Google Street View projektas buvo pradėtas Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose, kur įstatymai, skirti reguliuoti nuotraukų ir vaizdo įrašų darymą viešose vietose yra daug liberalesni negu Europos privatumo įstatymai. Todėl plečiant projektą Europoje, Google susidūrė su daugybe kritikos tiek iš privačių asmenų, tie iš Europos Sąjungos institucijų atstovų pusės. Europos Komisijos pateikti reikalavimai 2010 m. netgi lėmė viešus Google svarstymus dėl galimo Google Street View projekto nutraukimo Europoje. Pagrindinė priežastis, dėl kurios išsiskyrė JAV ir Europos požiūris į Google Street View projektą, slypi skirtingame istoriniame Jungtinių Amerikos Valstijų bei Europos požiūryje į laisvės ir privatumo teisių apsaugą. Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose privatumo apsaugos principą iš esmės galima apibūdinti kaip „teisę būti paliktam ramybėje“ („right to be left alone“). Tradiciškai susiklostė įsitikinimas, kad asmens teisė į privatų gyvenimą gali būti užtikrinta tik jeigu į jį nesikiš vyriausybė. Privačiam sektoriui taikomi įstatymai iš esmės tik numato, kokiu būdu turi būti renkami, tvarkomi privačių asmenų duomenys, yra numatytas draudimas informaciją apie savo klientus atskleisti trečiosioms šalis. Visa kita palikta įmonių savireguliacijai. Europos požiūris į asmens privatumo apsaugą yra skirtingas negu Jungtinėse Amerikos Valstijose. Pagrindinė vertybė, kurią siekiama apsaugoti leidžiant teisės aktus privatumo apsaugos srityje – asmens orumas. Asmuo, išeidamas į viešumą, negali... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / „Recent inventions and business methods call attention to the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person, and for securing to the individual what Judge Cooley calls the right "to be let alone" This idea of one‘s right to privacy was presented by two United States lawyers S. Warrend and L. Brandeis in 1890. The authors felt threatened by the growing number of tabloid press and new snap cameras. They were the first to publicly express the need to safeguard personal rights, such as a right to one’s image, a right to privacy, a right to be left alone. Today portable photo cameras are old news, but new technologies still seem to challenge our law systems. Such a novelty technology is definitely Google Street View, project, which enables to wander the streets of various cities all around the world without leaving the comfort if our homes. Today Street View is available on all the continents, including Antarctica. Google Street View was introduced in the United States in 2007, where law regarding privacy is not as sophisticated as the one in European Union. This was the reason why Google faced so many challenges, which were not an issue in the United States, once it launched the program in various European countries. This thesis examines two different approaches to protect personal rights, the one in the United States and the one in European Union. Research also includes examples of various cases against Street view and short history of the evolution of the right... [to full text]

Genom detta kandidatarbete undersöker och prövar vi hur censur påverkar informationsspridning på internet, genom vår prövning undersöker vi om Googles indexering kan ha en censurerande effekt på användaren, detta i form av en filterbubbla. Med hjälp av kvalitativa tolkningar vill pröva om och hur stor påverkan Googles indexering har på användaren, som stöd för vår kvalitativa undersökning har vi Handbok i Kvalitativ Analys skriven av Andreas Fejes & Robert Thornberg samt 101 Design Methods skriven av Vijay Kumar. Vi ser en möjlighet att föra en diskussion om hur i vida detta fenomen är sant, genom prövandet av Googles indexering på olika orter, vi har sedan valt att visualisera insamlade data på en webbapplikation för att skapa en redovisning av resultaten från vår prövning.

