MayhemNetworks

Google maps street view. If you haven’t seen it yet, its an addition to Google maps which we all know and love that allows you to look up and down streets, and move around on streets as if you were actually driving down them and able to look 360 degrees. Now I know you might not believe me just saying it without showing an example so have a look at the below video for confirmation of how it works.

Now that you’ve seen the video Looking up Market at 1st in the Financial district of Downtown San Francisco.

As you can see it pretty much gives you the ability to put in a location and get a street level view of that location. Google is still very limited in their city coverage but from my exploring it looks like they’ve got all of the SF (San Francisco) area covered already, and are moving out from there. I’m sure they’ve probably got Mountain View and some of the other Google campus locations covered as well.

I’m waiting for this to come to an area where I live cause I think its really a neat feature, but I can only imagine some of the privacy concerns a tool like this would bring up. Imagine you happen to be out front of your house getting your newspaper in your robe as the Google mapping van comes by. It snaps your photo as its cruising by, and there you are in the Google street level view in your robe fetching your paper. You know your friends that are tech saavy are going to see you like that, because they don’t only google you, but they google map your address too. Imagine the talk at the parties now. Did you see Dave on Google Maps. He was wearing a pink frilly robe with ruffles and its on Google Maps for the world to see. Wait till your boss finds it and see how your perceived at work after that.

Here are a couple of my thoughts based on my briefly playing with Google Maps Street View this afternoon.

1. Date the images in the map so you know when they were taken
2. Allow someone to remove potentially embarrassing photos
3. Give home owners and business owners the right to opt out
4. Monetize it by including banner ads, and billboards pointed to businesses. i.e. Domino’s Pizza, or Jewelry stores and more

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Well today marked the announcement of a new product from Bill Gates and Co (Microsoft) that is nothing short of revolutionary. Microsoft’s new product named Surface is the next step in computer interaction. If you haven’t had the opportunity to witness what Surface is yet have a look at this short video that gives you a glimpse at this new computer interaction device disguised as a table.

Although Surface isn’t yet being released for mass consumption it will be out Winter of 2007 they say, though Microsoft is notorious for having to push back release dates similar to their latest Vista OS launch.

Surface if adopted widely could change the way things in our world are done, imagine sitting in a restaurant and the table your eating at is actually a Surface computing device. You could preview the dessert menu, and place your order for a chocolate cheesecake. Or maybe you want to split the bill among 3 people. Just put each of your cards on the table and divide of the bill by dragging the items from the bill to the individual credit cards. Or maybe you’ve got digital photos of your recent trip to the beach and you want to load them onto your cellphone for a new desktop background. Well then set your camera and cell phone on the Surface and let Surface display a collage of all your images and then drag the images of your choosing to your cell.

Surface could really revolutionize the way that we all interact with technology in the future and I for one can’t wait to get one of these as a new coffee table at the house. Imagine how much fun Christmas at our house would be if we had this in the living room.

Below is a video of a longer and in-depth technology showcase of the Microsoft Surface in action while presenting it to the press.

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On the Memorial Day weekend I took my daughter to the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. She had been there before, but she was much younger and didn’t remember everything, so it was a real treat to take her again.

Once we got there it became rather disappointing. Two of their rooms with the coolest animals, The African Mammal room, and the North American Mammals were only partially viewable. They had ½ of each room blocked off for Asian Heritage celebration.

In the North American room we were only able to view up close about 4 animals while we enjoyed headaches of drums pounding amplified by 100 from the enclosed wooden room. In the African Mammal room we were able to view about 6 of the animals because they had loud music and dancing occupying the other 2/3 of the room.

The mineral room was pretty cool. My daughter kept looking at all the “green” gems and minerals and saying it was Kryptonite. All I could do is laugh. It was the cutest thing that she was searching out all of the Kryptonite in the room. Most of the interactive computer screens in the mineral room were not functioning, so that was a let down for my daughter the button pusher.

We made our way to one of the dinosaur rooms. It was actually mostly cats, rhinos, and horse skeletons from millions and millions of years ago. They main dinosaur hall along with the Rotunda and Native American Cultures were closed for renovation.

When I asked an employee there they told me that the discovery room where the kids get all their hands on and get to look at live animals like snakes and fish were in the Rotunda and closed for renovation. After leaving there I found out that the discovery center was actually relocated to the basement and it was opened for child exploration. BUMMER!!!

The thing that ended up being most impressive to my daughter and me was the Night at the Museum exhibit. In this exhibit they have several costumes, wax figures, and props from the movie. Like the shrunk hummer that the cowboy (Owen Wilson) drive through central park. They also had the bone Ben Stiller used to play fetch with the T-Rex and his “instruction sheets” for taking care of the museum after closing.

Although, the museum was still enjoyable for both of us it was simultaneously disappointing. When you go to the museum you want to see it in its entirety. Explore history and see things you don’t get to see everyday. In retrospect, the only thing we were prepared for was an Asian celebration at the museum. It did not disclose the closing of exhibits nor renovation. I guess sometimes maybe a phone call before you go is better than relying on a website to be current.

So now we’ll revisit once the renovation is complete and I’m sure the experience will be much more enjoyable when we go.

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