As individuals all over are stocking up on beach apparel, sandals and summer flicks, technology innovators all over the space were charging forward with releases this week, demonstrating that they, too, have caught a strain of spring fever.
Kicking off the week, Google (News - Alert) unveiled a new business photo program, designed to give users an inside look at the interior of any facility without having to show up in person. You know that new restaurant your best friend swears that you will like? Or what about that new office building you want to rent? Well now, you don’t have to take others’ words that you will like the ambiance as Google’s latest innovation allows you to view 360-degree panoramic view of an interior of a business that has been uploaded to Google.
When a user searches Google Maps for a particular business in their area, a list of panoramic views will be presented via Google Places on the top of the results page. Users, or those that have a registered Google Places page, are then allowed to enjoy a virtual, interactive tour of any business that signs up for the service to see if the location fits their eye.
Also this week, get ready to say goodbye to the personal PC as reports indicate that by 2014 the personal cloud will surpass the PC as the central focus of consumers’ digital lives by 2014, according to IT research firm, Gartner (News - Alert), Inc. This is largely driven by the rapid uptick of the use of applications and services which presents a new model for how people store, synchronize, share and stream content.
And even though there exists much confusion about the nature of the personal cloud, it will overlap consumer, business and government domains, according to Michael Gartenberg, research director at Gartner.
“The personal cloud isn’t a single offering, but a reflection of consumers’ expectation that their content will flow seamlessly as the result of a combination of services that overlap the consumer, business and government domains,” Gartenberg explained. “It encompasses content storage, synchronization, sharing and streaming, as well as context-based access.”
In other news, in case you haven’t heard this week, Yahoo’s CEO has been the subject of some pretty nasty scuttlebutt as of late after CEO Scott Thompson was found to reportedly pad his educational background of his resume. This week, Thompson apologized for the action.
Thompson’s short tenure as chief executive first came under scrutiny after hedge fund Third Point, a major stakeholder in Yahoo aiming to gain seats on its board, revealed that Thompson incorrectly claimed a bachelor of computer science degree that he never received.
In both Thompson’s bio on Yahoo's site and on his previous employer, eBay (News - Alert), Thompson claimed to have received bachelor's degrees in both accounting and computer science from Stonehill College, in Massachusetts. However, Third Point CEO Dan Loeb, who is currently embroiled in a proxy fight with Yahoo, revealed that Thompson only holds a degree in accounting, and that Stonehill only offered a single course in computer science, not a separate degree program. For more, click here.
Check back here next week for more news from the tech space!