August 2005 Archives

I was little disappointed today when Google launched it's new Instant Messaging and free Talk service. The client program only works on Windows. Considering that Google itself is a fan of Apple computers you have to wonder why they would not have a client for Mac OS X.

The one saving grace is that if you have Mac OS X Tiger installed you can configure iChat to IM with people using the new Google Talk client. But you're out of luck if you want to use Talk feature.

Since I use Vonage for Voice Over IP (VOIP) and am happy with the service I don't think Google's new offering would interest me anyway.

When Mike Griffin became NASA administrator I was one of those people who was really enthusiastic about his selection. I thought previous administrator Sean O'Keefe did a good job with what he was tasked to do and now with the new "Vision for Space Exploration" starting, having Griffin onboard, a seasoned engineer, was a good choice. But lately I've been wondering like so many people what's going on at NASA.

There are a lot of mixed signals out there. Griffin is hard at work implementing the Vision, as he sees it. And that's where the problems seem to be starting. In reading NASA Watch, run by my SpaceRef business partner, and his recent post "Rollout Plan for Griffin's Architecture Stumbles", you have to wonder if there is a disconnect between Griffin and the White House.

Japan Today is reporting that JTB Corp. is planning to market space tours through Space Advenures. Here's the press release resealed by Space Advenures.

Ok, so you're headed out of town and you want to shop at this particular store at your destination and you know where on the map it is but have no idea what the sore looks like and the area around it. No problem, Amazon's A9 new map service can help you out. In fact to make this work Amazon had people drive around 22 cities in the States with camera's hooked up to GPS enabled laptops to take all those pictures. Now that's cool.

A9 Officially Launches Maps Service; Block View Imagery Added for More Cities: "If you've come across the story today about A9 launching a map service and it sounds familiar, it just might be. About 6 weeks ago I blogged a couple of comments about the service becoming available and included a link to an overview by Greg Linden. So, what's really new at A9 today? 'Block View' imagery has been made available for a few more cities: Salt Lake City, UT Sacramento, CA Long Beach, CA Reno, NV..."

(Via Search Engine Watch Blog.)

Who's index is bigger? And who returns more results? The following comparison would still lead me to believe that Google is still number 1.

NCSA Compares Google and Yahoo Index Numbers: "chrisd (former Slashdot editor and now Google employee) writes 'Recently, Yahoo claimed an increase of index size to 'over 20 billion items', compared to Google's 8.16 billion pages. Now, researchers at NCSA have done their own, independent, comparison of the two engines. '"

(Via Slashdot.)

In early July I attended the Apple WorldWide Developer Conference where I witnessed the announcement that Apple was transitioning to the Intel chip. Naturally this caused quite a stir. However after the initial buzz it was made clear that OS X would only run on Mac hardware with Intel chips. In my humble opinion that's a mistake. OS X is superior Windows XP so why not make it available for all PC's?? Sure you might lose some of your hardware market share, right? Well maybe not, I don't know if I buy that argument. Apple hardware sales are on the rise fueled by the iPod/iTunes craze and new Mac Mini. Just like iTunes fueled Apple's bottom line I think making OS X available for all PC's will help them as well. Anyway is yet another article on how the community is hacking the OS X to work on PC's.

More OS X on plain old x86 boxes: "

We don’t know whether Justin Nolan—who answered the call of UNEASYsilence’s recent OS X Intel challenge—used the same exact techniques as we saw before to do it, but it looks like he too has joined the elite ranks of those running OS X on his PC laptop (in this case a Vaio TR2A, how appropriate). Of course, these laptops won’t run Rosetta since none have SSE3, but if you want to talk straight up functional x86 OS X, this is your biz.

(Via Engadget.)

Is this rumour true? I think so, it makes sense. Ubiquitous WiFi for all manner of tech devices is coming fast. For instance your WiFi equipped personal digital assistant (PDA) will be handed off from network to network as you roam through major cities.

GoogleNet--massive Google WiFi in the works?: align="right" vspace="16" border="0">

Suddenly Google local (and maps, and video, and so on) makes so much more sense—Business 2.0 reports that they’ve
learned from ‘telecom insiders’ that Google is hard at work on a nation-wide high-capacity data network, buying up
unused fiber lines and cheap backbone access to really flesh out their capacity. B2 theorizes this could result in a
massive digital video db, on-demand television (IPTV) system, or free ad-based WiFi network, which in conjunction with
location-tracking hotspot firm Feeva, has already been pilot launched in San Francisco serving up Google Local-based
ads. Could Google really power not just Internet search, but a sizable portion of the Internet? Beats us, but if they
want to make it happen, they better get that AdSense click fraud thing sorted out asap.

(Via Engadget.)