Categories
Fun !! Street VIew

Placeroulette anyone..

As a fun demostration of just how extenive StreetView coverage now is, it’s hard to beat Globe Genie, the product of MIT student Joe McMichael. Try it without the Map display to test just how powerful our ability to identify places from just visual clues is or is not 🙂

Can you tell where this is ?

Written and submitted from the Google Offices, London (51.495N, 0.146W)

Categories
Fun !! Thoughts

The Geek Atlas to Go

One of my favourite books of the year so far has been the marvellous Geek Atlas by  John Graham-Cumming. The book which details the locations of 128 places of scientific and technological importance is perfect for someone like me who travels a fair bit and on those rare occasions when I have some spare time on a trip would like to visit somewhere interesting.

The Geek Atlas App

Not for me The Louvre in Paris, I would rather follow the Arago Medallions which mark out the path of the Paris Meridian, the line of longitude that lost out to Greenwich in 1884, Chapter 8 in the Book.

Sites I have already visited thanks to the atlas include the Airbus Factory in Toulouse, Kempton Park Waterworks and the Eagle Pub in Cambridge; you will need to buy the book to understand their significance.

The problem with the book is that at 544 pages it is a heavy addition to my already overloaded laptop bag, and on a number of occasions I have had to leave it behind, and then wished I had it while away from home.

The solution to this problem arrived this week, The Geek Atlas has been turned into an iPhone app using ebook technology developed by Stanza, so as my iPhone is nearly always with me so is the book !

The app is great value at £3.49, especially when compared to the epub electronic book and printed book cost more than £20!!

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London

Categories
Fun !!

A “get well soon” video from Microsoft?

I thought this must be a joke, or pehaps a clever “Get Well Soon” card for Steve Jobs, you know don’t worry iLife is safe for the next six months because your competition is Microsoft Songsmith.

 

I still think maybe this is an elaborate joke, along the lines of the Microsoft Shoe commercial, just to demostrate the potential of spinning the blogosphere.. but it seems real ?

Love the fact they use a Macbook Pro covered in stickers in the video.

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.