(Photo: Automotive.com)

Google may want to lower the bar from "don't be evil" to "don't be thoughtless" after it dispatched Street View cars to a Staten Island neighborhood devastated by Superstorm Sandy.

The New York Post reports that it witnessed a Street View car, used to collect Street View images to overlay on top of Google Maps data, driving through the New Dorp Beach neighborhood in Staten Island. Many of the homes there were destroyed by Sandy in October, and residents are working to rebuild them.

Many neighborhood residents were angered by Google's decision to dispatch the car. "They are putting us wiped out on the map!" one told the Post. Another wondered if the images would affect the value of their properties.

A Google spokesperson explained to the Post that the updated imagery will help the world understand the extent of the damage, which is probably of little comfort to the actual homeowners affected by the storm.

"The Street View team is currently redriving affected areas of New York City,” a Google spokesperson told the Post. "We hope this accurate, updated imagery that will soon be available in Google Maps will help people around the world better understand the extent of the damage and the importance of coming together as a community to aid in the recovery efforts.”

OpenWireless.org

The waters from Hurricane Sandy have rendered some telecommunications networks about as useful as the rudder on the Titanic. As city-dwellers have begun to seek an internet connection, finding a wifi hotspot has sometimes become almost as important as securing non-perishables and batteries for flashlights.

AllThingsD has collected a good deal of information on where to find wifi in areas where even strong cellphone signals may be in short supply:

In New York City, free Wi-Fi is usually available in city parks in partnership with AT&T, but since the parks are closed, and just getting close to one isn’t exactly a good idea right now what with the falling trees and all, that’s not much of an option.

There is a network of free and documented open Wi-Fi hotspots all over the city at NYCwireless.net, but the map appears not to be working. Instead I found a link to a PDF document that claims to be updated as of today, showing known hotspots around the city. Know this: Your mileage may vary.

Relevant to civic wireless needs, AllThingsD points out that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has just announced the Open Wireless Movement.

The website for the Open Wireless Movement is openwireless.org. The Open Wireless Movement wants to see a world where we can find the following in "any urban environment":

• Dozens of open networks are available at your fingertips.
• Tablets, watches, and other new devices can automatically join these networks to do nifty things.
• The societal expectation is one of sharing, and, as a result, wireless Internet is more efficient.
• The false notion that an IP address could be used as a sole identifier is finally a thing of the past, creating a privacy-enhancing norm of shared networks.

AllThingsD also noted that Boingo Wireless has a “Free AOL Wifi” deal in conjunction with–obviously–AOL, which will last all day Wednesday.