The Free Music Archive, an organization created by WFMU, a "freeform" radio station, has officially launched into beta. So far, the site has 5,000 tracks that users can download for free. According to the site's founders, the Free Music Archive is aimed at becoming a repository of tracks, remixes, and music clips for personal consumption. Any of the songs can be added to podcasts, video shows, or a playlist. No licensing fees or royalties will be charged. The organization hopes that through free downloads, more people will buy an artist's full album. Along with a download link, each individual track page has a link to the artist's album page. That page makes the full album available for purchase. The Free Music Archive is live now.
Insurance company Geico has launched a new site to provide visitors with all the information they need about Geico-sponsored car racing teams. Dubbed GeicoGarage, the new site provides access to the company's NASCAR program. It features updated news and photos on all the teams, as well as bios, competition schedules, and downloads.
Enterprise collaboration service Socialtext recently announced that it has raised $4.5 million in a new round of financing that was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Omidyar Networks. The company's founder said in a blog post that he plans to use the funding to improve the product.
Social-banking firm SmartyPig announced Thursday that it has launched a new mobile site. The site will allow users to quickly access account information, as well as view the status of their financial goals. They can also track transaction history and transfer funds from their mobile device. The mobile site is optimized for the iPhone, but the company says that users on Android-based devices will be able to see the site just fine. The SmartyPig mobile site is live now.
A man who didn't want to be photographed for Google Street View turned the tables on the online giant and threatened to take a picture of the Street View vehicle and its driver unless it moved on, the Telegraph is reporting. It didn't, so he started snapping pictures. The driver in the Google vehicle became upset that the photographer was taking pictures of him and shouted to the man to stop taking pictures of him. He then asked for his face to be blurred. Individual faces are also blurred in Google StreetView images.
Earlier this year artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley teamed up with Google to create what might be the oddest thing caught on Street View, Google Maps' virtual man-on-the-street service. Hewlett and Kinsley managed to get a large group of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, locals together to participate in a variety of activities on-camera, including organized jogging, a sword fight, and a parade--complete with band instruments and uniforms. All the while Google's Street View car captured every moment.
The result is a few square blocks of the zaniness that will be forever preserved for others to see--that is, until Google updates the imagery with newer shots. Hewlett and Kinsley have documented the entire project on their site, along with a "making of" documentary that captures the scope of how many people were involved:
What will remain far more interesting to most are all the unintentionally peculiar things caught in Street View's cameras, which continued to be chronicled by eagle-eyed individuals. On that front, worth checking out is StreetViewGallery, which has a Reddit-like system for promoting funny found Street View shots to the top.
[via Google Blogoscoped]
Google Maps Street View (more coverage) is about the coolest mapping application I've ever seen. And the creepiest. On it, you can see people walking into adult bookstores (and you thought Google only tracked your porn habits online), license plates on cars parked in driveways, and women inadvertently (presumably) flashing their underwear at the Google cameras.
But there's a way for users to block Street View images. Just as governments have asked Google to blur the overhead images of Google Maps, you can ask Google to censor street-level photos. It's easy: just click on "Street View Help," on the offending image, and then "Report inappropriate image."
Step 1: Click Help. Step 2: Click on Report inappropriate.
You have to give a reason for the takedown request (security, privacy, indecency, or other), and it's not clear how quickly or completely Google will react to these requests, nor what will happen if Google gets overwhelmed with requests. And who's the judge of what's a legit request? Can a shop owner get an image of a competing store's location removed? Can a woman who doesn't want her cat to be visible block images? (Apparently not, according to the New York Times.)
But if you've inadvertently flashed Google, or perhaps if you don't want your spouse to see your car parked in your ex's driveway, now you know how to get the ball rolling to recover your privacy.
Step 3: Choose a complaint.
Found on Search Engine RoundTable via Digg.
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