Nowadays with the rapid development of cities, understanding the human mobility patterns of subscribers is crucial for urban planning and for network infrastructure deployment. Today mobile phones are electronic devices used for analyzing the mobility patterns of the subscribers in the network, because humans in their daily activities they carry mobile phones for communication purpose. For effective utilization of network infrastructure (NI) there is a need to study on mobility patterns of subscribers.   The aim of the thesis is to simulate the geospatial Telenor mobility data (i.e. three different subscriber categorized segments) and provide a visual support in google maps using google maps API, which helps in decision making to the telecommunication operators for effective utilization of network infrastructure (NI).    In this thesis there are two major objectives. Firstly, categorize the given geospatial telenor mobility data using subscriber mobility algorithm. Secondly, providing a visual support for the obtained categorized geospatial telenor mobility data in google maps using a geovisualization simulation tool.    The algorithm used to categorize the given geospatial telenor mobility data is subscriber mobility algorithm. Where this subscriber mobility algorithm categorizes the subscribers into three different segments (i.e. infrastructure stressing, medium, friendly). For validation and confirmation purpose of subscriber mobility algorithm a tetris optimization model is used. To give visual support for each categorized segments a simulation tool is developed and it displays the visualization results in google maps using Google Maps API.   The result of this thesis are presented to the above formulated objectives. By using subscriber mobility algorithm and tetris optimization model to a geospatial data set of 33,045 subscribers only 1400 subscribers are found as infrastructure stressing subscribers. To look informative, a small region (i.e. boras region) is taken to visualize the subscribers from each of the categorized segments (i.e. infrastructure stressing, medium, friendly).    The conclusion of the thesis is that the functionality thus developed contributes to knowledge discovery from geospatial data and provides visual support for decision making to telecommunication operators. Nowadays with the rapid development of cities, understanding the human mobility patterns of subscribers is crucial for urban planning and for network infrastructure deployment. Today mobile phones are electronic devices used for analyzing the mobility patterns of the subscribers in the network, because humans in their daily activities they carry mobile phones for communication purpose. For effective utilization of network infrastructure (NI) there is a need to study on mobility patterns of subscribers.   The aim of the thesis is to simulate the geospatial Telenor mobility data (i.e. three different subscriber categorized segments) and provide a visual support in google maps using google maps API, which helps in decision making to the telecommunication operators for effective utilization of network infrastructure (NI).    In this thesis there are two major objectives. Firstly, categorize the given geospatial telenor mobility data using subscriber mobility algorithm. Secondly, providing a visual support for the obtained categorized geospatial telenor mobility data in google maps using a geovisualization simulation tool.    The algorithm used to categorize the given geospatial telenor mobility data is subscriber mobility algorithm. Where this subscriber mobility algorithm categorizes the subscribers into three different segments (i.e. infrastructure stressing, medium, friendly). For validation and confirmation purpose of subscriber mobility algorithm a tetris optimization model is used. To give visual support for each categorized segments a simulation tool is developed and it displays the visualization results in google maps using Google Maps API.   The result of this thesis are presented to the above formulated objectives. By using subscriber mobility algorithm and tetris optimization model to a geospatial data set of 33,045 subscribers only 1400 subscribers are found as infrastructure stressing subscribers. To look informative, a small region (i.e. boras region) is taken to visualize the subscribers from each of the categorized segments (i.e. infrastructure stressing, medium, friendly).    The conclusion of the thesis is that the functionality thus developed contributes to knowledge discovery from geospatial data and provides visual support for decision making to telecommunication operators.

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Daniel Andresen / The world is becoming smarter with an increase in efficiency of wireless communication resulting in an accelerated use of smart phones. Open source of Android market gave a chance to individuals to freely develop their own applications which could be run easily on Android smart phones. The purpose of this project is to develop an Android application for managing and tracking a user’s shopping information. The Smart tracker is about tracking the user's purchase of clothes and accessories. The main advantage of this Android app is that it helps to remember the size of clothing purchased. When a user shops at a retail store, he feeds the information pertaining to the fitting of the clothes purchased brand wise, whether it is a correct fit or a bit loose/tight. The data thus entered can be retrieved when he decides to make a purchase in the same store in future. This tremendously decreases the user’s shopping time and makes the experience easier as the right size is already known and hence there is no hassle of using trial rooms to see if the clothes fit. In addition to size, Smart tracker also stores the price at which the item was bought and any additional user comments along with the store location. When data pertaining to a purchased clothing item is entered, the app provides the option to append an image of the item either by capturing a picture through the smart phone’s camera or by uploading an image from the gallery. This helps the user recount the item to which the information corresponds. Another important feature is that tracking of purchases for a family can be personalized, i.e., the shopping information of each family member can be stored separately (especially for kids who can't track their own expense). Additionally, the user can also keep track of money spent on each item/brand/family member. Smart tracker also enables user to create a wish list to remember what they (or a friend) liked but didn't buy in a particular store.

