The Week in Your Words: Putting the ogle in Google

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 3 Apr 2009 at 14:55

In a week that saw the locals storm the gates of castle Google, Encarta bow to the inevitable, and Firefox become the enemy, we take a look back to see what you've been saying.

Angry villagers run Google Street View out of town

Angry villagers are a rare breed. After chasing the Street View car out of their villageto preserve their privacy, the residents of Broughton in Buckinghamshire then happily blabbed the fact to every national newspaper in the country - ensuring that a good 20 million people know where they live and that it's "affluent". Broughton welcomes careful burglars.

"Just to play Devil's advocate: does no one else have any concerns about the collation of street data in one place?" says benfrain. "Streetview shows the elevation and height of walls, arguably whether buildings and streets are heavily used, whether cars park routinely in certain areas (for car bombs) or not. You can't get that level of detail from a map."

Location of car bombs? Isn't that what the Ordnance Survey Map is for...

Thankfully, our resident criminal mastermind professorF was on hand to redress any fears. "I'd imagine that any criminal worth their salt would take a look in person prior to any nefarious activity to see if anything changed since the Google Street View was taken. I know I would."

All of which is mere preamble for the genius that was Amnesia10's contribution: "Here is the scene from the Street view cam."

Wikipedia brings end of Encarta

We'll miss Encarta. It was the encyclopaedia for people who didn't really like reading. Illustrations, film and audio clips were Encarta's stock-in-trade and that suited us just fine. If Britannica is the Stephen Hawking of encylopaedias and Wikipedia the pub quiz captain, then Encarta was Big Bird. Nothing wrong with that, we'd much rather have the Muppets presenting the articles than writing them.

"I remember using Encarta," says akoli "It was an interesting program filled with lots of multimedia videos and photos but it has never really moved on from there. Who is going to pay good money for something when you can find out twice as much with a quick Google Search?"

Only those people looking for the truth, we'd imagine. The astoundingly monikered Ip_pmjm044d1322b clearly wasn't one of those: "Frankly I thought Encarta died years ago. Who on earth is still using it? We are so lucky to have a resource like Wikipedia and the web at our fingertips. Just look up say DNA and there is a clear, full(ish) and detailed explanation, which is up to date too. People don't realise how lucky they are now."

Not so, claims drwarner72. "Whilst I haven't used Encarta for years, Wikipedia cannot possibly be used as a replacement for it or any other 'proper' encyclopaedia. Wikipedia is just so inaccurate, I don't trust anything it says anymore. Damn, it says some people are dead when they aren't!"

So does OK magazine. Next you'll be telling us that's not a 100% accurate tome either.