Explore New York’s Guggenheim museum with Google’s help

When it isn’t capturing (tiny) city streets and picturesque locations, Google’s Street View team also catalogs the collections of some of the world’s most iconic cultural buildings. With help from the Google Cultural Institute, we’ve already explored the 4,500 artifacts inside the British Museum, but for its latest project, the organisation has hopped back across the Atlantic to New York and inside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The institution, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and finished in 1959, has made over 120 artworks from its collection available for viewing via the Cultural Institute. Google engineers stitched together images taken by drones, tripod and “trolley” cameras to create a 360-degree experience of the museum’s distinctive galleries, which you can explore from the comfort of your smartphone or desktop wherever you are in the world.

Via: Guggenheim, Arch Daily

Source: Google Cultural Institute

Google Play Games to lose Google+ requirement in 2016

This may be the year that some significant changes are made to Google’s Play Games service.

Google wants to eliminate permission requirements that are unnecessary and reduce the amount of times users have to sign into apps. To fix the issue, Google is thinking about moving the Games API’s to a new model. However, they’re skeptical because of the issues that could arise for developers. Hopefully this is nothing too major. Here are some of the changes taking place:

The most significant change users may realize is that Play Games will no longer require the need of a Google+ profile. The two services will no longer be connected, meaning that Play Games will provide you a name that is completely unrelated to the name on your Google+ profile. This has been complained about for quite some time and it’s great to see that Google has finally noticed it. Users may also notice that the amount of times they’re required to log-in is significantly lower. Users will only have to sign-in to the service once. Best of all, it will be done automatically when going into a new game for the first time, unless you have more than one Google account tied to your phone/tablet.

The changes will me made sometime in 2016.

Source: Android Developers Blog

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Get a custom 3″ Android from StephensDesignStudio at Etsy

Being an Android fan I have recently begun my path into accumulating Android collectibles from Dead Zebra, Inc. Dead Zebra has been making official Android figurines for quite a few years now and has a huge following.

There really isn’t much to these collectibles except they’re fun, whimsical and a great way to show your love for Android. The Dead Zebra collection is always limited in production, but you can buy one starting at $7.50 while working your way up to $10. The collectibles aren’t expensive, and the limited production runs sometimes make them highly valuable with some selling over several hundred dollars.

While I love collecting the Android collectibles from Dead Zebra, I recently came across a designer from California who makes custom Andrew Bell Android collectibles. Matthew Stephens has been a designer in the Vinyl community for almost 10 years now and has a storefront on Etsy.com. His store, StephensDesignStudio is where he offers one of a kind figurines where he gets to use his incredible artistic creativity. I ordered a custom 3″ Android for $65, just $55 more than your standard Dead Zebra Androids, and I asked him to create an AndroidGuys figurine of myself.

Within two weeks Matthew had sent me this incredible creation. He even added a Nexus phone in my hand for free! I felt a little bad because I took away his artistic creativity when I ordered my custom figurine, but you can see it is a cool way to be unique. If you are getting married, imagine getting two made of yourselves as a cake topper. Or you can ask for your favorite characters like Batman, Ironman, The Hulk, etc. and Matthew will make them for you. The possibilities are endless with what he can create.

I asked him to do another creation for me with 100% creative freedom. What he did was create the coolest Android I have ever seen based on the character “Anger” from Inside Out.

If you like collecting figurines from Dead Zebra Inc, you need to give Matthew Stephens a look at Etsy.com. All of his products are hand painted by him and are of the highest quality.

The Androids he made for me will be in my collection forever, and I appreciate his ability to make me smile through a piece of Android art. If you want a custom 3″ Android, make sure to check out StephensDesignStudio at Etsy.com.

LINK

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Google will pay the UK $185 million in back taxes

Like other tech giants, Google has been accused of using legal loopholes to avoid paying many of the taxes it owes… and it’s now tackling some of those claims head-on. Its parent company Alphabet has reached a deal with the UK to pay £130 million (about $185 million) in back taxes going as far as 2005. The settlement reflects a new, more direct approach that bases its payout on revenue from UK-based advertisers. In short, its taxes will reflect the actual size of its UK business — logical, isn’t it?

The move is no doubt welcome, although the government would argue that it’s overdue. Google made $18 billion in UK revenue just between 2006 and 2011, but it only paid $16 million in corporate tax over the same period — clearly, something was amiss. And this likely isn’t the end of the company’s trouble, either. Both other European nations and the US believe that companies like Google are using creative accounting to avoid paying taxes across the globe, so it’s possible that the search pioneer could owe a lot more when all is said and done.

[Image credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images]

Source: Bloomberg