations, however the down side of this is that you cannot filter what you receive, so like I said above, you would become a sheep of the music industry just following what’s hot and avoiding what’s not. For some that might be great, but it’s not for me. The site also provides widgets that you can attach to your webpage or blog so users can find music whilst on your site.

Just to complete the site, they have added an easy to use contact form for suggestions which I can only imagine means they’re looking to improve the site and the database of artists.

Overall, I found the site to be extremely useful for music and I found some artists that really took my fancy. So much so that I went straight out and bought the CD’s. Therefore, from my point of view it has been of great benefit to me as well as the music artists and record companies (something of a rarity in this file sharing age we live in).

I would definitely recommend TasteKid. I primarily use it for music, but if you’re also interested in movies and books, you’ll be pleased to hear that it appears to be just as useful for finding similar movies and books for you to try.

Also there’s even a TasteKid iPhone app so you can easily find suggestions when you’re out and about, for instance when you’re in a store shopping for some new music, movies or books or even having a discussion down the pub – very useful indeed!

Related Pages:

1. Songbird Review (Free iTunes Alternative Music Player)
2. Google Labs Adds Similar Images and News Timeline Search
3. Sky Songs – Online Music Streaming and Download Service
4. Digital Art Gallery?

Now admittedly, that is somewhat of a generalisation, but I’m sure there still plenty of people who will also buy their mobile phones from Nokia, so could really benefit from this 10% off Nokia voucher code, if you are one of these people, then you might want to consider using this to make some good savings on your latest Nokia purchase.

All you need to do is use the following code when you’re buying something from the Nokia UK website.

Nokia Voucher Code (10% off) = NOK10%JAN2010VC

The only thing to that you need to consider before using this is that the voucher code will expire on 25th January 2010 and there are certain Nokia products which are excluded from this promotional voucher (E52, Nokia Booklet 3G, all pre-order products).

Related Pages:

1. Memory Bits Renamed Zoombits & Offers Voucher Code (20% off)
2. Play.com Voucher Code (£5 off)
3. ‘I Want One of Those’ Voucher Code (10% off)
4. Redsave Valentine’s Voucher Code (5% off)

The software browses through 115 different retailers spanning the USA, UK and Germany. Obviously I can only comment on the UK as any others are unnecessary for me. In the UK the software browses major retailers such as Amazon, Curry’s, Dixons, HMV, Play.com, John Lewis and Misco. There are in total 46 UK retailers within the software’s capabilities.

In the past I have used Google’s shopping tools for such price comparisons when primarily buying electronics or gadgets. However, I was never satisfied with it as I noticed that Google displays results from sites I personally have never come across and receive appalling reviews all over the web. Ideally, I would prefer these to be left out of the equation which is why I am all too eager to continue using Invisible Hand.

Unfortunately, the add on is only compatible with Firefox or Google Chrome which rules out about 70% of the web enabled population who use Internet Explorer, Safari etc. However, for those lucky enough to use one of the able browsers, you can download Invisible Hand free of charge from the official website. Perhaps it’s another great reason why people should install one of these supported browsers?

The software itself is discreet, which is great as anything intrusive would put me off entirely. As you browse the web you don’t notice it’s presence at all. It’s only when you land upon a product that it springs into life and a small notification protrudes from the top of the browser telling you how much and where you can save. It gives you not only the total value of your saving, but a percentage too which I suppose is beneficial when it comes to appreciating how much you have saved.

The Invisible Hand community (sounds like something from a horror movie or video game doesn’t it?) is constantly expanding all the time. Whenever a user lands upon a product it scours the web for better deals and adds them to the database for any future users who land upon that site. This means that as the community expands, the faster it becomes to find your deals and the more accurate they become.

Another great feature of Invisible Hand is that you don’t actually have to hit the product on a site to receive better deals. It becomes integrated into Google so when you search a product, or ‘Google’ it. It automatically finds deals for you to save you all the time and effort of scrolling through the search results.

In the short time that I have used the Invisible Hand, I have found it extremely useful. Although I have not bought anything online during testing of the software as yet, I am very impressed with its potential for online shopping and would recommend it to any bargain hunters out there.

Related Pages:

1. Discount Shopping Online?
2. Online Retailers Using Google Checkout
3. Windows 7 Cheap Price Deals! (UK)
4. Windows 7 Family Pack – Cheap Price Bundle Deal!