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Google Street View has made a few headlines at RWW lately – once for getting itself into hot water in Europe and once, notably, for bringing Street View’s photo-tour features into retail outlets.

Now, we’ve learned that Street View will also begin to feature user-submitted photographs. According to a recent Google Lat Long blog post, “We began integrating user photos into Street View last year. User photos allow you to view locations from entirely new perspectives, whether through the eyes of a talented photographer with a knack for capturing architectural detail, or simply taken from locations we couldn’t get to… We’re making it easier to navigate through these images in a way that should feel similar to how you’re used to exploring within Street View.”

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Users can submit pictures from Picasa, Panoramio and Flickr that show different views, times of day or pedestrian-only areas. Here’s an example of what the interface looks like; the square in the top right corner indicates there are user-submitted images for that area.

And here is the photo navigation interface. Users can also navigate through photos using new click-and-drag controls to see images from nearby areas, or different angles or crops of the same area.

Some have speculated that Google has chosen to highlight and integrate this feature because of competition with Bing. The Next Web recently called Microsoft’s Photosynth, a similar product launched in 2008 and integrated into Bing Maps, “the killer app of the Bing suite” that differentiates Bing from Google in a positive way.

“The feature,” wrote Jacob Friedman , “displays collections of photos stitched together into a panorama[...] The results, to put it bluntly, can be spectacular.”

While Google’s offering may not have the 3D-esque quality of Photosynth, allowing for more creative images and photos from a larger geographical area to be shared in Street View is a smart move for the company. Let us know what you think in the comments.

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Intel introduced the new Atom N470 netbook CPU back in September and then Lenovo showed off its S10-3t with the new processor at CES, but chipzilla’s taking the time today to give its newest Pine Trail CPU a proper unveil. The 1.83GHz N470 joins the 1.66GHz N450 as an option for netbooks, and like the rest of the Pineview integrates the GMA 3150 graphics controller on the same chip and supports hyperthreading. According to Intel, the major OEMs are expected to introduce new netbooks based on this processor soon, but if our experience with the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t is any glimpse into the “performance boost” of this processor we’re not sure there’s anything to wait for. Our full review of the S10-3t netvertible is almost done cooking, but we can tell you right now the system didn’t feel faster in use even with its 2GB of RAM, and on PCMark05 it scored in the same range as other N450 netbooks. While the slightly faster clock speed may be a nice bragging right, at the end of the day Atom N470-based netbooks are still, well, netbooks.

Intel officially adds Pine Trail Atom N470 processor, early performance results don’t impress originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony PlayStation 3 owners in multiple regions (including North America, Europe, and Australia) are facing the inability to sign into the PlayStation Network online gaming service, corrupted user data and inability to play some games online or off. The problems are accompanied by the 8001050F error code.

When they try to load up certain games — including the just-released Heavy Rain — they receive the error code and the following message: “Registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will now quit.” After the message, the system reboots. The problems seem to mostly affect older, “fat” models of the PS3. Slim models are either not impacted or affected far less frequently.

Trophies are prizes given to players for accomplishing certain tasks in each game; the trophies are synced with the PlayStation Network so players can compare their achievements. Gaming blog Joystiq found reports that the consoles were having their dates reset to 12/31/1999; that might somehow be related to the trophy syncing problems.

Once reports of the problems started to appear, Sony tweeted: “We’re aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we’re looking into it. Stay tuned for updates.” That’s all we’ve heard from them so far. There’s no solution just yet; even disconnecting your console from the Internet doesn’t help. We’ll post an update immediately when we hear about a resolution.

Tags: down, outage, playstation 3, playstation network, PS3, PSN, sony, sony playstation

It’s the law: when the Corvair’s name comes up, this book’s name comes up. Most of you no doubt have very strong feelings about Ralph Nader, but how many of you have actually read his book?

I’m guessing the number is fairly low, based on the assumptions made about UAAS’s contents and/or impact by most commenters (e.g., “Nader singlehandedly brought Big Nanny-State Gubmint into the car business” or “Nader killed The Greatest Car Ever Made”). I keep meaning to review the book here, because of the significance it plays in American automotive history, but I’ll probably get to the even more important On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors, by John Z. DeLorean, first. For now, here are a couple of things all car freaks should know about Nader’s book:
• Unsafe At Any Speed was published in 1965. Corvair sales were already in decline by that point, dropping from about 250,000 for the 1960 model year to about 190,000 for 1964.
• The furor caused by the book- which wasn’t so much about the Corvair as it was about the carmakers’ active disdain for safety features, as well as shady ripoff practices such as fast-reading odometers that invalidated warranties in a hurry- would almost certainly have died down pretty quickly… but GM’s management went apeshit, panicked, and launched a Nixonian “dirty tricks” campaign against Nader that made him look like David being stomped on by Goliath. If you don’t like the idea of the government mandating safety features in cars, you can blame The General for giving Nader such credibility.

