Technobriefs
July 01, 2007
Googlicious maps: OK sure, some new cell phone launched this week, but for me the big tech news was the major upgrade to Google Maps: Google Maps Adds Draggable Changing Directions and Drag Directions in Google Maps. Ever since online mapping services offered driving directions, my gripe has been that they only worked for trips between two given street addresses, which had to be entered as text. Unless you had a numerical street address, you couldn't get directions to a given point ("where Overlook Drive ends") or from a location ("the intersection of Main and Elm") even though the map allowed you to easily locate such places. Finally Google Maps has provides a very well done implementation of this concept. Click on the map to set a start point and an end point. Don't like the given route? Grab the middle of the route and drag it to the roads you want to use. Since I live in a strip bounded by two major freeways I often wanted to tell Google maps no, not the 101 I want to go via 280, now I can! Other Google news: Google buying phone company? will Google gobble up GrandCentral? (note also: Cellfish Saves Your Cell Phone Data), Google seeks to extend Microsoft antitrust decree and Analysis: Google's net neutrality position leaves unanswered questions.
iPhonorama: various bits of iPhone commentary collected before the Friday launch: The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype, Chiefs Defend Slow Network for the iPhone, The iPhone's Carrier Problem, How the iPhone breaks industry rules, Apple rivals dread iPhone, Often-Asked iPhone Questions, Hands-on with the iPhone and Will the iPhone Get Cheaper? That last article answers its headline question in the negative. But in 2001 iPods cost $400 or $500 and last year I bought one for $80. It is a safe bet that cheaper iPhones will be introduced later.
Stem cells: two new approaches to creating embryonic stem cell lines. One involves taking cells from rodents that function more like human stem cells: New stem cell could aid research. The other approach is to create stem cells from unfertilized eggs: Scientists: Stem Cells Created From Eggs and Make Human Stem Cells From Animal Eggs. The latter work prompting a blogger to ask: Do Stem Cells Grown From Unfertilized Eggs Have Souls? Welcome news of a large private research grant: CFL owner gives millions for stem cell research.
Alife, wetware hardware and windware: Scientists take step to making synthetic life, cyberwar: When Computers Attack, dangerbots: Flexible and Fearless, Seeking Rescue Work, locomotion: Baby steps Robots are a long way from dancing, but professor is taking them closer and the wind-driven walkers of Theo Jansen (via Lance).
Technobits: was it a threat of prosecution, or a lawsuit, or did the authors decide at the last minute that they had not done what they thought they had done?: Integrity of hardware-based computer security is challenged "Withdrawn Black Hat paper hints at flaws in TPM security architecture" (via) --- Data breaches start at the gas station ("Analyst warns against POS terminals that collect and store data, putting users at greater risk for data theft than shopping online") --- games as labor bait, more on human computation (previously): Computer Scientists Pull a Tom Sawyer To Finish Grunt Work --- open source notes: Open Source Consortium to regulators: Stop the BBC's DRM! and No More Mr. Open-Source Nice Guy --- Solid State Drives: Samsung's 1.8" 64GB SSD Gets Mass-Production Go-Ahead --- Imaging system brings skeletons to life in 3-D --- potential treatment strategy for fragile-x syndrome, related to retardation and autism.