Google Maps, the enormously popular mapping service with 1 billion monthly active users, showed off its latest advances today. The announcements, while impressive, seem to be an evasive maneuver ahead of next week's World Wide Developer Conference, in which Apple is expected to announce that it will drop Google Maps from its mobile operating system.
Brian McClendon, vice president for engineering, declined to tackle those rumors head-on, saying only, "We would like to get all services on all platforms."
Offline Maps
The most exciting news from the event is that the data-hungry mobile Maps app will now work offline. The Google Maps team is making downloadable versions of their maps that can be stored on mobile devices (but Android will get it first). Together with the compass feature on the smartphone, you can navigate a city without being connected to a 3G network.
"This provides you with familiar Google maps whether or not you have an internet connection," said Google product manager Rita Chen. Google expects these maps to be most useful for people without data plans and for those traveling outside their usual coverage area, as on international trips.
Street View Trekker
Luc Vincent Engineering director, Street View, also showed off Google's Trekker camera, a backpack-mounted panorama grabber that will allow the maps to go off-road.
It's under 40 pounds, runs on two lithium batteries for a whole day, and runs on Android. Vincent's taken it skiing, but wants to take it to the Grand Canron, Venice, castles, and other places in the next stage of Google Street View.
3D Imagery in Google Earth
Google has been working on delivering 3D models of cityscapes for the past six years. But until now, those have mostly involved computer-generated rendering of structures. Google is now using planes to fly over metropolitan areas and capture real-world images of city structures and then using that imagery to build photorealistic 3D images of cityscapes, as in the image of San Francisco below.
Google Earth users will now be able to use the software to explore cities by soaring "through" them. "We're trying to create magic here," said product manager Peter Birch. "We're trying to create the illusion that you're flying over the city."
Google will be delivering the 3D enhancements to iOS and Android "in the coming weeks" for a few select cities. Google wouldn't talk specific numbers, but Birch did say that by the end of year, it would include communities covering 300 million people.
RebelMouse Is A Pinterest-Tumblr-WordPress Mashup For Organizing Your Social Stream
Ex-Huffington Post tech chief Paul Berry released a beta version of his new social publishing platform, RebelMouse, this morning--and it's attracted a press conference full of reporters so far. RebelMouse sorts and displays your social streams in a neat front-page grid, and automatically updates as you add new entries to your Twitter or Facebook profile. You can already check out the beta feeds from a handful of reporters, including Peter Kafka from AllThingsD, Om Malik of GigaOm, Jay Yarrow from Business Insider, and our own Anjali Mullany.
RebelMouse looks similar to Pinterest at first glance, but might best be compared to a WordPress or Tumblr profile since the look can be easily customized. Page owners can curate their page with selections from Twitter and Facebook, tack on stories directly from websites with a "Stick It" tool (like Pinterest), or create a new blog post as one would do with a traditional blogging platform. Basic access to the site will be free, with a $3/month upgrade option for a personal domain, and a $3/week fee for corporate pages. Further along, Berry has said, he'll add e-commerce features to RebelMouse, letting people buy things from the profile pages they view.
LinkedIn Faces Leaked Passwords Hack And User Data Privacy Criticism
LinkedIn users were in for a security scare this morning when a Russian user claimed access to 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords which they published (without usernames) in an online forum. LinkedIn has acknowledged the finding, tweeting: "Our team is currently looking into reports of stolen passwords. Stay tuned for more." LinkedIn is also fending off criticism on the privacy front after a New York Times report revealed that meeting notes (including locations, participants and times) were sent to LinkedIn servers from iOS phones when users enabled their Calendar Sync feature. In a blog post published this morning, LinkedIn said it would modify the feature so that calendar events were synced, leaving meeting details untouched. LinkedIn uses calendar data collected in its servers to match people up, but explained that the data is securely sent via SSL and that the calendar information itself isn't revealed. Also, addressing the Times' concern that this data was being transmitted without user's knowledge, LinkedIn said it would add a more explicit description about what calendar information it accessed from smartphones.
MOG, Ford Partner On Voice-Controlled App For Cars
On-demand music service MOG has partnered with Ford on a voice-controlled MOG app for several 2012 models. The app, which has a monthly subscription fee of $9.99, lets MOG-subscribed drivers use Ford's existing SYNC AppLink voice control technology to monitor playlists created from the service's 15-million song catalog. (For example, saying "top songs" would automatically queue up the current Billboard Top 50 list.) MOG has been partnering with automakers for a while, through maker-specific apps, such as the one BMW offers, and car audio businesses such as Harman's Aha Radio, which integrates with Honda and Subaru vehicles. MOG has been the most aggressive pursuer of vehicle integration within the on-demand music services, including Spotify and Rdio. Rumors of a possible MOG acquisition by HTC's Beats Electronics were quashed back in March, and MOG has since launched apps for Windows and the iPad.
TV Streamers And Game Of Thrones Fans Rally Behind TakeMyMoneyHBO.com
Jake Caputo, website designer, developer, Chicago dweller, video streamer, wants HBO's attention. On his new website, Caputo's message is clear: "We pirate Game of Thrones, we use our friend's HBOGO login to watch True Blood… Please HBO, offer a standalone HBOGO streaming service and Take My Money!" On TakeMyMoneyHBO.com you can type in the amount that you'd pay for a streaming-only HBO subscription (to legally watch shows like Game of Thrones as new episodes are released) and tweet it. Caputo's message is a popular one--in three hours since it launched last night, the website already had 21,000 visits and the stream of tweets continues. Millions of TV watchers now prefer to stream their shows and cut their cable subscription, but cable companies like HBO and NBC offer streaming content only for subscribers who have paid for a regular cable subscription. HBO's Game of Thrones, hugely popular but unstreamable, is on its way to top of the Most Pirated 2012 list--because GOT fans, loyal though they may be, don't want to pay HBO's stiff monthly subscription fees. It's yet another indication that video streamers are happy to pay for the content they consume, if they're given a choice about how they do so.
Airtime, Photographing You While You Chat, Faces Privacy Questions
Sean Parker's new video chat enterprise has found itself in a media storm at launch, but there's now a genuine bolt of lightning sparking in the midst of it: Accusations from Forbesthat Airtime secretly snaps photos of you while you're web chatting with a stranger, with your own webcam, and then uploads them to its servers along with recordings of the conversation. Why would this be? To ensure site safety, giving moderators the chance to look at evidence if any one user flags a complaint against another. Essentially Airtime is trying to avoid the sexual problems that beset Chatroulette, but sees this system as part of the process. The question is if this bothers modern Net users, or those who particularly desire privacy to be maintained--and raises issues of security concerning how the data is stored at Airtime. Google and Skype do not use similar technology, though they are less centered around casual group chats than Airtime.
Airtime's been in touch through its representatives to update us on this news. According to the site it does not record audio or video, but it does take "random, periodic snapshots of conversations between users who don't already know each other," much as we'd said it does. The company says it's a "policy that we are proud of and believes serves our users well."
Mobile Advertisers Evade Apple's Privacy Code To Track iOS Users
Despite Apple's attempts to enforce privacy standards on their mobile devices, ad networks are finding new ways to track and target ads to smartphone users. The Wall Street Journal has learned that ad networks are using new ways to gain personal information about people's iPhones via identifiers in the wireless tracking hardware, or through a system known as OpenUDID that uses that copy-paste function. Both ID tracking methods circumvent Apple's privacy push last year, in which the company asked advertisers to stop using a (different) unique ID on iPhones to track customers.
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