geekosystem

To me, the Street View function of Google Maps is generally more entertaining than necessarily helpful, but it's a good tool for scoping out a place you intend to visit. But the creative people of Teehan+Lax have found a new way to use the tool: Google Street View Hyperlapse, a Chrome-based gadget that lets you make an awesome video sequence out of Street View images. Basically, it allows you to pretend to be the Flash anywhere the Google Street View car has been, thereby fulfilling at least several childhood dreams here in the Geekosystem office.

In December of last year, Google Maps was facing scrutiny in Germany for potentially violating European Union privacy laws. Things haven't gotten easier for Google in that country, because now Google Maps faces a complete ban in Germany due to a patent dispute with Microsoft. If Microsoft wins the ruling, Google will have to take some pretty extreme measures to keep Google Maps out of Germany. Hope you didn't want to find your away Germany, everybody. It's about to get a little more difficult for you, or more expensive for Google.

Google was in the news yet again this past Monday when the internet community bore witness to a disturbing picture of what appeared to be a donkey that was struck by a roving Google Maps Street View car in the Kweneng region of Botswana, Africa. News of the donkey-related vehicular homicide spread quickly and caused quite the uproar on various social media outlets -- despite what others may say, the Internet truly does care for the welfare of pack animals -- demanding that Google stop hiding behind its money piles and explain itself. Caving from the heat brought down on them, the company made a statement today to deny any and all allegations that they're a bunch of monstrous donkey slayers.

Earlier this week, we reported that Windows Phone owners were disappointed to discover that accessing Google Maps on their Internet Explorer web browser redirected them to the company's search engine homepage. It's no mystery that Microsoft and Google can never be seated in the same room together, but it was still a pretty low blow on the latter's part. After a juvenile back-and-forth between the two tech companies over WebKit browsers, rendering engines, and all that other nonsense jargon, Google has -- we assume reluctantly -- extended the proverbial olive branch and is once again offering Windows Phone users access to Google Maps via Internet Explorer. Hopefully, this move will be enough to ease any tensions that had arisen from the past upset.

Google and Microsoft have a history of not exactly being on the most amicable of terms. Like any good technology company, they've reluctantly worked and existed within the same sphere together, but that's about the gist of it. There's no love lost between them. That's why when Google began redirecting Windows Phone users to the homepage rather than Google Maps, folks were quick to cry foul. Google never supported Internet Explorer on Windows Phone, but that doesn't mean their redirect isn't silly.

It took long enough, but Google Maps is finally back on the iPhone. Most people celebrated its return, but the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany is saying a feature of the revived app violates European data protection laws. That may be true, but we're just glad we can confidently look up where Schleswig-Holstein is on the iPhone again.

Gone are those grim and dark days when iOS users were forced to access Google Maps via their phone's web browser or resort to celestial navigation. Google Maps is once again available for download on iTunes. For quite some time, those with iPhones pined for the convenience and unique features of Google's mapping service. Now that the grueling wait for the app is at last over, the world is now their proverbial oyster.

Last week we showed you a new series of NASA satellite photographs of the Earth at night. They were gorgeous, but what if you wanted to see what a specific place on Earth looked like at night? Now you can! It looks like Google went and overlaid the satellite images on top of their map service, and now it's searchable. Type in your address and see what your region of the world looks like at night.

One of two things was bound to happen: Apple was going to fix its terrible Maps app, or Google was going to do it for them. It looks like it's going to be the latter. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is getting ready to submit a new Google Maps app to the iTunes Store. iPhone users the world over rejoice.

Today not only sees the release of Windows 8, but the next Silent Hill movie, unfortunately titled Silent Hill: Revelation 3D. Even more unfortunately, it doesn't look to be following Silent Hill 2, largely considered to be not only the best entry into the franchise, but the best horror game, and one of the best examples of writing, story, and character development shining in a video game. If you've seen a trailer, you'll note it looks like the movie is following Silent Hill 3, rather than the stellar 2 or the underrated and very strange 4, but nonetheless, as a Silent Hill fan, it's nice to see the franchise get some love. As a neat promotion alongside the film, the mysterious town has been transformed into a Google Map.

Hot off the heels of Apple CEO Tim Cook's sheepish apology to consumers over their lackluster new Maps app, Apple has retracted one of its boldest statements about the highly-criticized service. Until yesterday, Apple's description of Maps on their website called it "the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever." That sentence, which would now seem especially foolish in light of Mr. Cook's statement, has since been retracted and replaced.

There's been a bit of an uproar over the iOS 6 update to Apple Maps. It's not even that they're completely unusable; it's the fact that some of it seems perfectly normal, and suddenly it's horrifyingly inaccurate. Sufficed to say, you wouldn't want to rely on them to get around. Even worse, Google apparently doesn't have any plans to bring an app of their own to the market. It's not good, but how bad is it exactly? Bad enough that Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, has officially apologized for it.

With the update to iOS 6, Apple finally rolled out their own mobile Maps app that would supposedly compete with what was previously offered by Google Maps. As most are well aware, the information that Apple managed to cobble together into one semi-cohesive lump has proven to be less than accurate. Some railway stations are designated as parks, parks as ponds, and ponds as unobstructed thoroughfares. In short, they border on dangerous. Google, while still maintaining something of a neutral stance, has now said that they have no app of their own on the way.

Is there anything that hasn't been mapped by Google? Google Maps has teamed up with NASA to bring the Kennedy Space Center to the Internet. Now we can walk the path of astronauts and people who take humanity to its farthest. See what they see, what's behind our loftiest achievements, and dream of slipping our surly bonds.

Google could already take you to some pretty amazing places with Google Maps, but their World Wonders project has upped the ante with remarkable locations from across the globe accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. Now Antarctica, once considered the last frontier, can be wandered with street view. But more importantly: There are penguins.