Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Google is getting ready to launch their Street View technology in the UK, and it isn’t being met with open arms. Although the mapping tool is already in place in some major US cities, folks in the UK are protesting the implementation on their turf.  Street View works by taking photos of, logically enough, streets to match maps. However the photos also include any people on those streets. This is where the problems come in for the UK folk. They feel this is a blatant disregard for privacy; and that permission should be granted by any individual photographed since the pictures are being used in a commercial regard. 

Personally, I don’t see how Google is getting away with this. As a freelance photographer myself, I know that any photographs that I take (even in a public setting) must have release forms signed by each recognizable person in the photo, if I am to be using them in any way for profit. (They even consider a person to be “recognizable” if the photo only shows the back of them for the record.) Apparently, Privacy International, a UK rights group, agrees. They believe the technology clearly breaks data protection laws. 

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The MSI Wind was officially announced back in mid-May and now it has turned up on the FCC website. Along with the traditional filing the user manual is up and available for download (PDF link), but the Wind was also opened up and showed off all of its internal glory. Hey, its always fun to see those internal images, especially when its not yours that you are messing with. Keep reading to check out a few more internal MSI Wind images.

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Some more images of the upcoming Palm Treo 800w have been making their way around the Internet, the latest however are pretty clear, well clear compared to some previous leaked images anyway, and show off both the front and back side.

The Sprint-branded Treo 800w, as if the “w” was not indication enough is clearly pictured running non other than Windows Mobile as the OS. Overall a slightly better looking Treo than previous models, but it seems that there is nothing much to get overly excited about.

Keep reading to check out the second image…

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Loved ones not happy enough with the fact that you’ve just bought them a new digital picture frame? Then perhaps you should try pre-loading up to 100 photos on it before you actually give it or ship it out to them. This is what a convenient new service from Kodak is trying to do for customers, which I would label great if only it weren’t a paid service—it costs $20, which is in addition to the price of the digital picture frame itself.

And what exactly does an additional $20 give you? Well, for starters, an SD card will come with the digital picture frame package that you order, and in it you have the option to load up to 100 snap shots for the recipients to uncontrollably laugh at.

Though I don’t think a service like this would catch on any time soon, still we tip our hats off to Kodak for thinking this up. What took you so long?

Via [Oh Gizmo!]

The recently released Photoshop Express, which is a free web-based photo editor has just added support for Flickr. With the newly added support users can now take images from their Flickr account, edit them in Photoshop Express and place the hopefully nicer images back into their Flickr photo stream for everyone to enjoy. If you are new to Photoshop Express, you can check out the recent review from our own Debbie Cook.

Via [Lifehacker]

Based on some recently surfaced images it looks like Verizon will be the latest carrier to offer the widely popular Palm Centro. We have been seeing the blue Palm Centro turn up a few times recently, the first was in those on-line Centro user guides from Palm and based on those most people speculated it would turn up as an unlocked GSM model. That turned out to be untrue as we recently saw Mexican carriers Movistar and Telcel announce its availability.

With that it would have been safe to assume that we would not be seeing it land in the US anytime soon, luckily for Verizon customers it looks like they will soon be getting the blue Centro as well. The Centro, while still unannounced is expected to be available soon.

Keep reading for a backside pic of the blue Centro…

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The next generation of the Jawbone has made its appearance, and thanks to the FCC we have a little look as to what’s in store with the future of the Jawbone. Overall it seems that the Jawbone will have some welcome improvements. Judging from the images, it looks like the Jawbone has gone on a diet, sporting a slightly less bulky appearance and according the the “preliminary” manual the Jawbone will retain the patented “Noise Shield” and “Voice Activity Sensor” that make for that great sound, or lack of when it comes to background noise. Another item of interest is what appears to be smaller pins on the charging cable, otherwise the headset still comes with an earloop and various sets of earbuds to allow for a slightly more custom fit. Keep reading to check out some more pictures of the Jawbone, and don’t forget to thank to FCC.

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Though July 4th has already passed many places still have firework displays, I mean they are a major part of an Americana summer. The question that pops up is how to capture the beautiful, colorful displays with a camera since it is dark out, the images are far away, and it can be smokey. All you really need to do is setup your camera and continually snap the shutter. You’ll get some amazing results with very little effort. The key to shooting fireworks is preparation and iBloggedThis did a nice writeup of how to get it done.

Read [iBloggedThis]