geekosystem

If you haven't been dizzy yet today and really need some of that in your Monday, or want to see some really cool ASCII art, check out this rendition of Google Street View in ASCII.

Back in August of 2011, Google began mapping the Amazon Rainforest for their ever-growing Street View feature within Google Maps. Now, Google has released the fruits of their rainforest labor, as the bits of the rainforest they explored are available for you to explore on Google Street View.

Google Maps is a handy tool. It gives you directions, while the Street View feature allows you to scope out the sketchiness of an area before you possibly risk your life in it. Occasionally, though Street View is useful, it makes you feel like a creeper when a person catches your eye in the frozen street capture and you zoom in to get a better look. Now, Google is rolling out business interiors in Street View, so you can feel even more like a creeper when you're spying on what people purchase and trying to catch establishments' employees doing something nefarious.

The feature was announced back in May, but now a few interiors have been popping up on Google Maps, complete with bored-looking employees and shops full of no customers so clear pictures can be taken. For a company's insides to be photographed, they must fill out an application for Google, and if Google is down with your application, they'll set up a time for a shoot. Google owns all rights to the photos, though, so a company should make sure they're okay with that before they take the plunge.

Google street view can already show you the best way to get to the movies and let you wander around Antarctica, but soon the map service will let you cruise through the Amazon rainforest. Though there are few roads in the region, Google's surveyors have already begun exploring the region by both boat and bike. Headed by Google and in conjunction with the Sustainable Amazon Foundation, the project is less about navigation and more about introducing the world to the unique cultures and natural wonders of the Amazon region. Looking for the people to best show it off to the world, Google turned to local denizens who were given special camera-equipped tricycles to pedal around the places they call home. Unlike other streetview projects, this one will also include the interiors of some buildings to give outsiders a sense of what these communities are like. Of course, the Amazon has been the subject of countless documentaries and television specials before. However, presenting the region through a service like Google Street View seems to demystify it somewhat. It will surely still be thought-provoking and breath-taking, but it will be presented the same way as your local town. Forget the vacation, I'm just parking myself in front of Google Maps. (Google via Geek.com, image via Google)

CNet is reporting that while attempting to make a complete list of Wi-Fi access points, Google has also recorded (and in some cases, released) a glut of personal location information with their Street View mapping cars. This comes after previous reports supporting the claim, and a hefty 100,000 euro ($143,000) fine from the French Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) for gathering unique identifiers for Wi-Fi-enabled hardware. Google's stated goal was, in addition to mapping the roads of the world, to provide a complete list of Wi-Fi access points. This data could be used for a variety of purposes, from helping weary travelers find easy-to-use Internet connections to aiding completely lost travelers with psuedo-GPS. In an interesting twist, this was the same goal Apple purported to during their own user location data scandal. The difference is that Google seems to have recorded unique identifiers of computers, phones, and other Wi-Fi enabled devices along with Wi-Fi hotspots. Before you bust out the torches, pitchforks, wetsuits, and tridents and march off to Mountain View, CA., let's put this in perspective.

"Google's World" is a series of drawings by artist Alejo Malia which explore a world in which the familiar iconography of Google Maps -- points of interest, metro station markers, Street View guy -- are literal, gigantic presences, hovering over our cities. More below: