My Other Trial Posts

• The MP3 Player Turns 10, Still Listens to Boyz II Men Occasionally
• Rolly Ready For US; I Still Don't Get It
• Napster Sheds It's DRM, Runs Around Nude
• Fizz Cup Is Bringing Ice-Cream + Soda Back
• Firefox RC 1 Hits The Wires
• I'm Afraid I Can't Let You Apply That Wallpaper, Dave
• Tenori-On Is Awesome, Musical, Nerdish
• Motoroll'd: Motorola CTO departs
• Sprint ready to unleash WiMAX
• OLPC Adopts Windows XP; I Feel Uneasy
• Palm Apparently Still Doing Stuff, Treo 800w Surfaces
• Eee 901 available June 3rd, Slips Further Away From Low Cost
  

Google Adds Photos, Wikipedia to Maps

Google Maps, one of the best mapping web apps going around and something I use almost as much as Gmail, has added contextual photos and Wikipedia articles to it's growing list of features. The photos are supplied by Panoramio (a company acquired by Google around 12 months ago), and allows you to see fantastic images of geographic locations, uploaded by Panoramio users.

It was the Wikipedia articles that impressed me the most though. Not only are cities, towns and landmarks linked up to their respective Wikipedia articles on the map, but also national parks, local communities, rivers, mountains and a whole swag of other items. I wonder how this integration of Wikipedia and Google impacts on Knol, Google's planned competitor for Wikipedia?

Anyway, enough of the speculation. Go on, have a play!

[Google Maps]

Nintendo socked with a $21 million fine over Wii Classic, Gamecube controllers

Chalk this one up as a victory for the patent trolls. Nintendo of America has been slugged a hefty $21 million fine for patent infringement over several of its controllers. Originally sued in 2006 by Anascape, a small, suspiciously unknown company based out of East Texas, a federal jury has just found that the Wii Classic, Wavebird and Gamecube controllers all infringe on Anascape's patents, which were granted between 1999-2005. These patents focus on a range of control mechanisms, such as analog sensors, tactile feedback, and vibration. Microsoft was also originally involved in the suit, although escaped with a confidential settlement.

Charlie Scibetta, a spokesman for Nintendo said the company plans to appeal the decision and expects the court to reduce the award "significantly" upon inspection. Fortunately for Nintendo, no patents were found to be violated with the design of the current Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

Anascape has also made news in the past for suing Microsoft at the same time as the Nintendo case was lodged, although Microsoft escaped the suit with a confidential settlement.

[Yahoo News]

US Internet Penetration Hits 82%, 18% Have No Clue What We Spend All Our Time On

That ol' internet, she just keeps gettin' bigger and bigger. Parks Associates released a study today which stated that around four out of five homes in the US are hooked up to the internet in some fashion, leaving around 20 million homes with no internet. Even more interestingly, out of this 20 million, only 7% planned on getting an internet connection in the next 12 months.

This, I cannot understand. How are people meant to get their weekly dose of Zero Punctuation without any internet? Are they getting their internet connected pals to transfer it to DVD or something? Baffling!

WWDC Sold Out, Fanboy Stampede Imminent

As an Aussie, I have found that getting up for the liveblog coverage of WWDC is pretty rough. The time difference means that the Steve Jobs keynote typically kicks off around 3am my time, so I am roused from my gentle slumber to go off and woozily hammer F5 for a couple of hours like all the other poor saps who can't get tickets. Other people however, have found an innovative way to bypass all these shenanigans; personally attending the session in real life!

In fact, so many people have run with this unorthodox idea, that Apple has confirmed to Macworld that WWDC 2008 tickets have sold out. Apple are pegging the record-breaking attendance on interest in the iPhone SDK. I am pegging this on the fact that if Apple fans don't see a 3G iPhone in Steve Jobs' hand come June 9th, they want to be there to personally kick off a city-wide riot. WWDC insider secret: make sure you bring your own baseball bat or crowbar - the vendors outside the keynote will really gouge you with their prices.

The Onion Laughs at Blockbuster, So Do We.

Take a journey back in time with the Onion, to a simpler time, a harder time. A time where people would interact with a specialty shop, exchanging money for the short term borrowing of a strange and bulky device, known simply as a videotape. A time where people would travel up to 6 miles in order to rent and return movies. I simply can't imagine how those founding pioneers, those trailblazers, must have suffered for their love of movies. Astounding.

XPS Back - Watch Out For XPS Undead

In a surprising turn, Dell has responded publicly to a Wall Street Journal predicting the end of its XPS line of gaming systems and notebooks. They have stated that while they will "expand our focus on Alienware", XPS systems are still very much a part of the overall Dell strategy. They also noted that "XPS has expanded well beyond a gaming brand", citing the all-in-one XPS One, the studly XPS M1330, and the XPS 420 desktop as machines that are still rocking their world. Makes sense; people don't want office PCs, but not everyone can afford to roll with the Alienware crowd.