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Google Maps Street View Leads to Divorce

Google Maps has just been implicated in a divorce, its Street View having captured an image of a woman undeniably cheating on her husband. In the past we have written about various Google Maps oopsies, including it causing the wrong house to be demolished, and Google Street View capturing the image of a woman urinating in public. But to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that Google Maps has led to divorce.

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Google Maps Error Causes Wrong House to be Demolished

Relying on the Internet as your co-pilot for navigational technology is not without its pitfalls. Sometimes it can lead to humourous situations, like the woman caught peeing in the street by Google maps, but sometimes it can also lead to horrific outcomes, like the Google map that is thought to have lead to the death of James Kim when he took a route suggested by Google maps that was otherwise known to have been treacherous. This week, Google maps is being blamed for the accidental demolition of the home belonging to Lindsey Diaz, of Rowlett, Texas.

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Google Maps Ground Truth: How Google Maps are Built

Those Google slippy maps (the term for maps that you can pull around and zoom in or out on) are the result of far more effort than you may realize. The Google street view vans (and backpacks) are only a small part of what goes into the Google mapping project Ground Truth. (A list of countries mapped by Google Ground Truth is below.)

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Google Maps Allows You to See Floor Plans of Malls, Museums, Airports and More

Google had made shopping, sight-seeing and travel even easier, by making the indoor floor plans of malls, museums, libraries, transit stations and airports, worldwide, available through Google Maps. The feature, previously exclusively available through Google Maps for Android, is now available on your desktop so that it can be used by all.

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HistoryPin: Google Maps and Historic Photos Mashup Site Lets You See the Good Old Days

Google Maps is perhaps one of the most useful services which Google has rolled out; people have used Google Maps as the basis for all sorts of cool and interesting things. One such use is History Pin, a service through which people can upload photos from days of yore and ‘pin’ them onto a Google map of the region, indexed by the represented date. But the really cool thing about HistoryPin is that you can see the photo in context, inserted into the moden day street view.

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See the Ruins of Pompeii Without Leaving Your Chair! Google Maps the Ruins of Pompeii!

Google Maps has now mapped the Ruins of Pompeii – complete with street view! Now, without leaving your chair, you can experience (ok, nearly) what it’s like to walk around the Ruins of Pompeii!

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New Service is “Google Maps for Indoors”

A new service called Micello is touting itself as the equivalent of Google maps only for indoors, such as when you get to your destination, and can’t find that store inside the mall, or that office where you’re already 10 minutes late for a meeting.

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New Online Monopoly Game Uses Real Streets and Google Maps

Today marked the launch of the Online Monopoly game, Monopoly City Streets (MonopolyCityStreets.com). The holy lovechild of a partnership between Hasbro (owners of the original Monopoly) and Google (owners of the rest of the world), the Online Monopoly site has proven very popular in its short, 12-hour life. Too popular, perhaps, as, with much pomp and fanfare, the site rolled open this morning, and within hours was brought down as the crush of people signing up brought the online Monopoly City Streets server to its knees.

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Criminal Uses Google Maps to Steal Roofs Off Buildings

Forget terrorists using Google maps to find targets; criminals are already way ahead in that game, using Google Earth maps to find their next victims – even stealing the very roofs off buildings that they have found using Google maps!

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Zooming Google Maps

This week it was discovered that you can zoom Google maps by zooming Google Earth to a degree that you can actually see people’s faces, and lots of other interesting stuff. Zooming Google Maps and zooming Google Earth is possible in several areas, although not in all locations, but finding the locations in which you can zoom Google maps is half the fun. Check out these pictures of camels in Chad and secret of the famed Treasure Island boat in Las Vegas for examples!

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Warrants for Google Account Info on All Mobile Devices in a Given Area Now Being Served on and Responded to by Google

Law enforcement agencies have come up with a new tactic for investigating crimes: location-based warrants, served on Google, demanding that Google disclose Google accounts in use on all mobile devices that were in a given area at a certain time, thus giving detectives and other LEOs a pool of potential suspects and persons of interest who may have committed or have information about whatever crime they are trying to solve.

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New Google Project Tango Phone Learns and Maps Your Surroundings

Google is releasing a new device, still currently known as Project Tango. This device can be used to create 3D maps of an area such as your home. Before you get too excited about this, Project Tango is only being released to about 200 developers so that they can develop programs for this technology, but it is headed our way sooner or later.

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Why the Newly Improved Google Voice Search App Beats Siri Hands Down (and You Can Use it on Your iPhone!)

For those of you who are fed up with Siri’s lack of understanding you when ask to do a search, then the Google Voice Search app may be just what you need. When you ask Google Voice Search where the nearest taco shops around you are, unlike Siri, which will likely come back with a list of the nearest tackle shops, the Google Voice Search app will deliver your request with consistent precision.

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Google Rolls Out Backpack Cam for New Google Street View Trekker

Google is going beyond Google Street View and rolling out the backpack cam operated Google Street View Trekker, a wilderness cam that offers a wilderness view of all the corners of the world that Google Street View has previously left untouched, namely woods views and forest views. The backpack cams can be carried by hikers and campers who are on foot and already headed to spots where cars and planes cannot easily go and Google is starting with the Grand Canyon.

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Google Comes to iOS 6 Map Users’ Rescue with New Mobile Mapping for Mobile Browsers Including Safari

Google Street View is back for iOS 6 users. It seems that Google is the knight in shining armor to the whole Mapplegate fiasco that has left scores of iOS 6 users frustrated with the quality of Apple maps. The victory is small, but at this point, iOS 6 users will take any scrap thrown their way.