Google Street View Lets You Take 'Virtual Walk' Through Egyptian Relics

Google has brought its street view technology to one of the world's most iconic archaeological sites, the company announced Wednesday.

"Now the Egypt of your imagination can be brought to life with new Street View imagery in Google Maps, and you can take a virtual walk among the stunning monuments and rich history of this ancient civilization," Google said in a statement.

Users can explore the Pyramids of Giza, the sphinx and many other surviving relics of the ancient world. Sites now visible with the mapping technology also include the Giza Necropolis, one of the world's most famous archaeological sites, as well as the ancient burial ground of Saqqara.

Google Maps Street View program manager Amita Khattri told Time the project took 10 days to photograph, and the Street View team ran into particular challenges with the Egyptian summer.

“It was a unique experience for us as well, because the equipment really got tested in the heat," she said.

This is the most recent project for Google, which recently launched in Indonesia several weeks ago.
Google Street View first began in 2007, and is now available in more than 59 countries worldwide.

Drop into the map to explore the new features.

Google Offers Early Stage Startups $100,000 In Cloud Platform Credits For 1 Year

If you are an early stage startup, Google wants to give you $100,000 in Cloud Platform credits for one year so you can host your applications on its servers (and not on AWS or Azure). This offer is part of Google’s Cloud Platform for Startups initiative, a new program the company’s senior vice president for its technical infrastructure Urs Hölzle announced at the Google for Entrepreneurs Global Partner Summit today.

Google Offers Early Stage Startups $100,000 In Cloud Platform Credits For 1 Year

To be eligible for this program, startups must be less than five years old and have less than $500,000 in annual revenue. They must also be part of one of 50 accelerator programs, incubators and VC funds around the world that Google has already partnered with (Google plans to add more partners over time and those organizations that aren’t part of this first batch can contact Google to join this program).

Among these partners are the likes of Y Combinator, 500 Startups, SV Angel, Techstars, Code for America, Chicago’s 1871, and (unsurprisingly) Google’s own Google Ventures. Google is also working with Gaza Sky Geeks, the first accelerator program in Gaza, and many other organizations around the world.

“This offer supports our core Google Cloud Platform philosophy: we want developers to focus on code; not worry about managing infrastructure,” writes Google’s Julie Pearl today. “Starting today, startups can take advantage of this offer and begin using the same infrastructure platform we use at Google.”

In addition to the Cloud Platform credits, startups will also be able to schedule office hours for 1:1 technical architecture reviews and they will get access to 24/7 phone support.

Just like its main competitors, Google has always offered a (limited) free tier for startups that wanted to get started on its platform. Since late 2013, AWS has also been offering its “Portfolio Package” to accelerators, incubators and funds through AWS Activate — a program that is quite similar to Google’s new initiative. Amazon offers startups in this program up to $15,000 in AWS credits. WithBizSpark, Microsoft has also long offered a comparable program for early stage startups, though its benefits also often include. Compared to Google, however, the $150 monthly Azure credits startups get through Google’s program looks a bit small.

In some way, though, Google’s $100,000 credit for one year is a bit of a marketing gimmick. Most startups won’t need anywhere close to this many resources to get going unless they either become extremely popular (Google loves to note that Snapchat uses its services) or plan to use Google’s servers for very heavy computations (I assume Google would ban a startup that would use these credits for Bitcoin mining…).

Google is clearly interested in taking some mind share from the likes of AWS, which for most startups is still the go-to cloud service. Chances are, this program will help it to get more of these companies on board and once they are on Google’s servers, they will likely stay there as they grow (and get to the point where they have to start paying their bills).

DeveloperAuction Rebrands As Hired.com To Make Recruiting Suck Less For Everyone

DeveloperAuction, which launched in 2012 to revolutionize the engineer recruiting market, is today rebranding itself as Hired.com, and putting its sights on a much larger target covering designers, data scientists and more.
The idea is pretty straightforward: companies can bid on candidates, who then get to see the company’s offer before accepting or declining an interview; companies must honor their highest offer to a particular candidate, and the potential employees are not bound to accept the highest offer (or any offer). DeveloperAuction takes a fee from companies, and offers a bonus to employees once the candidate accepts an offer.
A year ago, co-founder Matt Mickiewicz told me that DeveloperAuction was the “first transparent marketplace for recruitment.” Now, Mickiewicz tells me, “We see an opportunity that’s much bigger than developers and engineers.”
Mickiewicz says DeveloperAuction was too limited, as it implied that the site was just for engineers, and notes that the auction part of the site had negative connotations, as many employers thought that the highest bid won the talents of the best engineers. Mickiewicz has told me on multiple occasions that a majority of engineers do not accept the highest monetary offer that they receive, but evaluate offers on a variety of factors.
He explains that the company spent six months searching for a new name once it realized that DeveloperAuction was too limiting. The company hired an external consulting company and almost pulled the trigger on a few deals before they fell apart at the last minute. Mickiewicz notes that the Hired.com domain was “the most expensive option” for the company, but ultimately conveys the company’s mission the best.
The company raised $2.7 million from NEA, Sierra Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Google Ventures, Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC, and John Suliman’s Step Partners in March. Mickiewicz says most of that money is “still in the bank.” He added that the company, which is now up to 22 employees, is on a multi-million dollar run-rate for 2013, but declined to discuss further specifics on the company’s financial situation.
Recruiting is consistently a challenge for tech companies, from Apple and Google to the youngest startups. I’ve seen a wide variety of solutions to the issue, but none as impressive as DeveloperAuction. And with the company’s new name, it can take on more than Silicon Valley recruiters, as DeveloperAuction seeks to disrupt the worldwide recruiting model for every industry.
Earlier this summer, the company opened its auctions to designers and interns. Mickiewicz tells me that shortly after the company opened to data scientists a few months ago, he hired a data scientist off DeveloperAuction to work at DeveloperAuction.
DeveloperAuction has added over 250 companies since May, bringing the total approved employers using DeveloperAuction to over 560. The company is still approving employee applications by hand, and whittled down over 3,000 applications to 200 engineers for the platform last month.