OK, here’s the poll. Be honest!

Have you read Nader’s book?surveys

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Daily

There are a lot of unknowns concerning the upcoming plug-in vehicle market expansion, but we don’t often hear that we might have too many lithium-ion batteries in the coming decade. Nonetheless, that’s what a new report from Roland Berger Strategy Consultants called “Powertrain 2020: Li-ion batteries – The next bubble ahead?” suggests. Specifically, RBSC believes that the U.S. and Japan are building so much li-ion battery making capacity that, between 2014 and 2017, we’ll see “significant overcapacity” relative to the demand. RBSC writes:

Given the announced investments, capacity in 2015 will already reach 200% of the demand projected for 2016. In addition, not all investments have been announced; as-yet unknown investments by key players will lead to further overcapacity, and national subsidies will stimulate even more investments.

Who’da thunk it?

All of this overcapacity, RBSC says, will severely decrease the number of battery manufacturers that will be able to survive. In fact, RBSC predicts that just six to eight “global battery manufacturers” will survive through that timeframe, out of about 60 today.

[Source: Roland Berger Strategy Consultants via Green Car Congress]

Will there soon be “significant overcapacity” in global lithium-ion battery market? originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone

If you’ve been watching TV over the last few days (and who hasn’t, with that USA / Canada hockey game and the tsunami coverage), you may have seen the latest in the series of iPhone ads.

The ad, titled “Family Travel,” features a voice-over by a Mom who gushes that “It’s unbelievable how much better family trips have gotten…” as she demonstrates using the Southwest Airlines app to check in on a flight from Denver to LA, finds a restaurant for the family (Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli) in the C concourse at Denver International Airport with Gate Guru, makes sure that she has entertainment for her kids in the form of “Finding Nemo” loaded in the iPod app, and then turns off the living room lights at home with the Schlage Link app.

For those of you who are sticklers for advertising accuracy, note that Southwest flight 1403 is not an actual SWA flight between DEN and LAX and that the restaurant list for Concourse C at Denver International Airport is actually a mashup of restaurants located throughout Denver International Airport. All of the apps are free, although Schlage Link does require a monthly subscription and appropriate Z-Link hardware on the home front (similar to the Christmas tree ad from the holidays).

TUAWNew iPhone ad: Family Travel originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Photo via NASA

Never before has the Earth been captured in such high resolution. Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center recently uploaded an amazing series of composite pictures of our planet, named “Blue Marble,” onto the photo sharing Web site Flickr. One look at such a clear view of Earth, <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/new-pictures-of-e…Read the full story on TreeHugger

So, the Sony Vaio P has a clone. Congrats, Sony! Too bad the mimicry ends with the aesthetics:

The appearance is spot on, but the insides are decidedly sub-par. The Atom processor is a less powerful than the processor offered in the Vaio P, and the memory maxes out at 1GB. If you’re comparing, that’s a full GB short of the original.

Since this is a clone however, the price is really the only area where one could say it “competes” with Sony’s premium-priced Vaio P.

The clone offers a 160GB for about $300, as well as a $380 model with 350GB storage, 2Gb ram and 3G.

Aaand scene. [Gizchina - Thanks, Andi]

Filed under: Geneva Motor Show, Crossover, Hatchback, Skoda

In just a little bit now there’s going to be a party in Switzerland called the Geneva Motor Show, and Škoda is in on the BYOB action. The Czech brand will show off the facelifted Fabia, Fabia Estate and Roomster, along with their new engines. Both models get new grilles and so-called “3D-shaped headlamps” for “a more dynamic look” and to emphasize the width of the cars.

The power behind those new horizontals will be a new engine portfolio of four gas-powered units and two diesels that start at 60 horsepower and top out at 105. One of those gas engines, the 1.2-liter TSI with 105 hp, runs through a 7-speed DSG ‘box and returns 53.3 imperial miles per gallon (44.4 U.S. mpg). Follow the jump for the complete specs, and have a look at the two cars in the photos below.

[Source: Škoda]

Continue reading Refreshed Skoda Fabia and Roomster revealed ahead of Geneva

Refreshed Skoda Fabia and Roomster revealed ahead of Geneva originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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