The Olympics kick off this weekend and as such the world of technology, and pretty much everything else is also taking a back seat for the worlds athletes to show what they are capable of.

Google views your street

Thai youth needs boundaries

Thailand dropping GTA

Monday 3rd August 2008 - 8th August 2008

Google views your street

After being available in The US for a few years, and recently being launched in other countries, the Google Maps feature, Street View was launched in Australia this week.

Street View allows you to see a location from the ground level as opposed to only seeing the area from the sky.

The photos used in the Australian version of Street View are from early this year and late last year.

Due to privacy concerns Google allows people to request their house, face or car number plate to be taken off the site.

Source ZDNet

Comment

Privacy concerns that people have are over rated. The pictures that have been taken are nothing that could be considered intrusive. the photos on Street View are taken from a moving car traveling along the street. As such they can not view into your house, or back yards.

Having tested the service, a few streets are missing in some areas, and in some places Google has incorrectly marked photos as streets they are not.

Before you consider complaining and requesting photos be taken off the service or be altered, please check the site and see what photos they have.

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Thai youth needs boundaries

An 18 year old teenager has robbed and killed a taxi driver in Thailand after playing Grand Theft Auto 4.

Police have said the teenager was not affected by any mental problems, however he wanted to see if real life was as easy as the game.

The teenager said he didn't want to kill the taxi driver, however ended up fatally injuring the driver after he fought back during the robbery.

The Thai teenager now faces death by lethal injection.

Source Reuters

Comment

While both the police and the parents of the teenager have said the youth was not mentally unstable and was usually polite and diligent, there must have been some kind of problem for the youth for him to even consider the possibility of real life being any where near to what a game represents.

While GTA4 is targeted at people 18 and over, people should also take into account the mental state prior and after purchase of violent games.

As somebody who has played all the games in the Grand Theft Auto series, I can not understand how any sane person could ever consider the games any other than fiction.

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Thailand dropping GTA

A video game distributor in Thailand has decided to drop the Grand Theft Auto 4 game after the murder of a taxi driver by a teenager this week.

New Era Interactive Media has told stores it stocks to pull the video game from the shelves and use other games to fill the holes as a way to make sure there are no other incidents like this week.

"We are also urging video game arcades to pull the games from service," Sakchai Chotikachinda, sales and marketing director of New Era Interactive Media, told Reuters.

Source Reuters

Comment

As is the case around the world, Thailand is now looking into how it rates video games for sale in the country.

With the police and parents of the 18 year old saying the youth had no mental problems, pulling games off shelves or changing the way games are rated will not save people with hidden problems from problems from becoming obsessive with the world they become absorbed in.

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