Google Street View Showing more than Expected

A few weeks ago it was a guy in Chicago waiving a gun. Now it's possible Hookers in California. It's turning into a Where's Waldo game - except it's "Who's on Street View"?

I wonder how many hours it takes to scan the Google website to find something interesting to report about. The only thing more hilarious is the fact that Google is not looking at what they are taking pictures of. There are even some people that, when they see the Google car coming, they plan a last minute improvisation. Jalopnik has a couple pictures of that.

So get out there and start scanning the street view. You never know what you are going to see....

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Bandwidth Caps used to Force more TV Watching!

Let’s see here. Time Warner Cable provides Internet and Cable Television Service. TV is very profitable for the cable company. The Internet is not because they cannot control it.

Put in place bandwidth caps and you scare people into stopping how much time they spend on the Internet for the fear of going over their bandwidth caps.

So enter Time Warner and those with the highest speed service fully employed will spend about a $1.00 every 6 minutes or so once you bust the cap.

Time Warner does not care about Bandwidth or heavy users, they simply want you to watch more TV that you pay them to watch. Get the full breakdown of Time Warners Bandwidth Caps Cost!

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Hilton Hotel Chains Internet Access and other Issues!

Over the past six months I have been traveling a great deal. I have stayed around 40 days in a variety of Hilton properties and another 20 days in Marriot hotel chains. I usually stay in Hilton properties to gain reward points.

Over the past three or four stays at Hilton properties on the east coast, I have been completely frustrated with Internet connectivity and other issues. I will obtain Hilton’s highest VIP status before the end of July which shows I have been a pretty loyal customer but my loyalty is starting to shift.

I am going to put this as nicely as possible, Internet Access has really sucked. The hotels I have been in, have not been full of geeks sucking up bandwidth they have had average occupancy with regular travelers. Here are the main issue and it applies to wired and wireless properties. Continual website time outs, which causes pages to fail to load, very slow connections last hotel had wireless clocking in at 128k up and 128k down with full signal Wi-Fi access.

I swear that the contracted Internet Service providers are blocking access to sites or slowing them to a crawl.

The issues do not stop with Internet Access. My current stay started with the room not even having a desk? Come on now, I have not been in a hotel in 10 years that did not have a desk. While they brought me a desk after I complained they did not bring me a light, ever try to work at a desk without a light. Trip to Target solved that. Guess I will have to pack a lamp from now on.

I would have changed hotels but the hotels are full this weekend. If you are going to cater to business travelers you better have “Good Internet Connectivity”, and room furnishings to support those travelers. My experience with Marriot lately has been the opposite. Great Bandwidth and a Great Business traveler experience.

From here on out I am going to start doing extensive reviews of all of the hotels I stay at. I will name the properties and do my best to make sure they are at the top of the search engine results. Piss Poor service deserves Internet attention so that other business travelers will not have to pull their hair out.

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Verizon Please bring FIOS to Hawaii! PLEASE!!

After hearing todays news of Verizon offering some insane speeds to FIOS customers in the 16 states that they have the service available in. I really just wanted to stick my head in a pillow and scream.

Can my headline be anymore obvious? Our broadband service provider Time Warner which has a Virtual Monopoly in Hawaii is getting ready to impose ridiculous bandwidth limits on us. If there was any market that is prime for the service Hawaii is it. But the problem remains that most service providers do not want to pay back haul cost to the US Mainland.

With Verizon introducing new tiers of service with FIOS customers being able to get 50/20 Mbps, and 20/20 Mbps service just completely depresses me.

While I realize that the oceans will probably freeze over before Verizon or some other brave company tries to come to Hawaii and bring this level of service one can only wish.

Well you know what they say about wishing. Wish in One hand and well you know the rest. One things for sure Verizon is not going to be implementing stupid bandwidth limits like AT&T, Time Warner & Sprint are going to!

Way to go Verizon for pushing the envelope!

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Verizon Please bring FIOS to Hawaii! PLEASE!!

After hearing todays news of Verizon offering some insane speeds to FIOS customers in the 16 states that they have the service available in. I really just wanted to stick my head in a pillow and scream.

Can my headline be anymore obvious? Our broadband service provider Time Warner which has a Virtual Monopoly in Hawaii is getting ready to impose ridiculous bandwidth limits on us. If there was any market that is prime for the service Hawaii is it. But the problem remains that most service providers do not want to pay back haul cost to the US Mainland.