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Daniel A. Andresen / The purpose of this project is to develop an Android application for Fort Riley soldiers so as to support the theme “War Fighters Supporting War Fighters by Caring for Military Training Lands”. There are four core features in this application: 1. Find a Gully 2. Report a Gully 3. View Current Weather 4. View Current Satellite Image Features are explained in brief below. 1. Find a gully In this feature based on the current location of soldier, application will display all gullies near that location using Google Maps API. Soldier can also view the gully details by tapping the gully icon. 2. Report a Gully In this feature, soldier can report a new gully i.e.; gully which is not already present on the map. This gully will be stored as unverified gully in the database. Once this gully is verified it will be changed to verified gully and it will be plotted on the Google map. 3. View Current Weather In this feature, soldier can view the current weather conditions of Fort Riley. 4. View Current Satellite Image In this feature, soldier can view the current satellite image of Fort Riley.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Don L. Kurtz / This study explores existing beliefs and often unspoken social structural arrangements related to male privileges by examining three different, but rather important, American social organizations—the NFL, U.S. military and higher education institutions. With queries from the Google image database, I analyzed images for themes from search terms of organizations thereby tapping into the consciences of society. Since a high volume of images are produced by Google Image search, a maximum of 25 results of each search term are included as potential sources of images for this study. The primary category of non-specific gender search terms of Google images are: NFL Players, U.S. soldiers, and college students. In addition, this study also utilized a subset category of gender and sexuality specific Google search terms that are related to the primary category search terms. The subset category of gender and sexuality specific Google search terms of images are: women of the NFL, NFL gay players, U.S. female soldiers, U.S. gay soldiers, college volleyball players, and fraternity life. Both the U.S. military and the NFL presented images of men preforming competitive or aggressive activities that can be defined as masculine labors. These images are reflections of the ideal masculine male playing a special role in U.S. society—the “warrior” male. Yet most images depicted U.S, soldiers in clean combat uniform with military weapons at a ready to engage in battle. This suggests that either U.S. military have some control over images that can be displayed on popular websites. Even though page ranking software gives the appearance that popular websites are the product of algorithm but there is some evidence that ranking can be manipulated by organizations. Colleges take manipulating popular websites to another level to reach their potential clients. Unlike the U.S. military and the NFL’s search terms results that presented images of men preforming masculine activities, college students’ search term results images are images of students displaying activities that show individuals in the act of being polite and pleasant to others, as well as being supportive. I suggest that the idea behind presenting images with a feminine slant is to attract the group that is most likely to attend college after high school, which is female. College websites will most likely to have staged images of study groups and professors teaching to a small group of students. The websites featured staged images of students, in which students are almost flawless in appearance, a phenomena that could only be achieved through doctoring, cosmetics, and computer retouching. This type of images is more likely to be attractive to potential students that are searching the internet for potential colleges to attend in the future. Moreover, Photoshop images of students assist colleges and universities in controlling the images they want to introduce to potential students and media. Colleges are prudent on how much to display in images of heterosexual relationships. Most staged images that displayed heteronormativity are male and female students studying within each other personal space. It would seem that images of homosexual relationships are still taboo on college websites because there are no staged images that indicated homosexual relationship between college students. I believe that these reflections are presented as organizational websites’ marketing strategies. The marketing strategies of website designers are to implement a group think mentality of those seeking information of a specific term. This action is caused by search engine page ranking software in order to organize highly interconnected websites toward one idea thus influencing a large number of potential and current customers’ decisions. In today’s technologically connected society, societal perception of what constitutes masculinity, femininity and sexuality starts with a well-designed website. The findings will perhaps have important implications for understanding to how the negative outcomes of male privileges remain entrenched in social institutions and benefit certain segments of society at the cost of others.

