germany

Art can sometimes gush from the strangest of springs.

So when I cast my eyes on the first images from the launch of Google Street View in Germany, I find myself more entranced than by anything that, say, Dale Chihuly might have mustered.

You see, recently Google deigned to allow Germans to remove their homes from Street View. And when the service launched today in the land of always beautiful bratwurst and suddenly attractive soccer some of the images were powerful indeed.

Almost 3 percent of German homeowners decreed that their homes should not be on Street View. Which has … Read more

Google Street View is coming to Germany in the next few weeks, but nearly 3 percent of homes will be blurred, the company said today.

Since April 2009, Germans have been able to petition the search company to have their homes blurred in Street View images, Google said in today's blog post. Initially, those folks were required to send a written letter to Google. But Google recently launched an online tool that allows Germans to ask to have their homes blurred.

Street View, which is a feature of Google Maps, offers panoramic photographs from the street level.

Out of … Read more

Hot on the heels of Google's robot cars, a team of German researchers at AutoNOMOS Labs in Berlin's Free University have upped the ante and unveiled the driverless taxi.

Imagine never arguing about the most efficient route or mentally debating the merits of tipping a driver whose ineptitude at the wheel almost killed you. Made in Germany (MIG) is an autonomous Volkswagen Passat cab you hail using an iPad app, and it eliminates the most unappealing aspect of taxis: the driver.

MIG is equipped with GPS navigation, video cameras, laser scanners, sensors and radars that it uses to … Read more

The U.S. government has widened its probe into possible bribes paid by Hewlett-Packard to help it capture a lucrative contract in Russia.

Officials in the U.S., Germany, and Russia have been investigating allegations that current and former employees of HP engaged in bribery, embezzlement, and tax evasion in connection with a business deal between Hewlett-Packard ISE GmbH, a former HP German subsidiary, and the chief public prosecutor's office in Russia, according to an SEC document filed by HP on Thursday (see Note 16 under Russia GPO and Related Investigations).

According to the allegations, the HP subsidiary paid … Read more

Turns out the Web is dead. Nope, sorry, Chris Anderson from Wired said so, and that's just the way it is. Nevertheless, we discuss. Also, the Chrome OS is about to hit the tablet world like a meteor, you're only getting half the broadband you're paying for, and Microsoft Flight Simulator is back! Darren and Rafe are so excited! Molly and Jason are also here!

On today's show, we invent a new kind of typing (booty type, QWERTY booty, that kind of thing), and look ahead to the end of the Internet as we know it. Plus, do ethics trump shareholder rights? The Mark Hurd HP scandal rolls on.

Data protection officials in Germany announced Wednesday the launch of a formal investigation into Facebook, saying they believe some of its much-maligned privacy policies are illegal. It's given Facebook until August 11 to respond formally.

The news was originally reported by the Associated Press; Facebook public policy spokesman Andrew Noyes confirmed the investigation on Wednesday. "Facebook has received a letter from the Hamburg Data Protection Officer," a statement read. "We are currently reviewing it and will readily respond to it within the given timeframe. Millions of Germans come to Facebook each day to find their friends, … Read more

Germany says nein! to Facebook spamming non-Facebook users. Also, Amazon gets a patent on the Barnes & Noble Nook dual-screen concept, and Netflix begins closing the window on when new movies are available for streaming. Special guest: Darren Kitchen of Hak5!

Can robots tell us about our distant past? German researchers think they can help us understand how we evolved language skills. Engineers at the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory at Humboldt University in Berlin are creating humanoids that will be able to form their own language to communicate.

Crafted by industrial design firm Frackenpohl Poulheim and manufactured with the help of plastics company Bayer MaterialScience, Myon is part of a European project called Artificial Language Evolution on Autonomous Robots, or ALEAR.

The project aims to get robots to "self-organize rich conceptual frameworks and communication systems with similar features as those found … Read more