With Verizon introducing new tiers of service with FIOS customers being able to get 50/20 Mbps, and 20/20 Mbps service just completely depresses me.

While I realize that the oceans will probably freeze over before Verizon or some other brave company tries to come to Hawaii and bring this level of service one can only wish.

Well you know what they say about wishing. Wish in One hand and well you know the rest. One things for sure Verizon is not going to be implementing stupid bandwidth limits like AT&T, Time Warner & Sprint are going to!

Way to go Verizon for pushing the envelope!

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Google's Trying to Help with NetNeutrality

"We're trying to develop tools, software tools...that allow people to detect what's happening with their broadband connections, so they can let [ISPs] know that they're not happy with what they're getting -- that they think certain services are being tampered with,"

This came from Google senior policy director Richard Whitt the other day. Google seems to have taken a firm stance on what ISP's are proposing to monitor. And why wouldn't they? In the end, Google would be the one that takes the hit.

People "Google" over any other search site. If you use Firefox, Opera or Safari, you have the Google search right at the top. For IE users, it's just a "Change Default" away. If you run a website with Google Adsense, chances are you are using the Google search engine to bring in a little revenue.

If ISP's start looking at what you do online, then people will stop searching for stuff. Other search sites might pop up to counter the ISP trafficking - masking information so it looks like your searching for flowers when it's really the Hulk movie. Google will loose it's 60-70 percent stature in all internet searches.

Now we all know that you should not download software, music or movies. It gets drilled in our heads on a daily basis. While Google is not trying to promote this, they know that if people need something and don't know where to get it, they will search first. Even if you do know where it is, you still will search for it.

"Feeling Lucky" is Googles' way of getting you to go through their webpage. According to statbrain.com, there are an average 91,201,253 visits per day. If people stop searching on a popular topic, imagine how that number would drop. If they feel they cannot safely go to the site, they will stop going to the site.

I am not saying this is what drives Google to help with Net Neutrality. However, if I was in the search engine market, I would definitely have a project team watching over these items. Any type of policing like this can really hurt on those who's life is online.

I don't torrent nor go to content that could raise a red flag for ISPs. Therefore I would continue to use Google on a constant basis. Even in writing this article I searched on Google about 10 to 12 times. It's really just a way of life on the internet for me. Before Google (and this dates myself), I was Metacrawling and Dog Piling.

So this brings up the question: Would your internet usage drop if you knew people were watching where you were going?

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Microsoft gives three-year reprieve to MSN Music users

Microsoft gives three-year reprieve to MSN Music users

Bowing to end user pressure, Microsoft has admitted a change of heart with regard to a decision it announced in April, to discontinue authorization for music downloaded through its old MSN Music service.

French bill would ban Internet use for illegal downloaders

French bill would ban Internet use for illegal downloaders

France's Cultural Minister Christine Albanel introduced a bill to discourage the consumption of pirated media, under the threat of revoking the perpetrator's Internet access. Yesterday, that bill was approved by the Council of Ministers.

Landrush for new Yahoo Mail addresses begins at 3 pm ET

Landrush for new Yahoo Mail addresses begins at 3 pm ET

With hundreds of millions of user names already tapped out, Yahoo has now decided to add two more domains -- ymail.com and rocketmail.com -- to its e-mail addresses for Web users.

Australians will have choice of three carriers for iPhone

Australians will have choice of three carriers for iPhone

Sources told Australian IT Thursday that Telstra will offer the iPhone 3G, making it the third carrier to do so in the country.

Sprint Nextel tries again to hang onto some 800 MHz spectrum

Sprint Nextel tries again to hang onto some 800 MHz spectrum

Late Tuesday, Sprint Nextel filed for an extension in its relinquishment of portions of the 800 MHz spectrum which will be used for public safety purposes.

Apple's iTunes passes 5 billion tracks sold

Apple's iTunes passes 5 billion tracks sold

Continuing its dominance in the music industry, iTunes has passed yet another milestone in its storied history.

First reports of a Firefox 3 vulnerability

First reports of a Firefox 3 vulnerability

A group of researchers collaborating on behalf of security firm TippingPoint has claimed it has written a report concerning a "critical vulnerability" in the just-released Firefox 3.0, and has presented that report to the Mozilla organization.

Verizon sweetens FiOS deal with speed bump

Verizon sweetens FiOS deal with speed bump

Verizon will double its speeds across its entire fiber-based Internet footprint, with promised speeds topping out at 50 Mbps.