mart.freeflux.net

Wired has an interesting piece on data scrapping websites/startups, and on dangers and profits that both scrappers and scrappees - and eventually all users - face. The topics of open vs proprietary, freedom of information vs privacy are all here. The last question is: who's the owner of users' information?

But beneath all the kumbayas, there's an awkward dance going on, an unregulated give-and-take of information for which the rules are still being worked out. And in many cases, some of the big guys that have been the source of that data are finding they can't -- or simply don't want to -- allow everyone to access their information, Web2.0 dogma be damned. The result: a generation of businesses that depend upon the continued good graces of a relatively small group of Internet powerhouses that philosophically agree information should be free -- until suddenly it isn't.

Full Wired article here.

This is way too cool. Everybody has already seen the 360 deg photos (such as this brilliant stuff by my friend Julius), where you can pan across the static screen. Here comes the next level - 360 deg pan video! You can pan it when it's playing, you can pan it when it's paused.

"Popular Mechanics takes a ride in an Immersive Media VW Beetle, one of the six cars that drives around America shooting images for Google Maps Street View. Mounted on the roof is the $45,000 Dodeca 2360 video camera, whose 11 lenses record a 360 degree field of view at 30 frames per second, sucking up as many as 200 miles of city scenes per day. The setup takes up the whole back seat and part of the front passenger seat, and is all controlled with an off-the-shelf Logitech game controller. Includes a cool interactive raw video of a drive through Manhattan."

More such videos here.

(via /.)