In the last twenty years, Google had a tremendous growth, from a small project of two PhD students to one of the most valuable companies on the globe. This growth is characterised by the versatile of the company, next to its search engine, Google explored many different value chains along the way. In this study, the value grid model is used to examine their movements. It can be stated that Google used, and uses, the paths/dimension as implied by Pil and Holweg (2006) to explore new opportunity and demand. The main reason why Google is able to do so is because of its board and management, who are innovative, and open-minded. Next to the top management is the appearance of Google in many different sectors and value chains a reason of their growth. The variety in businesses allows them to create a “Google experience”, and thus a competitive advantage in comparison with their main competitors who do not have this ability.

This dissertation shares findings from a descriptive case study that examined an experienced teacher’s facilitation of a collaborative story writing project using Google Docs in a culturally and linguistically diverse Grade 11 English class. An expanding body of research supports the use of web-based writing tools and peer collaboration for promoting writing skills development, yet there is little research examining how these practices are integrated within the broader teaching and learning process. In the present study, sociocultural theory provided a guiding framework for exploring the complexities inherent in the teaching and learning process as students worked in pairs (and one triad) to write a story about “the future” to be shared with an audience of upper level elementary students. Data sources included field notes taken during 16 class observations, pre- and post- project interviews with the teacher, on-going reflections written by the teacher, focus group interviews with the students, and the students’ collaborative projects stored in Google Docs. The findings cohered around five key themes that describe the teacher’s facilitation of the project: (1) incorporating procedural facilitators, including mentor texts and web-based writing applications; (2) adopting a socio-cognitive apprenticeship model to guide students toward higher levels of proficiency with narrative writing; (3) building a community of practice through peer collaboration, peer sharing, and peer editing; (4) enabling a positive and productive learning environment; and (5) transitioning to a new curriculum. The findings from this study also shed light on the affordances and constraints associated with the pedagogical supports, the collaborative context, and the use of Google Docs as integral components of the project. The dissertation concludes with recommendations for educators who are interested in integrating collaborative story writing projects or web-based writing tools within their classroom contexts. / Graduate

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:11:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria del Mar Reyes Valiante.pdf: 4213822 bytes, checksum: 0d6923bf0b8e50f7bec50595a7b7d798 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / From the redefinition of human experience brought by the new technologies, this research wants to discuss ways to reorganize the knowledge through interactivity with the image. For this purpose, the study will present a research showing images searchs processes performed with Google Images, and observe the relations coming from there to building knowledge. The methods of this research are based in three complementary ways of investigation: a bibliography of reference, a qualitative research and a comparative analysis. The bibliography is based in the areas of knowledge on communication, cyberspace and image, written by the authors: Heraclitus, Edgar Morin, Merlin Donald, Peter Burke, Villém Flusser, Hans Belting, A. Dondi Dondis, Rudolf Arnheim and Pierre Lévy. The qualitative research, developed and applied, is composed of multiple choice and open questions, applied to individuals of different age groups, to observe the experience of searching for images on the browser Google Images. The goal of the observation is focused on capturing the ways, in which individuals realize this process of searching and note the knowledge from this experience. To performe a comparative analysis between the objective and analytical results of the research, we made a distinction between more traditional ways of building knowledge and a different way of building knowledge in a contemporary life. More traditional ways of building the knowledge implies in temporal actions, to sum, consolidate and assimilate of