Technologies

Why You Might Want to Blur Your Home on Google Maps

It’s about your privacy.

Google Maps’ Street View lets you enter nearly any address, like that of a restaurant or concert venue, and check out a recent image of that location, captured by one of the Google Street View cars you’ll occasionally see roaming about. The feature is useful for knowing what building or landmark to look for when you arrive, in case the entrance is hard to find or you want to know where the best place to park is, but Street View also makes it easier for stalkers or criminals to plan their way inside your home.

Street View gives anyone a free ticket to examine your home over the internet — maybe they want to look for any cameras or find a side window to pry open. And sure, anyone can walk or drive by your home and do this in person, but Google Maps makes this process much simpler. Anyone with a phone or computer can do it.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to blur your home on Google Maps and help prevent others from seeing too many details of where you live. Here’s how to do it.

For more, here’s how to discover the past with Google Maps and how Google Maps can help you figure out dinner.

How to blur your home on Google Maps

You’ll need to do this on your computer, as the blurring feature isn’t available in the Google Maps application on iOS or Android, and while it is accessible through the web browser on your mobile device, it’s rather difficult to use, so use a trusted web browser on your Mac or PC instead.

At maps.google.com, enter your home address in the search bar at the top-right, hit return, then click the photo of your home that appears.

Address in Google Maps — Click on the photo of your home, right above your address, on the top-left part of the page.

Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Next, you’ll see the Street View of your location. Click Report a Problem at the bottom-right. The text is super tiny, but it’s there.

Street View of a location in Google Maps — This is the Street View of your location.

Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Now, it’s up to you to choose what you want Google to blur. Using your mouse, adjust the view of the image so that your home and anything else you want to blur is all contained within the red and black box. Use your cursor to move around and the plus and minus buttons to zoom in and out, respectively.

Blur options for Google Maps — If you want to blur more than what’s in the black/red box, use the + button to zoom in.

Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Once you’re finished adjusting the image, choose what you’re requesting to blur underneath:

A face.
Your home.
Your car/license plate.
A different object.

You’ll be asked to give a bit more detail as to what exactly you want blurred, in case the image is busy with several cars, people and other objects.

Also, be completely sure that what you select is exactly what you want blurred. Google mentions that once you blur something on Street View, it’s blurred permanently.

Finally, enter your email (this is required), verify the captcha (if needed) and click Submit.

Submit option for blurring in Google Maps — You’re required to provide additional information about what you want to blur, so be thorough.

Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

You should then receive an email from Google that says it’ll review your report and get back to you once the request is either denied or approved. You may receive more emails from Google asking for more information regarding your request. Google doesn’t offer any information on how long your request will take to process, so just keep an eye out for any further emails.

For more, here’s how Google Maps can help you avoid crowded public transit.

Technologies

How Much Energy Do Your AI Prompts Consume? Google Just Shared Its Gemini Numbers

Current measurements of AI’s impact aren’t telling the full story. Google has offered a new method it hopes to standardize.

The explosion of AI tools worldwide is increasing exponentially, but the companies that make these tools often don’t express their environmental impact in detail.

Google has just released a technical paper detailing measurements for energy, emissions and water use of its Gemini AI prompts. The impact of a single prompt is, it says, minuscule. According to its methodology for measuring AI’s impact, a single prompt’s energy consumption is about the equivalent of watching TV for less than 9 seconds.

That’s quite in a single serving, except when you consider the variety of chatbots being used, with billions of prompts easily sent every day.

On the more positive side of progress, the technology behind these prompts has become more efficient. Over the past 12 months, the energy of a single Gemini text prompt has been reduced by 33x, and the total carbon footprint has been reduced by 44x, Google says. According to the tech giant, that’s not unsubstantial, and it’s a momentum that will need to be maintained going forward.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for further comment.

Google’s calculation method considers much more

The typical calculation for the energy cost of an AI prompt ends at the active machine it’s been run on, which shows a much smaller per-prompt footprint. But Google’s method for measuring the impact of a prompt purportedly spans a much wider range of factors that paint a clearer picture, including full-system dynamic power, idle machines, data center overhead, water consumption and more.

For comparison, it’s estimated that only using the active TPU and GPU consumption, a single Gemini prompt uses 0.10 watt-hours of energy, 0.12 milliliters of water and emits 0.02 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is a promising number, but Google’s wider methodology tells a different story. With more considerations in place, a Gemini text prompt uses 0.24Wh of energy, 0.26mL of water and emits 0.03 gCO2e — around double across the board.

Will new efficiencies keep up with AI use?

Through a multilayered series of efficiencies, Google is continually working on ways to make AI’s impact less burdensome, from more efficient model architectures and data centers to custom hardware.

With smarter models, use cases and tools emerging daily, those efficiencies will be critical as we immerse ourselves deeper in this AI reality.

For more, you should stop using ChatGPT for these things.

Technologies

Vivo Launches Mixed-Reality Headset, an Apple Vision Pro Competitor

Vivo Vision has many of the same design elements as Apple’s VR/AR, but is only available in China, for now.

Look-alikes of Apple products often pop up in China, and mixed-reality headsets have now joined the party. Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has introduced the Vivo Vision, a headset mixing both AR and VR, and it bears many similarities to the Apple Vision Pro.

The company announced the Vivo Vision Discovery Edition at its 30th anniversary celebration in Dongguan, China, saying it’s «the first MR product developed by a smartphone manufacturer in China, positioning Vivo as the first Chinese company to operate within both the smartphone and MR product sectors.»

The Vivo Vision, currently only an in-store experience in mainland China, has a curved glass visor, an aluminum external battery pack and downward-pointing cameras like the Vision Pro. But it also has some differences — an 180-degree panoramic field of view and a much lighter weight at 398 grams (versus the Vision Pro’s 650 grams).

CNET asked Vivo if it plans to sell the Vivo Vision to non-China markets, but the company did not immediately respond.

The Vivo Vision runs on OriginOS Vision, Vivo’s mixed-reality operating system. It supports 3D video recording, spatial photos and audio, and a 120-foot cinematic screen experience.

The starting cost in China will be $1,395 (converted to US dollars), compared to the Vision Pro at $3,500.

Even if the Vivo Vision came to the consumer market in the US, it might not matter much to Apple’s bottom line. The Vision Pro hasn’t been a big seller, likely because of the price tag. Still, the headset market is expected to grow quickly over the next several years, and Apple is already working on new versions of the Vision Pro, including one that’s more affordable than the original.

Jon Rettinger, a tech influencer with more than 1.65 million YouTube subscribers, says he’s not overly enthusiastic about VR/AR just yet. «It’s heavy, invasive and without a must-have use case,» Rettinger told CNET. «If the technology can go from goggles to glasses, I think we’ll see a significant rise. But if the current form factors stay, it will always be niche.

The YouTuber loves that the technology exists, but still doesn’t use it. «The honeymoon wore off. Aside from some gaming and content viewing, it’s still cumbersome, and I tend to go back to my laptop,» he said.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Aug. 22 #537

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Aug. 22, No. 537.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun theme, especially if you have ever read Agatha Christie books or played a few rounds of the board game Clue. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Whodunit?

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Solve the crime

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

REST, POEM, SOUR, SOURS, DIAL, HOLE, VOLE, ROLE, ROLES, VOLES, HOLES, DEEM, GAIT, SAME

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

HEIR, LOVER, RIVAL, SPOUSE, STRANGER, DETECTIVE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is ITSAMYSTERY, with all the answers being characters common to mystery novels. To find it, look for the I that’s the farthest left letter on the top row, and wind down.