Google Street View cars, in addition to snagging snapshots of drug dealers and hilarious falling people, have also scooped up Internet communications from millions of unsuspecting households. This included "complete e-mail messages, instant messages, chat sessions, conversations between lovers, and Web addresses revealing sexual orientation, information that could be linked to specific street addresses," the Times reports. And the FCC has determined that it was all legal. more ›

At this point, Google Street View lets anyone with Internet access take a gander at pretty much every street in every major city in the world. BORING! Thankfully, some clever web developers have put this technology to good use, by adding a virtual machine gun to the mix. Behold Google Shoot View, which lets users "explore the beauty of the world's cities, towns and villages through 360-degree street-level imagery... and fire a M4A1 assault rifle." Here's video showing how it works (not that it's particularly complicated, you just point and shoot): more ›

Back in the day, being able to say, "Hey it's that Eyewitness News van!" after a run-in with the news vehicle was enough fodder to get through cocktail parties for the month to follow. Nowadays that sort of excitement is reserved for spotting the Google Street View vehicle, currently at the tail end of a month where it is traversing the five boroughs in order to update the nerd's eye view of New York on Google Maps. Street View is so popular that it's even spawned a website dedicated to capturing and sharing some of the more unusual images caught by the Google vehicle. While some of those pictures include being able to detect New Yorkers at specific spots around town, a concern for the local ACLU, Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo told the Times, "The spirit of Google Maps is not to tie in a specific person to a specific place." We passed along a Street View sighting by Nylon last month; the Times mentions the car's appearance on Jeremiah's Vanishing New York. While Google keeps many details of the car on the DL, the driver did tell one New Yorker that his next stop was Dubai. more ›

The truth is out there, according to Google Street View. British newspaper The Telegraph reports, "A misty shape, bearing a distinct similarity to the movie alien, was captured behind a bush next to a mysterious beam of light. The spooky snap was caught by Google image cameras in the town of Berkeley Heights in New Jersey." Now, some people think it could just be, you know, an odd light thing, but one person points out, "Whatever it is, you cannot deny that it looks exactly like ET. The head is an oblong shape and it seems to have the same long neck and fat body. There is also a beam of light right next to him, who knows, that might be an unseen spaceship trying to make contact." Totally—NJ is a recent hotbed of weird, unexplained activity. [Via NJ.com] more ›

In their quest to take over New York, Bowery Presents is opening yet another venue! Ask just about anyone (and we have) and they'll say that the Bowery Ballroom is their favorite place to see and/or play music - so who better to open even more spaces than the creators of that one? more ›