Human–computer interaction

Google has launched its Street View map service in Greece after winning approval from the privacy authority that blocked the ground-level map application five years ago.

Company officials said the service went live Thursday after «extensive and detailed» negotiations with the country's Data Protection Authority, which last year lifted objections made to the project in 2009.

Google launched a service which Europeans could use to remove from search results information about themselves that they consider irrelevant or unnecessary.

A form available on its website could now be used by people who wish to submit such requests.

Google began late Thursday letting people in Europe formally request to be "forgotten" by the world's leading Internet search service.
      
The move came just weeks after the European Court of Justice ruled that individuals have the right to have links to information about them deleted from searches under certain circumstances, such as it being outdated or inaccurate.

Google has started building its own self-driving car that it hopes to begin testing as early as this year.
      
"They won't have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal... because they don't need them. Our software and sensors do all the work,"  the company said in a blog post Tuesday night.
      

The European Union Court of Justice has ruled in favor of the so-called "right to be forgotten", in which outdated data on the internet should be erased upon request.

The case was launched upon the complaint of a Spanish man whose repossessed home appeared on Google's search engine under an auction notice, infringing his privacy, the BBC reported.

The number of government demands for personal data in Google accounts has risen by 120% in the last four years. 

In the second half of 2013 governments across the world made 27 000 requests for 42 000 accounts, according to the Google Transparency Report, which the company releases each six months since 2009. 

Net advertising revenue in Bulgaria amounted to BGN 303 M in 2013, according to Krasimir Gergov, Chair of the Bulgarian Association of Communication Agencies (BACA).