Hi, I'm Ben Hazell. I used to blog here about the media, but now I work there I don't write here anymore. I'm the Web Publishing Editor at Telegraph.co.uk - I find better ways to tell stories, developing tools, training and practice for journalists.
Wrote this quickly for the Sheffield Star this afternoon. I think it explains itself. They’ve been to New York, Paris and London, but yesterday they arrived in Sheffield: The Google Streetview cars.
Google’s revolutionary Streetview service lets you view panoramic pictures from ground level around city centres as part of the popular Google Maps service.
To obtain these pictures, cars with hi-tech cameras fitted to the roof are driven around the city to capture images of everything they pass, taking pictures in every direction, every second.
These photographs are then stitched together by computers and positioned on the map at the exact location they were taken.
When processed the images become a frozen model of the streets, allowing internet users to move around the city looking down roads and peering into shop windows.
The movements of the Streetview cars are kept secret to keep the scenes as natural as possible and avoid advertising displays being erected for the cameras.
The distinctive Google cars have been spotted driving around the UK for the last week, being seen in London, Birmingham and Manchester. Yesterday one was spotted filming along West Street.
A full launch of the Streetview service in the UK is expected in the near future.
Privacy concerns were raised in the US after the initial launch of the Streetview service resulted in a number of individuals being pictured at embarrassing moments, including falling off of bikes and sunbathing topless.
Google maintain that all the images are taken from public space and they allow users to flag any images deemed inappropriate or private for removal from the service. They are also reported to be considering blurring faces and number plates for the UK launch.
EDIT: Ahh, this was a video post, but the video no longer works. It was either too edgy to remain public or all the additional traffic from this blog crashed their servers. I don't know which, but I'll try to explain what it showed so this isn't an utterly wasted post.
Tiny Infra-red LEDs can be used to hide your face from security cameras. These LEDs are small lights that require only tiny batteries to power and can be easily mounted anywhere.
CCTV cameras don't like Infra-red light when they're stalking you after sunset. In low light they enhance the image, and the Infra-red LED shows too bright for the picture. Mount one on your head, and you become unrecognisable on camera, protected by a halo of anoyminity.
The now deleted video below showed you how to fit the LED into some cheap sun-glasses and what this does to your image on CCTV cameras. What a brilliant idea. Tastes like the cyberpunk anarcho-future to me.
Magic mirror shades that render you invisible to the MAN.
Unlikely to be the first or best method developed for tricking CCTV, but brilliant in its simplicity. The thick black frames and DIY aestetic will even appeal to the fashion sense of your local graffiti artists and urban explorers.
What does this mean? Will every Hoodie in the UK who never skipped electronics lessons dash out to buy themselves the reasonably priced kit and wire up their baseball cap before their next mugging or shady deal?
Unlikely: The feral youth don't read gadget blogs, and they couldn't give a damn about CCTV in the first place.
The first time my car got broken into the little buggers were careful to batter the nearby CCTV camera too. The next time me motor got the hoodies' handshake the police told me that all the local CCTV cameras were fake or not recording.
I'm sure it's true that CCTV does help clear up some cases of casual violence and crime. I just doubt it really protects society against any kind of premeditated misbehavior; it's already too easy to avoid with a simple hat or hood.
We can only hope criminals do try this hi-tech soloution instead of their hoods, because while these lights might hide you from night-time CCTV, they mark you with a beacon to any loitering Police helicopter or UAV.
At any rate, just look what else you can do with IR LED glasses.
Obviously I think about Facebook a lot. Usually about twice a day, I get a pressing urge to just make sure the internet hasn't changed. Maybe someone's sent me a message. Maybe if my life were more exciting, I wouldn't have to live vicariously through the status updates of others. If a friend falls in a forest and nobody posts a photo, did it really happen? (I'll come back to that another day.)
The main point Cory makes in that article (above) is that social networking sites force users to open themselves up to akward situations, which then cause them to migrate to new sites. The networking sites bring together contacts from all areas of our lives, all viewing the same profile. This can cause trouble.
I've seen many examples of this happening recently. As friends start teaching or working, they open their profiles up to whole new social mixes. In real life, relationships are broken into areas; your elderly workmates don't see what you did at the weekend, and you can't stare at photos of your ex with her new beau. But on Facebook, students can trace their lecturer's wife, and creeps can save copies of your drunken embarrassments before you can de-tag them away.
Sure, it doesn't have to be like this - there are privacy settings, and you can exercise some control over your friendship list. But privacy settings only restrict outsiders, and there are social pressures not to exclude some people. Can you refuse your boss, or you mother?
Facebook could be destroyed because you can't present all the varied facades you do in real life. Lists grow longer, we all get older, we move on, and complications arise.
Perhaps it all forces an honesty of self, but I suspect that many people prefer migration to censoring their fractured self. As users loose control over who sees what, they loose their freedom and are likely to seek asylum on whichever new website will privately harbour their community. We've already seen a repeated boom and bust cycle to social networking sites as the grumblers leave and the critical mass shifts behind them.
If Facebook is to continue to dominate it needs a system for splitting your profile. There are already limited tools in place for this, but they're buried. We need controls to secretly designate different social groups and present different fronts to each. LiveJournal and Flickr already have these kind of controls on a limited scale. Facebook will have to follow. They really need to spend more time polishing up usability and introducing users to the possibilities, and less time selling out our privacy and letting idiots host virtual aquariums. If it's going to survive, any given social networking site needs to remain useful, and not become a mess of gimmicks dancing to corporate themes. They have to let us be our many selves.
They’ve been to New York, Paris and London, but yesterday they arrived in Sheffield: The Google Streetview cars.
