The 20th Cape Town GeekDinner will be taking place on Thursday 27 May at Da Capo (52 Shortmarket Street, Greenmarket Square).

As always, talks will be finalised just before the dinner, but talks that have been offered at this stage include:

• The Open and Distributed social network wave, why it’s not an easy problem to solve (by Joe Botha)
• 5 Life Changing Moments (by Jonathan Endersby)

Anyone is welcome to offer a talk for GeekDinner, so if you have something you’d like to share, add it to the wiki. But do take note of the following pointers from the GeekDinner organisers:
“We want short, interactive talks – a quick overview of a cool idea, or an interesting way of looking at things. We prefer to stay away from the how, and the technical nitty-gritty, and get an idea of the what or maybe the why. We like to keep the talks short – about five minutes, plus questions. Bring your slides on a USB stick if you have any, we will provide a laptop and a projector.”

The main list is full at this stage, but if you’d like to attend, add your name to the waiting list and keep checking whether you’ve been bumped up – there are always cancellations, right up until the evening of the dinner itself.

You can also sign up to the announcement list or follow CTGeekDinner on Twitter to be notified about the next dinner as soon as the date and venue have been confirmed.

Google has announced that street view’s latest destination will be South Africa. Soon, Toyota Prius models mounted with cameras will start their journey across cities of South Africa, taking pictures along the way. Cities to be included in the Google Maps Street View are Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Durban.

Google’s Street View is a very popular service that currently includes a number of major metropolitan areas across the globe, where cars fit with directional cameras did the job of capturing the 360 degrees view from the street. In some locations, Google also used a trike to capture images, though it is not immediately clear if they will be used in South Africa as well.

Where available, Street View can be accessed by zooming-in to the lowest level, or by using the “Pegman” icon on a highlighted street. Also, roaming about in the environmentally friendly hybrid Prius helps to give Google’s image a boost, while bringing good PR for the Prius as well. Once the images have been collected, they go through a process of being “stitched” together, and may only be available on street view after several months.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Google and supplying our fuel efficient and environmental friendly Prius for this groundbreaking project in South Africa. South Africans and international visitors alike will benefit tremendously from Street View, which is both fun and practical. We hope that people across South Africa’s major cities keep their eyes peeled for the Street View cars, and feel part of a major new initiative,” said Toyota’s Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing, Andrew Kirby.