By Justin on March 10th, 2010, 10:55 pm 1 Comments

Danielle first wrote about the Gmail ad phenomenon a while ago — that is, how Google tries to place relevant ads by reading your emails and the curiosities that can arise from that technique.

So, the screenshot above is what Google thinks about an email regarding Broken City Lab, Bruce Mau, a revisited idea, and our new upcoming residency project.

Tagged: ads BCL google research summer zombie

By Justin on February 9th, 2010, 8:47 am 4 Comments

We’ve been waiting for this for a while, but Google Street View’s drive through Windsor is now up online and available.

Google’s tour took place in the midst of our 101 city workers strike, but too early into it to have (and thanks to the note from Steven) caught our Naturalized Area signs. At any rate, I’m looking forward to having the time to go through our city from seven months ago and explore.

It might also be a good way to start brainstorming for our upcoming Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope event!

So, start exploring.

[via Rob's Twitter & windsoriteDOTca]

Tagged: google internet street view Windsor

By Justin on August 13th, 2009, 10:01 am 6 Comments

“A street view image can give us a sense of what it feels like to have everything recorded, but no particular significance accorded to anything.”

In a guest post over at Art Fag City, Jon Rafman presents an excellent image essay on Google’s Street View feature and the many amazingly curious images its roving cars have caught since its inception two years ago.

Collected from blogs and his own Google Maps usage, Rafman pulls some of the most compelling images from Street View and attempts to articulate both the importance in studying this growing mass of images captured by computer-controlled cameras and the implications of us, as human beings, continuing to place meaning onto their subject matter, their composition, and their moral implications.

I was certainly taken by a number of the images, and undoubtedly by the writer’s design, I began to wonder what it means to see these very selected images pulled from their contextual frame of more streets, more people, and less interesting combinations thereof.

Consider this a must-read.

[via Art Fag City]

Tagged: essay google photography street street view

By Justin on June 24th, 2009, 10:36 pm 12 Comments

Google’s Street View service is making the rounds across Canada. There’s no schedule that I’ve been able to find yet, but they are coming to Windsor.

Anyone have any ideas about when Google is coming to town?

And maybe as a follow up, anyone have any ideas?

There’s already a short history of artists working alongside Google’s team. In 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux (pictured above), but to not at least think about doing something would certainly be a waste. How often do you think this could possibly happen?

I wonder if a well-placed, but legible, banner might be worth investigating?

[via CBC]

Tagged: google google maps maps paranoia street Windsor

By Justin on April 18th, 2009, 5:19 am 2 Comments

See the Opportunity developed by Leo Burnett Lisboa and Arc Lisbon is a Firefox plugin that automatically replaces the word crisis with the word opportunity throughout your internet travels.

Not unlike Steve Lambert’s Add-Art, this is another great use of the extensibility that is the Firefox plugin framework.

What are those plugins written in? Does anyone know how to do this? I think developing a Windsor-specific plugin could be a great summer project.

[via Scott Burnham]

Tagged: context crisis firefox google hack opportunity plugin software

By Justin on January 20th, 2009, 9:58 am 6 Comments

From what I understand, Google Maps updates once a year or so (I’d guess even less than that). So, I think now would be a good time to start on a project like this, as according to these maps, Caesar’s Windsor is still under construction.

That parking garage on the corner of Park and Pelissier would be a fantastic candidate for a project like this. I think noting to the world that “we’re still alive” is going to be increasingly important, as Windsor continues to have the highest unemployment rate in Canada.

Tagged: annotate google google earth parking garage research roof text Windsor

By Justin on December 3rd, 2008, 11:15 am 4 Comments

We spent a couple hours last night highlighting areas in Windsor that are of interest to us, either as potential research sites, potential exploration sites, or places in need of further examination. If you have anything that should be added to the map, please do so, but in order to edit it, I think you need a Google account. In particular, it would be good to build a better directory of places for rent in the downtown core. I also tried to make a screencast of the discussion and mapping, but having some difficulty getting it to export—I’ll post it when/if I can get it to work.

Photo by Darren.

Tagged: BCL google mapping research

By Justin on November 26th, 2008, 9:15 am 4 Comments

Next Tuesday night, December 2nd, at 7pm, Broken City Lab will be holding a Social Mapping Event, where we’ll use the tools Google gave us and highlight potential study areas (and broken points of interest)—the Google Map itself will be made public afterwards. We’ll also make a screencast of the process and make it available on the website afterwards.

So, if you’ve been meaning to come out to our weekly Office Hours, but haven’t had the time yet, clear your schedule for next Tuesday.

Tagged: BCL google maps office hours participation Windsor

By Danielle on October 28th, 2008, 3:02 pm 2 Comments

I am sure we have all been a little spooked by google’s prediction power. You type a gmail to a friend about India and in the side bar you get curry recipes. You exchange thoughts on stress levels cause by final exams and you get vacation deals.

With halloween coming up, I thought there was no better time to explore this spooky phenomena than now.

I just sent a rudimentary email to Justin regarding the down trotten state of Windsor. He replied, and I examined what google predicts Windsor will need.

There were a few ads regarding social work. Google knows Windsor may need some help, and google feels for us to make Windsor better, we may need to focus on social work and the social infrastructure. Spooky… The email never said anything about said social infrastructure being the primal concern.

Google also thinks that someone who is concerned with the state of Windsor may also be interested in fitness. (M test 2) I guess good fitness does equal a happier more active populace. but again, how did google know that?? this is starting to mimick the twilight zone a little too much.

Finally the one thing that is really frightening, is that google knows we should conduct regular testing for melamine. Is this an omen? Is WIndsor crumbling because we are all experiencing the toxic effects ofmelamine?

To investigate this spooky phenomena I will creat a data base that tracks what ads google predicts we may be interested in depending on the contentI place within pseudo searches and gmails.

I have never tampered with the occult before, but I know it can get me a show on A&E.

Godspeed.

Tagged: database google Windsor

By Justin on August 16th, 2008, 1:49 pm 0 Comments

Google Stockholm by Yorit.

[via]

Tagged: google image perspective search