Location guessing game for endless fun

Another company has taken Google's Street View and created something wonderful, this time it's a game. GeoGuessr is a location guessing game, perfect for travel addicts.

The game is pretty simple; you are dropped in a location on Street View and by clicking around you use the map interface in the top right corner to guess where you are, the closer your guess is to the actual location, the more points you get.

You get dropped in 5 locations each game and you can move around as much as you like.

Why not have a go for yourself here.

Google takes you back in time

Google has been working with the U.S. Geological Society and NASA to produce some amazing time lapse images of our planet.

Collating images from over 40 years of Landsat satellite footage, the search engine has produced a several timelapse videos, that start in 1984 and finish 2012.

They map out several major changes to the planet, from the Shrinking of the Amazon forest to the growth of Las Vegas. The project was also partnered with Time Magazine, for their Timelapse project.

You can read more on the Google Blog, and see the timelapse here.

Scratch-and-Sniff banner ad

From the company that brought you 'the man your man could smell like' comes a new kind of banner ad. Old Spice, who are becoming renowned for their crazy ad antics has produced the internet's first scratch-and-sniff banner advert.

Unlike Google's April Fools joke, this one won't have you pressing your nose up to the screen, instead you fill in a form and they will send you "the smell of the Internet".

Another clever and amusing campaign from the brand, promoting their Wolfthorn line of products.

Take a sniff for yourself here or see it in action over on the Onion's Sport Page.

Pass the time with this Street View Hyperlapse

If you've managed to tear yourself away from the last time-waster we shared with you, Google's 3D marble Maze, then perhaps it's time you had a play with another Google favourite; Google Street View Hyperlapse.

Developed by the team at  Teehan + Lax, a Toronto based digital utility designer, the hyperlapse works by taking images saved on Google Street View, then speeding them up.

To create your own, you choose a location, select starting and end points and then a focal point, the focal point is the icing on the cake, it will allow you to see an image as the camera approaches and passes, simply recreating a car journey as you pass a point of interest.

Watch the video from Teehan + Lax below, then have a go yourself here.

Google Street View Hyperlapse from Teehan+Lax Labs on Vimeo.

A visual exploration of Google Image Search

In her latest and ongoing project, artist Dina Kelberman has created a fantastic blog that documents patterns found on Google Image Search. 

Called 'I'm google' the project involves a seamless link between pictures found via image search, from one subject to the next based on similarities in form, composition, colour, and theme.

The result is a colourful and intriging compliation of images that links pictures of planes dropping fire retardant to orange kayak to a bridge, which all feels so natural when you go through the blog.

The Tumblr blog came out of Dina's natural tendency to spend long hours obsessing over Google Image searches, collecting photos she found beautiful and storing them by theme.

Often the images that interested her are of industrial or municipal materials or everyday photo snapshots, not those that appear to be intentionally artistic.

Follow her blog here.

Google Chrome experiment creates perfect time-waster

Google's latest innovation in time-wasting fun is the Chrome World Wide Maze, and it isn't an April Fool's joke.

Coming from Japan, it is a browser experiment that turns any Web page of your choosing into a 3-D maze. You guide a marble via a smart phone synced with your computer (and, of course, installed with Chrome for Mobile for this to work properly). The aim is to collect 'power-ups' whilst completing the maze, and avoiding falling off.

The mobile-phone-as-game-controller idea has promise and isn't much different from the Wii U's current setup. It isn't the first time Google has played with this idea previously releasing Chrome Super Sync Sports and hopefully won't be the last.

Take a look at the promotional videos below.

Superbrands of 2013

Superbrands UK has announced their annual league tables for brands in the UK.

The league tables are based upon many different factors from sector reports to blogs to public nominations, and are narrowed down to a preliminary shortlist of 1700.

Through ratings given by judges and then a public vote this number is whittled down to 500 'Superbrands'. These are then seeded in order of ratings, which results in the main 
B2C (business to customer) table and a B2B (business to business) table.

