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What makes Paris look like Paris? Hint: it ain't the Eiffel Tower.

It is instead the details woven into the urban fabric that form a pattern, according to a machine learning system that's part of a U.S.-French visual data mining project. Yes, computers are learning to ID your city just by looking at random photos.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and INRIA/Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris had the system look at 40,000 Google Street View images of Paris, London, New York, and Barcelona, as well as eight other cities to find frequent and unique elements. … Read more

Long before 1080p video and high-resolution imagery, a special graphic design style known as ASCII art enabled amateur artists to create unique images on computers through specifically formatted text.

The glory days of text art invading e-mails and bulletin boards are mostly gone. But you can at least take a stroll down memory lane with a Web site that automatically converts Google Maps' Street View into a world of colorful ASCII art. … Read more

Those of you who've never seen an actual space shuttle or Apollo module up close can now get a taste of the real thing courtesy of Google Street View.

Commemorating the past 50 years of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the search giant has unveiled a series of interactive, panoramic Street View photos. Each of the 10 online photos focuses on a different piece of space technology, equipment, or location.

One photo reveals the Atlantis space shuttle from stem to stern. Another highlights the Apollo 14 Command Module. And a third carries you to the top of an … Read more

Downing Street, the office and home of the British Prime Minister, has cleared the way for Google to map the famous road at street level. Users of Google Maps can now see the powerhouse of British politics on Street View.

With the Olympics in full swing and as an already packed London continues to swell, the Downing Street gates will remain tightly shut, barring anyone from entering the historic roadway. But anyone with a mobile phone, laptop, tablet or otherwise can check out David Cameron's front door. You don't even need a security pass; you can virtually just … Read more

Google, right hand meet left hand?

The company was supposed to scrub all the personal user data its Street View vehicles in Britain and elsewhere had collected in 2010. Somehow, that did not happen.

Google disclosed the information on Friday to the U.K's. Information Commissioner's Office. As part of an agreement signed in November 2010, Google was supposed to have deleted the data by December 2010.

"Google has recently confirmed that it still has in its possession a small portion of...data collected by our Street View vehicles in the UK," Peter Fleischer, Google's … Read more

Antarctica is long known to be an inhospitable place of constant cold and wind and completely void of plant life. It is also supposed to be beautiful -- filled with snowy vistas, blue-tinted glaciers, and penguins.

Google announced today that with the introduction of its new Google Maps feature people don't need to gear up, survive the elements, and make the long journey to explore this corner of the world. They can simply fire up their computers and take a tour with Antarctic Street View. … Read more

Tuesday's biggest tech story has a superstar trading teams, and I'm not talking Jeremy Lin:

Are you dusting off that Yahoo email account? Freshening up your Flickr page? Yahoo got a dose of Google cool factor with its new CEO, 37-year-old Marissa Mayer. She was a top executive at Google and Google's first female employee. She oversaw pretty much every Google service that's a common part of your life, including maps and search. Expect Mayer to breathe new life into Yahoo's services. Perhaps she can even lure talented computer minds to join her new team. … Read more

What started out as a Facebook hackathon project has led to the social network's new-fangled Events page design.

Starting today, Facebook is rolling out its redesigned Events page, which comes with Calendar and List views. Now users can see birthdays, parties, RSVPs, and all other events up to several months in advance of the current date.

Spearheaded by Facebook software engineer Bob Baldwin, who created the homepage Events permalink at an earlier hackathon, the new Events design was fashioned to make it easier for users to organize their events, make plans, and see their friends' birthdays.

"Before a … Read more

The Nokia 808 PureView's fame comes down to its camera, which can capture up to 41 megapixels of digital information and output incredibly detailed images at 5, 8, and yes, even 41 megapixels if that's what you really want.

The secret to the camera's performance is the extra-large sensor, which is physically much larger than usual 5-megapixel and 8-megapixel sensors (see the difference here.) Still, the camera's software has to render the image correctly as well.

I added my own shootout to CNET Asia's excellent photo test, to see how well the camera performed in … Read more