Gearfuse

Seeing the Google Street View car in your area is nothing new. But what happens when you team up with said Street View team and act out weird scenes on your street? That’s what residents of Pittsburgh, PA did when the cameras came a’flashin’ down Sampsonia Way:

On May 3rd 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 along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more…

I’ll be honest, though. I didn’t really see all that much except for the sword fight and some dude in a weird costume. Did you spot the garage rockers? Am I just going blind?

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The oft-troubled Dodgeball service is on its way out at Google but that won’t keep the company from innovating new products. Case in point: Latitude. Google Latitude is a new location-based social networking experience. You install a widget to your iGoogle page if you’re on a computer and mobile users can directly access the Latitude website. Users can see other friends’ location, update their status message (just like Facebook) and it’s all in real-time!

Privacy issues will no doubt keep some from using the Latitude service, but Google says you’ll be able to completely control your privacy. Latitude is supposed to work as of right now, but I just tried to use it on my iPhone 3G and it still says “Coming Soon” after I click the link in SMS that Google sent me. Oh well. Perhaps Google is busy working on more important things.

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Living in New York, it’s quite frustrating when you just miss a train and are forced to wait for 25 minutes until the next one shows up. The latest iPhone update apparently can tell you when the next train departs when you use Google Maps. This is a really neat feature that I praise Google for doing. The real question is, will this feature hit the T-Mobile G1 anytime soon?

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It appears Google is advertising its Maps service on the New York City subway. I found these pictures on my buddy Nick’s Tumblr, thus leading me to believe that Google would prefer you to use the Maps service over Hopstop. Too bad it’s stuck on the shuttle train.

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It’s always nice to hear about video games getting updated so often now that online gaming is the way to go. EA has announced that they are going to be releasing a large upgrade to their game Battlefield 2142 in the spring of this year. Take a look at what EA has said about the update:

Three new maps provide the setting for the Booster Pack. High up in the Alps the EU uses launch pods to launch an assault on a PAC Titan docking harbour on the map Port Bavaria. Bridge at Remagen, the scene for one of WWII’s major battles, is once again the setting for intense battles as both sides fight to secure the bridge. Finally, night has fallen when the EU launches their assault on the city in the Liberation of Leipzig.

So while that doesn’t mean too much to you if you don’t play Battlefield 2142, if you do play, you are probably pretty pumped and anxious for the release date to roll around. So just to count the updates, there will be a total of 10 new unlockables. There will be three new maps, ten more awards for you to win, two new ground vehicles (faster, better, stronger), and finally the pods will be revamped to allow your infantry units to move around the maps in a more efficient fashion. — Nik Gomez

Battlefield 2142 booster pack revealed [GamersCircle]

Are you getting bored with the current maps on one of the fastest selling video games in history? Well, Cliffy B. has good news for you. The game developer turned geek superstar has said that on January 10, there will be two new Gears of War maps released. The two new levels are to be called Raven Down and Old Bones. So what are the missions for these new spankin new maps?

Raven Down: A Raven Helicopter has gone down in the middle of a large scale battle with the omnipresent Locust Horde. Gears have taken out the Seeder and gamers join Delta Forces moving into the crash site from all angles to search for survivors.

Old Bones: In an attempt to eradicate any traces of human history and culture, the Locust Horde has emerged under Sera’s Capitaline Museums and has begun to destroy them brick by brick. Each gamer’s mission is to help the Delta Force recapture the museums before all remnants of humankind’s existence are obliterated.

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