All those involved in the voting process are asked to bear in mind the following definition: ‘A Superbrand has established the finest reputation in its field. It offers customers significant emotional and/or tangible advantages over its competitors, which customers want and recognise.’

The judging panel gives each brand a rating from 1-10, but members are not allowed to vote on brands they work with, competitor brands or those they are unfamiliar with, and the lowest scoring brands are removed from the shortlist.

In addition, the voters are asked to judge brands against the following three factors: quality, reliability and distinction.

The league tables show that Google, Apple and British Airways are highly rated as both B2C and B2B brands; making the top 10 of both tables. Apple lost out to Rolex for the top spot in the consumer table, but was able to snatch it in the business table. The full tables are below, and you can read the full results here.

The B2C Superbrands are
1. Rolex
2. Apple
3. Microsoft
4. British Airways
5. Coca-Cola
6. Google
7. Hilton
8. Heathrow Airport
9. Kellogg’s
10. Mercedes-Benz
11. BMW
12. Heinz
13. BBC
14. Facebook
15. Lego
16. Disney
17. Marks & Spencer
18. BP
19. Dulux
20. Nescafé

Whilst the B2B Superbrands are:
1. Apple
2. British Airways
3. Google
4. Visa
5. Virgin Atlantic
6. IBM
7. Shell
8. Microsoft
9. London Stock Exchange Group
10. Mastercard
11. BP
12: BT
13. Bosch
14. Samsung
15. FedEx
16. Rolls-Royce Group
17. Royal Mail
18. PayPal
19. GlaxoSmithKline
20. DHL

Google Glass is here.

Recently Google gave developers the chance to get their hands on a pair of Google glasses, called Glass, or more importantly, access to the API which allows apps to interact with them. 

They also set up an oppurtunity for  "creative individuals"  to trial the glasses via a campaign on Twitter and Google+, called Project Glass.

Using the hashtag #ifihadglass they are looking for people to give a reason why they should be the first to get their hands on the glasses in 50 words or less, however the winners will still have to fork out £1,500+tax for the privilege.

To encourage people to enter Google has released a video on YouTube which shows how Glass can be used, inclduing the voice operation, which uses the line "OK glass" to begin a command; i.e. "OK glass take a picture"

The video also highlights the sort of tasks you can perform with Glass, from text messaging, video calling, photo taking to searching Google and finding a location on a map. There is also an automatic-picture-taking mode, which takes pictures at preset intervals.

The glasses are the next step in wearable technology, allowing the user to record everything they do, as well as interacting with others via video, although the headset doesn't actually have lenses in front of your eyes, just a small screen (viewable via a mirrored glass block) above and to the right of the wearer's right eye. Whilst not the only wearable technology in development (other companies including Microsoft has been developing their own versoin of Glass), the Google Glass is the one closest to completion, having first been announced last year, and featured in our blog last April.

Find out more at the Glass Website and watch the video below.

Google shopping

Google has started to roll out changes that will affect the way products appear in their search engine. Back at the end of May last year, they announced that Google Product Search was changing to Google Shopping.   

After a rollout of this service in the U.S. Google Shopping is going global; starting with the U.K., Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Japan and Australia. This rollout began on 13th February 2013.  

What this means is that when you search for a product there is an option above your results to see ‘Shopping’ results. These results are products sourced from registered websites, a service that was previously free to retailers.  

This is no longer the case. Google Shopping is a commercial model just like Adwords; retailers will bid on searches, so merchants who pay for Google Shopping listings will rank higher than those merchants who don’t.  

Ranking is based upon a combination of relevance and bid price; retailers can automatically bid on Product Targets based on user rules and move products between Product Targets to best optimise their performance. Or, retailers can just let the rule-based automated bid manager adjust their Product Target bids based on performance and their overall goals.  

