view

Google Earth and Maps could cover a lot more territory with a lot more detail soon, if some photos from Italy are anything to judge by.

First, evidenced by Google-branded cars traversing Milan, is the possibility that Google is acquiring European imagery for its Street View feature.

Second is the observation, based on scrutiny of those pictures, that Google could be gathering 3D data along with the photos.

"With an automated solution, they could go for blanket 3D coverage," rather than the more limited approach today involving user contributions of basic 3D models, robotics engineering student Mark Cummins … Read more

Trulia, a residential real estate search engine, has incorporated Google Maps Street View into its Web pages, the company said Wednesday.

The combination presents Google's view of a particular property from the road and lets users virtually pivot around to see the surrounding area. It works in the 40 cities where Google has supplied imagery for its Street View service.

It's nothing that couldn't have been done manually before by typing an address into a separate window with the Google view, or likely even with an on-page mashup, but having the curbside vantage readily available is certainly … Read more

I was thinking about upgrading to a wide-screen display, but then I realized that the programs I use most often are up-and-down, not side-to-side.

So instead of shelling out a couple hundred dollars for a new monitor, I maximized my available screen space by tweaking the full-screen views in Word, Excel, and other Office apps.

Access menu options in full-screen view To get the big-picture view of your documents, worksheets, and other Office files, there's no substitute for the full screen. You may think Office's full-screen option is an all-or-nothing affair: Either you see no menus or toolbars, … Read more

The perfect birthday gift for the aspiring megalomaniac: a "video wall cube" that every command and control center needs.

Mitsubishi's new "MegaView Wall" has an 80-inch with 1,400 x 1,050 resolution, but that's not what sets it apart from the rest of the Dr. Strangelove war-room equipment on the market. The secret ingredient, according to Slippery Brick, is a "proprietary, high-powered projection engine" that gives it brightness levels that are a vast improvement over the "notoriously dim" cubes of the past. It sure beats Stratego and Battleship. But … Read more

2View, one of my favorite tools for adding notes to digital photos recently ceased to exist, and since then I've been wondering if any other services would pop up in its void. Today I've been playing around with Picbite, a wonderfully simple (and slightly similar) way to add small speech bubbles or annotations to photos from your hard drive or from a Web link.

You can add small, yellow notes of any size to images then share them with others. The service provides a direct link as well as embed codes for use on popular social networking sites, … Read more

Comedy troupe The Vacationeers has a new video parodying Google Maps and its Street View feature. Shortly after the introduction of Street View, privacy concerns were raised by several groups regarding the amount of zooming and the capturing of license plate numbers, but nobody's come close to comparing it to a formidable and mysterious opponent the likes of the smoke monster on J.J. Abrams' Lost.

I desperately hope this becomes a series.

[via Digg]

Once I've taken care of installing security software on a new a PC, one of the first programs I end up downloading is an image editor. Whether I'm using it to make a quick edit to a screenshot, convert a digital photo to a more Web-friendly image format, or even something as mundane as cropping an image for a desktop background, an easy-to-use image editor is a must have. Those of you with recently acquired computers probably have a lot of holiday photos you've resolved to go through, so this little collection will definitely come in handy.… Read more

After a full day roaming the Consumer Electronics Show floor, I have to say the most mind-blowing thing I saw was the dual-view and 3D high-definition technology called DLP, made by Texas Instruments. This technology is being rolled out in Mitsubishi and Samsung televisions.

These are not flat-screen models, but thicker projection TVs. I was initially stopped in my tracks by the amazing image on a 73-inch model. They showed Shrek on the demo reel, and I have to say, the detail in the animation was incredible. I could see the sugar crystals sparkling on the Gingerbread Man's gumdrops. (They also showed Transformers, and it was very manly and explosive. Looked good too. DLP has a very fast refresh rate, so it is well-suited for action.)… Read more

If Cerevellum sounds like some Latin term from a medical dictionary, it would be entirely appropriate because it's the name of a new heart-monitoring device. But this one isn't attached to your arm or chest--in fact, it's not affixed to the body at all. Try the handlebars on a bike instead.

The Cerevellum doesn't stop there either: While checking your ticker, this gadget also serves as a GPS system and a digital rear-view display similar to those seen increasingly in cars. According to ProductDose, this all-in-one device has a 3.5-inch screen and 32MB of space … Read more