The Amazon is one of the most remote and biodiverse areas of the world, which few people will ever have the chance to visit. But now it’s views will be open to one and all from your own computer screen, as Google’s StreetView service has started to photograph the Amazon. Google’s team of surveyors are traveling the Brazilian state of Amazonas by boat and bicycle, with their cameras to collect the panoramic images of the forests and isolated villages there.
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Google has agreed to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 bn which will instantly give it access to 17,500 patents and 7,500 patent applications with which to defend its Android operating system. Many observers have seen Android as being vulnerable to patent attacks in the current spate of patent actions that is increasingly common place within the smartphone and mobile phone industry. The intellectual property war in the technology field is pushing companies like Google into a patent-buying spree.
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In the aftermath of the London riots that spread throughout the country like wildfire, the police have started putting up photographs of rioters on Flickr asking for help in identifying the rioters and looters, and newspapers have also started publishing photographs for the same purpose. But in a move that is going to place facial recognition software technology firmly in the limelight, a group of private citizens have taken it upon themselves to give the police a helping hand.
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Facebook is launching its foray into the mobile instant messaging market. Facebook Messenger is the social media giant’s standalone app for iPhone and Android devices which blends one-to-one messaging and group messaging in one app. It is similar to BlackBerry’s Messenger service. It is now in direct competition with other apps which are specific to their chosen platform: Research In Motion’s BBM, Apple’s iMessage, and the Google+ messaging facility, Huddle.
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