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YouTube Videos To Populate Google Earth

October 11th, 2007 by iDunzo

Google announced today that locations on Google Earth will now link to YouTube videos about those locations.

The videos can be viewed in Flash without leaving Google Earth or by opening an external link to the YouTube site.

A quick scan of randomly-chosen Bangkok showed a healthy number of videos already locationally linked, including a videos from tourists on a boat cruising down the Chao Phraya river and cruising the city by Tuk-tuk.

This joins other Google Earth’s other location-specific features such as locationally-linked photos, 3D buildings, and content from Discovery Networks, National Geographic, and the UN, among others.

On Tuesday, Google Earth announced that Street View maps of Chicago, Portland, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Tucson and Philadelphia are now available.

Go forth and procrastinate.

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Mozilla Is Promising To ‘Rock’ The Mobile Web

October 10th, 2007 by iDunzo

Giving the mobile Web browser competition a shot in the arm, Mozilla’s Mike Schroepfer said in a blog post that Mozilla has big plans for the mobile Web.

Yes, a mobile version of Firefox is in the works, and should be ready next year.

The post showed up in Schroepfer’s blog yesterday and outlined all of Mozilla’s mobile plans, including updates on its technology, hiring, products, and partners.

According to Schroepfer, there’s a lot in store.

From his blog post:

Up until very recently device limitations required writing new mobile browsers from the ground up. Being able to leverage all the investments in the Mozilla platform across both desktops and devices is the right approach. There is far from a dominant player in this marketplace and even the best mobile browsers today have compromises in user experience, performance, and compatibility. There is still *plenty* of room for innovation.

I agree, there is still lots of room for improvement.

Just yesterday Opera, Freescale and NEC announced their own plans to improve the mobile browsing and mobile video experience.

Mozilla is promising a better experience, too. It has hired two new developers to head its mobile services operations and plans to offer a mobile version of Firefox that is as close to the desktop version as possible.

Schroepfer said mobile Firefox will be able to run Firefox extensions on mobile devices and allow others to build rich applications via XUL.

Part of the reason Mozilla held off on entering the market was that mobile devices didn’t have the right memory or CPU specs to make Mozilla happy.

Now that many phones — and smartphones in particular — are shipping with more memory and faster processors, Mozilla thinks now is the time.

The iPhone’s Safari browser really raised the bar when it comes to the mobile browsing experience.

The Nokia browser, which is based on Safari also performs well. Google is working on a mobile browser. Microsoft already has a mobile version of Internet Explorer. Opera is stepping up the competition.

Mozilla will be a little late to the game, but late is better than never.

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Apple Looses Leopard on Manufacturers

October 10th, 2007 by iDunzo

After pushing back the release date six months, Apple has officially closed development of Leopard (OS X 10.5), according to AppleInsider, and is also putting the finishing touches on OS X 10.4.11 — what looks to be the final release of Tiger.

Manufactures are expected the receive the “Gold Master” version of the OS this week and Apple has also reportedly been seeding its support staff with initial training materials for the new OS in the form of “self-paced training modules.”

The materials cover some of the operating system’s most popular features and components, such as installation methods, Mail and BootCamp, according to AppleInsider sources.

As far as OS X 10.4.11, a MacNN report says the updates focus primarily on Dashboard, including a fix the the software’s underlying Webkit foundation and two existing issues with number-oriented widgets.

While Apple has yet to announce an official release date for Leopard, all signs have pointed to a public launch sometime during the last full business week of October, with some betting on October 26.

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TIFF Exploit Cracks Open iPhone and iPod Touch

October 10th, 2007 by iDunzo

Want to beta test a new iPhone and Apple iPod jailbreak?

You’d have to be crazy or rich to risk sacrificing your iPhone to this cause, but if you’re up for it, you can get in on the deal at channel #betatest on irc.toc2rta.com.

If those directions need further explanation, it’s a fair indication this is an experiment you should skip.

Engadget’s Ryan Block used the proposed mechanism in the wee hours of this morning and reports success.

The upgraded iPhone’s file system was unmasked last week, giving users read-write access to handsets running 1.1.1, but little in the way of usable beef.

The hack under testing, however, combines this with a second exploit based on a well-understood vulnerability in TIFF files, a popular graphics format.

It’ll be easy for Apple to crush this one in a future update, but it’s progress.

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Microsoft Adds Free Games To Xbox 360 Consoles

October 9th, 2007 by iDunzo

With an eye on the upcoming holiday shopping season, Microsoft on Monday said it would bundle two video games with the Xbox 360 video game console.

By the end of the month, Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Elite are expected to ship with Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The games have a combined retail price of $90.

Microsoft in August lowered the price of the consoles by $50 in an effort to keep pace with similar moves by rival Sony, which sells the PlayStation 3. The 20 GB Xbox 360 now sells for $350. The 120 GB Elite system retails for $450.

The U.S. price cuts followed Sony’s decision in July to lower the 60 GB version of the PlayStation 3 to $499 from $599.

While hardware pricing is important, games are the driving force behind consumers’ choice of video game console.

Among the most popular games on the Xbox is Microsoft’s sci-fi game Halo 3, which posted sales of more than $300 million in its first week on the market.

Released September 25, first day sales of Halo reached $170 million, and retailers took more than 1.7 million pre-orders — both industry records.

Nevertheless, Nintendo’s Wii has outpaced sales of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Nintendo in June sold 381,800 Wii consoles, compared with Sony’s 98,500 PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s 198,400 Xbox 360 machines.

The holiday shopping season, which officially begins the Friday after Thanksgiving and runs to Christmas, is the biggest retail season of the year, and a time when Microsoft and its rivals make major marketing pushes for their consoles.

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Ugliest Product in Technology History

October 9th, 2007 by iDunzo

PCWorld have posted a top ten of “The Ugliest Products in Tech History“.

While the Zune might not really be the worst design ever, it somehow seems right to have the dung-colored box at number one, although maybe “number two” would have been more appropriate:

Somewhere along the way, though, Microsoft forgot to include the iPod’s sexy design, opting instead for a boxy plastic casing and a spectacularly unflattering brown color.

The other selections, however, are mixed.

Sure, Nintendo’s Virtual Boy deserves its place, and the Furby should have been euthanized long ago, but Motorola’s DynaTAC?

The $4,000 phone is a beautiful, sleek (and huge) icon. And how could any geek not love the stripped down honesty of the acoustic coupler modem?

You know the rules by now. Which is the real ugliest gadget ever?

I’ll start: The TiVo remote. It might work great, but it looks like a cheap dog toy. Answers in the comments.

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