Hot holiday deal – free 4GB Eye-Fi card with Google photo storage purchase

by Scott Carmichael on

Normally, we reserve our deals for the daily gear deal lineup, but an announcement from Google and Eye-Fi this evening is worth its own article. The two have teamed up to offer a free 4GB Eye-Fi Home Video card when you purchase 200GB or more from Picasa web albums.

The Eye-Fi card turns your camera into a Wi-Fi enabled photo device, automatically uploading your photos to a variety of online services (including Picasa of course). To top it off, the card even comes with a year of free Web Share and Geotagging features (worth $24.95).

The hot part of this deal? The 200GB of storage space costs just $50, and the card with additional services retails for $95. You do the math. To learn more about the deal, the Eye-Fi card and what Picasa web albums can do for you, check out the promotion page. Once you sign up, your card will ship within 2-4 weeks, and shipping is free.

Pompeii now on Google Street View

by Sean McLachlan on

The ancient Roman city of Pompeii is the latest addition to Google Street View.

Available from Google’s UNESCO World Heritage list of street views, it’s the latest addition to a selection of famous sites that includes Stonehenge, Prague’s historic center, and the Roman/Medieval Spanish town of Segovia.

Pompeii was a Roman provincial town near the Gulf of Naples in Italy. It was buried by a massive eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Thick layers of volcanic ash kept the town in a remarkable state of preservation. Visitors (and now web surfers) can admire buildings, statues, wall paintings, graffiti, even furniture. The most eerie bits are the plaster casts of the eruption’s many victims. Their bodies rotted away and left holes in the hardened ash. Modern archaeologists filled these with plaster to create ghostly images of men, women, and children perishing from suffocation.

Pompeii and its neighboring town of Herculaneum give an unparalleled look into the daily life of the Roman Empire. The Italian government hopes that having Pompeii on the web it will encourage more visitors. While a walk through its virtual streets is a fun way to kill time at work, it’s nothing compared with doing it for real.

See Shamu and all of SeaWorld from the comfort of your desk

by Annie Scott on

Everyone takes a lot of pictures when they go to SeaWorld, but Google Maps recently went and documented every street at SeaWorld parks in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego, as well as Orlando’s Discovery Cove and Aquatica for their Street View feature.

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“Now, no matter where you are, you can enjoy an online experience of our parks including seeing their scope and diversity while planning your vacation. The only thing missing is getting splashed by the real Shamu or taking on the best roller coasters in the world,” says Joe Couceiro, chief marketing officer for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.

Street View, which Google started using in 2007, is coming soon to more of SeaWorld’s ten parks. If you happen to be at Busch Gardens and see someone pedaling the 250 pound Trike Google uses to capture its 360 degree images, you’ll know what’s up. Watch the video above to see what it looks like!

A virtual visit to SeaWorld may not be as exciting as the real thing, but it’s a fun (and free) way to get pumped for an upcoming trip. Click here and search “SeaWorld” to zoom in on Shamu, the roller coasters, and anything you like from the comfort of your desk.

Video courtesy of SeaWorld.
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Google to immortalize Iraqi museum

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Google is taking Iraq‘s national museum global. Company CEO, Eric Schmidt, said Tuesday that Google is going to document what’s in the museum and will share photographs of the war-torn countries museum holdings with the world. The museum, which reopened this year, was torn apart after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in April 2003.

At a ceremony with Iraqi officials, Schmidt said, “The history of the beginning of – literally – civilization is made right here and is preserved here in this museum.” He continued, “I can think of no better use of our time and our resources than to make the images and ideas from your civilization, from the very beginnings of time, available to billions of people worldwide.”

Already, Google has shot around 14,000 photos of the museum and its contents. They’ll be up on the web for all to see early next year. As artifacts from the museum’s vaults and from others across Iraq become available, they will be brought into the program. Some of these items date back to the Stone Age, as well as the Babylonian, Assyrian and Islamic periods.

[Photo thanks to Brian Sayler]

Day in the Cloud goes live at 30,000 feet

by Mike Barish on

Earlier in the month, we told you about Virgin America and Google’s Day in the Cloud Event. And yesterday, I let you know that I would be on board one of the competing flights to take part in the event at 30,000 feet. And that’s exactly where I was this morning as I answered trivia questions, solved puzzles and joined thousands of people on Virgin America flights and on the ground competing to win tons of great prizes. I even tweeted for Gadling during the flight. So, what happens when technology, puzzles and flying intersect? Organized chaos and lots of fun.

I was on flight 921 from LAX to SFO. A competing flight from SFO to LAX was attempting to beat the best score on our flight. But there was one glitch: there were log-in issues when it came time to connect to the gogo in-flight wifi. It seems that there may have been problems with the company that handles the billing for the internet service. So, when a plane-load of people attempted to log into the system simultaneously, a Day in the Cloud became, temporarily, a day at the “still loading” screen.

Eventually, most of the issues were worked out. They even found the bandwidth for Good Day LA to broadcast live on the flight. Reporter Suzanne Marques covered the event and you may even spot me when you watch her segment (Hint: I’m wearing a Gadling t-shirt).

Google created the game and put together a tough contest. I was seated next to professional puzzle designer and competitor Wei-Hwa Huang, who was invited to take the challenge. He seemed to have a much easier time solving the puzzles and finding the answers in Google Apps than I did. His mental gymnastics and fast fingers resulted in the highest score of anyone on the two competing flights, which meant that everyone on Flight 921 walked away with prizes.

What can we learn from the Day in the Cloud? Well, in-flight wifi is here to stay, but, there are still some kinks to work out. For one, gogo sets the pricing for the airlines but they are considering lowering the costs to entice more users. Right now, many people find it too expensive. Also, the 3G network, while reliable, is still glitchy at times, especially if there is a rush of people logging in. However, I was impressed with the overall speed and reliability of the system once things settled down a bit and I’d defiitely utilize the service in the future.

The Day in the Cloud contest is running all day today, so you can still compete at home, in the office or on a Virgin America flight. Remember, though, that when the captain puts on the Fasten Seatbelt sign, that you need to return to your seat, buckle up and put your thinking cap on. My bad jokes, like wifi on Virgin America flights today, are free.