Product targets allow you to select which products are eligible to show on Product Listing Ads, and they also allow you to bid differently on different sets of products. Grouping products by Product Target enables retailers to control bids across multiple products based on these qualifications, (e.g. all products characterised as “sale” should receive a bid of £0.75).  

Ensuring your product data feeds are updated frequently, are accurate and include product details such as name, price, product page URL, product image URL, description, category and more, will help with the ranking in terms of relevance.   If you’re already using the Google Product Listing service don’t worry it’s not going to end straight away. By the middle of the year though your listing will no longer be as visible as they might have once been. So act now and convert your listings to the new Google Shopping format and set up an Adwords account if you don’t already have one.  

If your site isn’t using Google products there’s still time to sign up under the free model. Google will be supporting these listings until the middle of the year so you can still take advantage of the free period. Get registered in the Merchant Centre and get your products listed.     

Google Analytics ridicules online retailing in new clips

In an attempt to demonstrate what poor website design can do to an ecommerce site Google Analytics has developed a series of film clips that replicate the online experience in real life.

We think that everyone will recognise the annoying sales tactics that online retailers now employ but surely this is the pot calling the kettle black?

The clips encourage web site owners to use Google Analytics to learn more about their customers habits. The only reason is to target products at customers and thus sell more - exactly what the clips are ridiculing.

Are we missing something here? If so, please enlighten us.

Explore the stars with Google

Explore the stars with this Chrome experiment from the Google Data Arts team - an amazing interactive exploration of space including 100,000 stars.

Start viewing the universe and zoom in to see individual solar systems and stars - click on the star to read more.

WOW!

Click here.

See how top tech site make their money

Ever wondered how the top online tech sites make money and whether they are profitable.

Then take a look at the 'How they make money' web site for all the answers.

Click here.

Google open their doors to the internet

Google has opened the doors on its data centres for the first time giving us a glimpse of where the internet lives.

These beautiful photos are quite impressive.

See many more on Colossal.

Google starts filming underwater Street View

Mapping the world is a goal of Google and to take it to the next level they have started to map what is beneath the seas as well.

They have unveiled their first  images of their "underwater Street View" covering the barrier reefs in Australia, the Philippines and Hawaii, with more to come.

You can view and interact with some of the beautiful images here or take a look at the video below.

A vision of our augmented reality future

This short film from two students suggests an almost-plausible forecast of the evolution of augmented reality, everything from cooking to dating.

Sight was created by students Daniel Lazo and Eran May-raz from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and is an eight-minute short that takes augmented reality to the next level with iridescent contact lenses that enhance the wearer’s world.

The result is interactive overlays of video games, cooking lessons, TV shows, and anything else that’s accessible on smartphones and computers

"We were inspired by many present-day apps and several sci-fi movies," says Lazo. "But most of the ideas came from us trying to visualize a world where this tech is standard, and what kind of interactions can happen in it."

See their vision of he future below or find out more on co.create:

Jubilympics musings

So has the Olympics whetted your appetite for how TV and internet can work together?   

Well that’s not just an excuse to mention London 2012 but we were thinking about what would be possible in the future with the new wave of internet TV services being announced.  Lots more content to come its seems.  

We’ve been told for quite some time it’s an era in which television and internet are converging; Google has launched Google TV and Apple TV is being relaunched apparently. BSkyB launched its NowTV service last month offering films and soon sport and entertainment, described as a brand new internet TV service from Sky.  

Are we going to want to actually watch all of this content sitting together on the living room sofa though?  Or does this new world of time-shifting, TV-on-demand and High Definition herald either an age of more arguments over the remote control. Or is this the end of watching TV together with family and friends, altogether perhaps as we chose to interact with these new services separately?

Amazing images caught by Google Street View

The 'Nine Eyes of Google Street View' is a photo project by artist Jon Rafman named after the nine lenses mounted on a Google Street View camera.

He has collected many of the strange and beautiful images that Google has capture by accident from around the world.

See more of these amazing, weird, frightening and striking images here.