ideas, widely used by science. The contemporary way of building knowledge is structured on the action between a relation of an individual and the technology on the ciberspace, therefore, associated with the speed, variability, and both connective and collective intelligence. How an action today, so simple and common as everyday use of technology as a tool to search something at Google Image is actually capable of building knowledge? If we understood knowledge, as Peter Burke defines, something that has been processed by our thoughts. This research also wants to capture and understand more about the knowledge gained with techniques and tools, like the ideia of associated a keyword to select an image / A partir da redefinição da experiência humana trazida pelas novas tecnologias, a presente pesquisa tem por objetivo discutir os modos de reorganização do conhecimento pela intermediação interativa com a imagem. Para tanto, a pesquisa apresentará como objeto de investigação as imagens resultantes dos processos de busca rea li zados com a ferramenta Google Imagens, e observará as relações dali oriun das para a construção de conhecimento. A orientação metodológica desta pesquisa se embasa em três métodos investigativos complementares: o de bibliografia de referência, o da pesquisa de campo qualitativa, e o da análise comparativa. As bases teóricas na bibliografia de referência se pautam nas áreas de conhecimento em comunicação, ciberespaço, e imagem, auxiliadas pelos autores: Heráclito, Edgar Morin, Merlin Donald, Peter Burke, Villém Flusser, Hans Belting, A. Dondi Dondis, Rudolf Arnheim e Pierre Lévy. A pesquisa de campo qualitativa, desenvolvida e aplicada, é composta por questões de múltipla escolha, em meio a questões abertas, aplicadas a indivíduos de diferentes faixas etárias, submetidos esses à experiência de busca por imagens no Google Imagens. O objetivo da observação se concentra em captar os modos pelos quais os indivíduos percebem este processo de busca a partir de palavras-chave e anotar o conhecimento dali derivado. Para viabilizar a realização da análise comparativa entre o objetivo analítico e os resultados da pesquisa é possível estabelecer uma distinção entre as formas mais tradicionais de construção de conhecimento e uma determinada forma de cons trução de conhecimento característica do momento contemporâneo. As formas mais tradicionais de construção de conhecimento implicam ação temporal mais ampla, cumu lativa, para a sedimentação e assimilação de conceitos, ainda amplamente utilizadas pela ciência no discurso científico. A forma contemporânea de construção de conhecimento é estruturada sobre a ação dos meios tecnológicos, implicando relação indivíduo-ciberespaço, portanto, associada à velocidade para a constituição de redes de inteligências conectivas e coletivas. Aspectos mais voláteis como a quantidade ampla de informações e o tem po que prima pela rapidez, constituem formas de conhecimento mais fluidas e relativizáveis. De que modo uma ação atualmente cotidiana, e aparentemente banal, como utilizar uma ferramenta tecnológica enquanto recurso de pesquisa do sistema de buscas Google Imagens é efetivamente capaz de gerar conhecimento? Entende-se por conhecimento, conforme Peter Burke, algo que foi processado ou sistematizado pelo pensamento. Considerando a problematização proposta, apresenta-se a hipótese de que a estrutura lógica do sistema de captura de imagens no meio virtual permeia o processo cognitivo humano na construção de conceitos. Essa investigação objetiva também capturar e entender mais sobre o conhecimento advindo das técnicas e ferramentas de as sociação palavra-chave; ferramenta virtual; e seleção de imagens. De outro modo, apontar para novos modelos de constituição de conceitos e formas estruturais de conheci mento, mais aplicáveis aos sistemas e meios atuais

The first chapter of the diploma thesis is a theoretical background for the following, practically oriented chapters. It discusses a brand and its importance in marketing, and also deals with brand identity, image, brand awareness, methods of determining brand value and positioning strategies. The other two parts of thesis are practical and focus directly at the brand Google. The second chapter introduces the company Google and subsequently analyzes brand attributes and its perception in the Czech Republic. It also focuses on brand awareness, its value and comprehensively evaluates a current communication strategy. The third and final chapter is devoted to an overall evaluation of the brand's position in the Czech Republic, problematic aspects and recommendations for future direction of the brand. It also includes a comparison of the brand's position abroad.