Today in videos that will blow your mind: This is called a “Hyperlapse,” a time-lapse video built with a number of camera movements. This would be cool on its own (the process is generally very time-consuming), but the really awesome part is this: It was created using publicly-available Google Streetview data. There’s even a tool that helps you make your own. The results are rad in that way that few things are. I’m gonna stop talking now. Just watch.
Gorgeous use of publicly-available data!
Google Maps shows how we spent summer 2012
In the blink of an eye, summer is coming to an end. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was planning out all my summer activities as I eagerly awaited the start of long, sunny days and warm nights.
Before we approach the official end of summer on September 21, our Google Maps team thought it’d be fun to see how those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have spent the dog days. To do this, we reviewed the summer search activity on maps.google.com in several countries between the end of May and the beginning of September. Within each country, a look at some of the top-rising searches and the often-searched landmarks on Google Maps gives us a sense of how people around the world spent their summers.
"To lose a language is to lose a lot of cultural information. If we don’t preserve them, we’ll be left with much impoverished human heritage."
— Institute for Language Information and Technology Director Anthony Aristar • Speaking in supposrt of Google’s latest project, the Endangered Languages Project. ELP went live this week; it has “text, audio and video — such as people speaking or singing in the endangered languages - and bibliographic resources” of languages like Navajo and Koro. There are thousands of languages in danger of going extinct; this project aims to help preserve as many of them as possible. source (via • follow)
![theatlantic:
I’m Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web
Even if you’re generally familiar with the idea of data collection for targeted advertising, the number and variety of these data collectors will probably astonish you. Allow me to introduce the list of companies that tracked my movements on the Internet in one recent 36-hour period of standard web surfing: Acerno. Adara Media. Adblade. Adbrite. ADC Onion. Adchemy. ADiFY. AdMeld. Adtech. Aggregate Knowledge. AlmondNet. Aperture. AppNexus. Atlas. Audience Science.
And that’s just the As. My complete list includes 105 companies, and there are dozens more than that in existence. You, too, could compile your own list using Mozilla’s tool, Collusion, which records the companies that are capturing data about you, or more precisely, your digital self.
While the big names — Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. — show up in this catalog, the bulk of it is composed of smaller data and advertising businesses that form a shadow web of companies that want to help show you advertising that you’re more likely to click on and products that you’re more likely to purchase.
Read more. [Image: Shutterstock]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0689jfXmz1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
I’m Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web
Even if you’re generally familiar with the idea of data collection for targeted advertising, the number and variety of these data collectors will probably astonish you. Allow me to introduce the list of companies that tracked my movements on the Internet in one recent 36-hour period of standard web surfing: Acerno. Adara Media. Adblade. Adbrite. ADC Onion. Adchemy. ADiFY. AdMeld. Adtech. Aggregate Knowledge. AlmondNet. Aperture. AppNexus. Atlas. Audience Science.
And that’s just the As. My complete list includes 105 companies, and there are dozens more than that in existence. You, too, could compile your own list using Mozilla’s tool, Collusion, which records the companies that are capturing data about you, or more precisely, your digital self.
While the big names — Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. — show up in this catalog, the bulk of it is composed of smaller data and advertising businesses that form a shadow web of companies that want to help show you advertising that you’re more likely to click on and products that you’re more likely to purchase.
Read more. [Image: Shutterstock]
This paper mill here? Now it’s owned by Google, which has turned the Finnish factory into a massive data center. As far as parables go, you can’t make this stuff up.
(via shortformblog)
