Better Google Maps

Along with releasing Google News out of Beta today, Google has also quietly released a new set of 6" satellite imagery for Google Earth.

What's really exciting about this release, is that they've now synched the imagery available on Google Earth, with Google Local. And to take advantage of the new high quality images they've added two further levels of zoom!

For some areas (the UK especially) this is a significant improvement on quality, and the extra levels of zoom put it in line with Google Earth. Which just leaves the Google Earth style 'tilt' on my Google Maps wish-list.

Ah, There's a Whale in the Thames

Now there's something you don't see every day, it appears a 20' northern bottle-nosed whale has gone on a site-seeing tour of central London, starting with river cruise up the Thames.

Cynical observers claim that the whale has 'lost its way', others think he's just taken the opportunity of a rare sunny day in London to cruise the river.

BBC online are offering a live video stream entitled "Watch the whale in the River Thames", featuring live real-time video of the whale in action. Or at least they would be if they hadn't lost it. Stay tuned!

Google Partnering with Intel and Motorola

Google's announced two new partnerships (perhaps alluded to earlier when they denied impending production of 'Google PCs', instead referring to their existing 'great partners'?).

The first is a partnership with Intel to leverage the Viiv platform for bringing Google Video to your living room, the second an alignment with Motorola to add a 'single click access' to Google on a number of their devices.

The Intel announcement is an interesting fusion of the two big rumors floating around the net -- the WSJ predicts a relaunched and expanded Google Video service with the ability to buy video from content provider, and the LA Times article predicting a Google hardware device that many hoped would be some sort of home-Google gateway for search and video.

Personally, I hope it is a combination, with Google announcing the updated Google Video service, as well as a Google branded Viiv box. I mean seriously -- how long until I get my Google-Viiv powered video on-demand+PVR set-top box?

So. How many hours until Larry's keynote at CES??

Google / AOL Partnership to Aid IM Interopability

A much overlooked consequence of the Google / AOL partnership is their commitment to interopability between GoogleTalk and AIM.

From the press release:

"Google Talk Instant Messaging Software to Communicate with AIM users"

Such an arrangement will propel GoogleTalk from the runt of the IM litter to an equal first position with the current heavy-weight of the field, AIM. Will this be enough to encourage the other big players (Yahoo!Talk and MSN) to play friendly?

Apparently Australians Have Lost Their !#@$ Minds

I'm an Aussie born and raised in Perth, Western Australia, so when I opened my morning Metro here in football mad London and found an article about yesterday's Test match between Australia and South Africa in Perth, I was justifiably pleased. Until I read it.

It was not the fact that the South Africans had doggedly denied our boys the win by hanging on for a draw that ruined my day -- rather it was the second time in as many weeks that rampant racism by my (and I hesitate to describe them as such) countrymen, had made international news.

Seriously though, WTF? Being from the west coast, it's easy enough for my to write off the riots in Sydney as 'those idiots from Cronulla', but racist taunts at the WACA? I mean ok, Perth sports fans have never been the most articulate at heckling. 'South Africans are Wan-kers' is about as eriadite as I've heard at the cricket. That, and a lot of these drunken morons seems to think that the harshest 'insult' they can provide is to question the sexuality of opposing teams.

Not that I'm suggesting bigotry is a step up from racial taunts. More like a lateral step along the bottom of a very slimy barrel.

Unofficial Google Modules Homepage

Rather than waiting for Google to get their submissions process sorted, Philipp Lenessen (of Google Blogoscoped ) and Alex Ksikes have put together an unofficial homepage for user created Google Homepage Modules.

I've submitted my cricket module, and suggest you check it out to see what other goodies people have put together.

Gmail On Your Mobile

I'd experimented with forwarding my POP mail to my mobile in the past, but it never really worked for me.

On the other hand, I've become completely addicted to using GMail, it's now the only email client I use. Handily, Gmail is now rendered in a mobile phone / PDA friendly format, including conversion of PDF to HTML and display images. Just point your phone's browser to: http://m.gmail.com

One really neat feature is 'reply by phone' as well as using your GMail contact list to make calls, so now I don't need to synch my contact list -- GMail handles it for me. Nice.

Now they just need to implement the long awaited Google Calendar and have mobile access for that, and I'll be set.

Cricket + Google = Sweet

Those of you who pay close attention to Google's every release (and how could you not?) will know they recently released an API for adding modules to their customised Google homepage.

To satisfy my endless appetite for world cricket, I've put together a module that will overlay all the current matches onto a Google Map for your viewing pleasure.

To add this module to your Google Hompage, go to your Google customised hompage -- choose 'Add Content', and paste this url into the 'Create a Section' text box.

You can check out other available modules at the Google module directory, and find out about more of my cricket tracking projects here.

The Nexus: Beta Release and Website

The Nexus is here!


Ok, so it's still in beta, but after nearly a year, the first release of The Nexus has been completed, and is currently being run through its paces by a team of book freaks dedicated testers.

The Nexus is a home library catalogue for books, CDs, and DVDs that populates your catalogue with details from online sources, and then lets you browse, tag, and track you collection.

Find out more at the (new!) website, and keep track of further developments at the development blog.

Sci-Fi on the Big Screen

It's a big year for sci-fi at the movies, with Richard Linklater adapting one of my favourite books -- Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, the Batman Begins movie, and of course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

So -- here's some sweet looking trailers to whet the appetite:

• Batman Begins
• The Hitchhiker's Guide (Warning! Direct .MOV download)
• A Scanner Darkly