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.

Windows Live Messenger 9 Buggy, Beta Testers Ignored

All is not right in the township of Window Live Messenger 9, and it seems like an unresponsive software development team has earned the wrath of it's own beta testing community. Originally released in November 2007, the new version of Messenger promised a couple of cool enhancements to the current functionality (like being able to sign in to 4 locations at once, displaying URLs in current status) and a bunch that would really grind my gears (customized sounds for sign-in, animated display pictures).

Since then, tons of great suggestions from the community have been passed on (think tabbed messaging), bugs are being ignored or 'postponed' (this means ignored, only written differently) and 4 months has passed without a peep from Microsoft. What has really riled up the mob is the fact that Microsoft has started a public beta, and then proceeded to completely ignore all comments the willing testers make. As one tester aptly put it:

"It's obvious that when you start these programs, that you already have a clear image of what you want and don't want to implement into the client, so why bother? And why waste our time?"

Personally, I gave up on Messenger a long time ago. Here's the hot tip: if all your buddies are still lingering on MSN, give one of the multi-protocol IM programs like Adium (Mac) or Trillian (PC) a go. Either that, or get new buddies. Those guys are jerks, anyway.

Touchscreen Blackberry in Q3, QWERTY looks nervous

Well call me a monkey's uncle. It looks like RIM, despite their apparent belief a that a virtual keyboard 'sucks', will launch a touchscreen model in the fall. This particular model, currently codenamed 'Thunder' (or the 9500, if a number is your thing), will abandon the Blackberry design of full or half-QWERTY keyboard in favour of a full touchscreen. The only buttons that have escaped the chop are the four button combination to control call and menu functions. It is rumored to also be a truly worldwide device, packing CDMA EV-DO Rev. C (and/or possibly 4G LTE support), and support for international use with the inclusion of GSM HSPA.

So, does this mean that Blackberry are eschewing their QWERTY roots in favour of a iPhone-eque clone? I don't think so, but it is very interesting indeed to see such a stalwart supporter of the QWERTY form-factor suddenly jump on the current touchscreen bandwagon.

Jet-Powered VW Beetle

In what can only be described as an act of insanity, a car-loving engineer has set out to create an unholy alliance between his tame Beetle and a whacking great jet engine. According to the source article, this jet beetle can cruise the street on it's standard gasoline engine, and then fire up the afterburner to deliver up to a 1350 horsepower boost. If that wasn't enough, he is now also retrofitting two jet-engines to his wife's scooter.


"Here's my wife's Honda Metropolitan scooter. She wants it to go faster than 40 mph. So I have these two little JFS 100 jet engines and I am thinking how to put them on the scooter."

Listen buddy, I got a crazy idea. How about just buying a faster scooter?

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