Categories
Google Maps

There are hills in them there maps…

Without much fuss we added an extra button to Google Maps todays and brought relief to cartography fans everywhere… sorry that is the worst pun I could come up with.

The terrain view is offers another perspective of our world and for some users, like those interested in outdoors recreation for example, is really vital.Terrain

Written and submitted from the Malmaison Hotel, Birmingham, using it’s free wired broadband network.

Categories
Google Maps Thoughts

Our Dumb World : Who needs the CIA World factbook now..

Our dumb world

The Onion a great news magazine and website from over the pond brings us their version of the World Fact Book in the form on a new Google Maps mash-up Our Dumb World – The worlds countries summarised into simple info bubbles, you need look no further for a comprehensive world view.

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy Thoughts

F**kwits

Anybody seen this dataHas anybody seen this data ?

If so, please return it in the envelope provided, as the owner would quite like it back.

Lisa, I think was a little shocked this evening when I jumped of the sofa and started swearing at the TV news.

Dear readers outside of the UK, I must explain.. the Government department responsible for taxation in the UK sent a dump of a database containing detailed personal and financial details of 25 million people (nearly half the UK population) on a couple of CD’s in the mail and it has gone missing !!

As an IT professional this is wrong on so many levels it really defies belief, why store personal information including address, national insurance details, Date of Birth etc in the same database as peoples bank details?, why dump them to a CD and not use the government secure intranet which has costs tens if not hundreds of millions to develop and operate, why not encrypt the data ?

The list just goes on and on.

The government say – don’t worry we don’t think the database has fallen into the wrong hands – well I don’t feel very reassured.

Now I’m just trying to convince Lisa to change her bank account, as she along with every mother/carer in the country has their bank accounts security compromised by these idiots !!

UPDATE

Looks like the data has been found.. don’t you just love the British sense of humour ?

ebay

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.