OK, now THIS is impressive. Google drove around the Bay Area, down almost every street taking 360 degree photos and then applied it to their maps. So in addition to map view, satellite view, hybrid of those two view, you can now get Street View. Pearl's office is in Meacham Place, in a small neighborhood between Nob Hill and the Tenderloin called ... the Tender Nob.

And the 2nd building on the left is 219 Clinton Park ... home!

Parting shot: Cafe de Soleil in Lower Haight.

Tips:

• Click, hold and drag left and right to look around the street view image. Or click the arrows on the street plane to move forward and backwards.
• Press F11 to make your browser full screen.
• On the pop-up "window" with the street view image, click Full Screen (top right).
• On the left white panel, where the address is listed, click the small "<" arrow (half-way down, just to the left of the map block) to make the map wider.

Aaah, we love Google!

Aaah ... Stolichnaya! Preparing for a day in the park :-)

Had lunch at the Googleplex with a South African friend. This is just one of a few buildings on the "campus". It was really cool -- incredible food prepared by chefs, laundry services, games rooms, doctors, dentists .... all free! You can even take your dog to work. Oh yes, Larry Page walked past ... apparently he's just "one of the guys" there.

Because the campus is so big, there're 2-wheel electric scooters to get you from one building to the next. And all meetings start at 7 minutes past the hour to allow for the scooter trip. In the lobby of the main entrance, a list of near real- time words is projected onto the wall -- these are actual multilingual queries from all the Google sites around the world. It's not exactly real time so that any naughty words can be taken out.

Sorry there aren't more pics -- not allowed to take any. Time magazine did a photo essay about life at the Googleplex.

Spent 5 days in Athens at the Internet Governance Forum, a UN event to discuss issues such as freedom of expression, censorship, multilingualism, local content, etc. I was there to be on a panel, along with a few other "youngsters" (actually 20- and 30-somethings), to discuss Emerging Issues from a Youth Perspective. The panel was held at the closing ceremony, about 400 people in the audience.

I didn't see Athens at all -- just from the airport to the hotel and back. But at least the hotels were in a beautiful area outside the city, referred to as the Athenian Riviera. Here're some pics of the crew and the event:

• My room ...
  
• Abdallah (Egypt)
• Maja (Canada) and Titi (Nigeria)
• the panel and the panelists and backup crew
• "The thing is ..." (note the headsets, which play live translations of the discussion into 6 languages)
• at one stage Chile and Peru were webcasted into the discussion
• view from the hotel

Many more pics on flcikr ...

So far the Year in Cali has been interesting, fun and very different.

Here're a few pics from life in the US: http://picasaweb.google.com/stevevosloo/LifeInCali

Went to the 20th Bridge School Benefit Concert, hosted by Neil Young. His son has severe speech and physical impairments, so 20 years ago Neil and his wife founded their own school for kids like Ben Young. To raise funds for the school they held a concert.

The 20th event was amazing. A 9-hour accoustic affair, the line-up included Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band, and others.