Hasta La Gadget!

Modern stealth action video games like the Metal Gear Solid series and the new Deus Ex often have a radar feature that lets you see enemies and cameras, among other things. New media artist Sander Veenhof made a similar app for Google Glass. He calls it Watch Your Privacy, and it uses open data to locate nearby surveillance cameras. That includes the mobile kind, i.e. other Glass users.

Watch Your Privacy uses a database of surveillance cameras called OSMcamera. Sander didn’t elaborate how his app spots other Glass users, just that it maps “the latitute/longitude coordinates of each Google Glass user.”

The app marks both cameras and users with a triangular warning sign along with a number, their distance from you and their coordinates. In addition, it marks the approximate coverage area of surveillance cameras. You can either have the area appear mark them as non-safe (red) or safe zones (green). If you want to stay hidden like Solid Snake, you’ll want to mark those areas red. If you feel more comfortable in a place with security cameras then you’ll mark their coverage areas green.

Glass users, crawl to your browser and head to Sander’s website to download his app.

[via Prosthetic Knowledge]

This April Fools’ Day, the elite leaders of Google Maps are looking for the very best, like no one ever was. They need your help to catch Pokémon scattered all over the world. The winner gets a chance to officially become Google’s Pokémon Master. Or not. But it can’t hurt to try.

To join the fun, all you have to do is download and open the latest version of Google Maps on your iOS or Android device. Tap the search bar and you should see the words “Press Start” with a Pokéball icon right below the search text field. Tap the words and you’ll launch straight into hunting.

To hunt, just scroll through the map until you find a Pokémon and then tap it. There’s even a Pokédex to make it easier to see how many more you have to catch. The last time I checked there were 150 creatures on the list, coming from the different games in the series.

Will Google really hire the winner? Probably not. Then again we just saw a flashy commercial that must have cost a pretty penny to create. Google can easily afford your services, even just for a day.

[via Google]

Do you feel like having some delicious cookies today? Since I’m going with the assumption that everyone wants to do good inherently, then you might want to reach for your phone every time you want a cookie – just make sure you install the Girl Scout Cookie Finder app first.

As the name implies, it’s an app that helps you track down locations and dates that Girl Scouts will be selling cookies, by you can get your fill of the delicious treats. You’ll also find the app useful if you’re the gifting type, because you can just give away these boxes of cookie goodness to friends and family, and the happiness will be two-fold: the recipients will be happy to get some sweet treats, and the Girl Scouts will be ever-so-thankful for your support.

Since there are a couple of different companies that produce Girl Scout cookies, you’ll want to go with the official Girl Scout cookie app, which covers them all.

[via Incredible Things]

Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc is touting what it thinks could be the future of shipping on the high seas. The company has been working on a design for drone ships that ditch the crew so they can carry more cargo and cut expenses. The ships would be controlled by sensors and a captain that sits in a remote VR cockpit on land that shows them what they would see standing on the deck of a ship.

The firm says that the drone ships would not only be cheaper to operate, but they would be safer and less polluting as well. The idea is to get rid of the bridge and all systems that are needed to support a living crew and replace that with more space for cargo.

By eliminating the crew on the ships, the company thinks it could cut 40% of the costs of a cargo shipment right away. The drone ship would have redundant systems like an aircraft and would be able to continually monitor itself to improve efficiency. Supporters of human-crewed vessels say that nothing can replace the eyes and thought processes of humans aboard a ship in the ocean.

The remote-controlled ships could be ready to sail the seas in the next decade.

[via Bloomberg]

I’ve always found it curious that the entire city of Venice, Italy is built on the water. The way to get around much of the city is by boat, and the main thoroughfares are canals between different buildings and walkways. As close as I’ve ever gotten to exploring Venice, Italy is watching James Bond chase bad guys around the city.

If you want to explore Venice, but can’t afford the airfare, Google has announced that its Street View imagery is now available for all of the canals and walkways of Venice. To grab the Street View imagery, Google workers used their Trekker Backpack and covered 265 miles on foot and 114 miles by boat.

Google says that it covered all the major attractions in Venice and also covered some of the lesser-known features including the synagogue of the first Jewish Ghetto and the Devil’s Bridge on Torcello Island. Google has even offered up a behind-the-scenes video showing how it captured some of its Street New footage in Venice. This is way cooler than those Street View images of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider.

[via Laughing Squid]