There’s no other way to say it: when it come to street-level navigation, Microsoft’s Street Slide is a vast improvement over Google Maps. Microsoft needs to release this to the public pronto, period.
Am I the only one who feels like clicking up and down the street with Google Maps in the ’street view’ perspective is akin to a drunken stumble looking for an ATM? I’m limited to a series of shortsighted views, each of which regenerate individually. It’s clumsy, slow and ripe to be improved upon.
What if there were another sort of interim view that made it very easy to search several blocks quickly then flip right back into a view of a specific address or storefront?
Rather than lurching up and down virtual streets looking for something, Street Slide lets searchers navigate a whole street from a panorama, with signs and logos for businesses positioned below the view to facilitate the search. It’s intuitive and simple. The video below is amazing.
Microsoft has often been slow to move interesting, useful innovations out of the lab. It’s a shame to have the tech but not be smart or nimble enough on the business side to aggressively push things into the real world, a la Google’s constant and relentless ‘beta release’ model. I’m sure it’s really, really hard to release new tech, but It’s what businesses do, and if it’s prohibitively difficult for Microsoft then it has to be made easier. To often they do what Detroit does: show me concepts that pique my interest, then follow through much later, if at all. No doubt tooling up for release of an application is expensive, but it can’t compare to that for a new car model, and Microsoft is awash with money looking for good ideas.
Not only does Street Slide pose a real challenge to Google Maps and other online mapping applications, it would help redefine the company as a force for innovation in the minds of a public that has grown skeptical.
I’d heard of the free application WineBottler, but never got around to taking a look at it. Over at appstorm.net, Joshua Johnson has a fast explanation/tutorial on how to use WineBottler to run single Windows applications on your Mac (Internet Explorer would come to to mind if you are a web developer) without having to install Parallels or Bootcamp, etc. It can be sluggish but using it looks a lot more straightforward than I would have thought.
Being interpreted and dynamic, Python is generally not as fast as compiled languages. Here is a technique for optimizing Python by way of Jython, including reasons why you’d want to use Java to implement some parts of your Python program and exactly how to write an extension in Java.
A big gaping hole in a lot of mainstream travel sites like Expedia, Hotwired, etc. is that they are long on supplying infrastructure for me to book flights and hotels for my next trip, but very short on ideas for trips and reasons why I’d like to visit a particular destination. Kukunu is a new site that lets you plan trips, and also get recommendations as well as collaborate with any travel partners you have. These kind of one-stop shopping sites are nothing new (look at Amazon for general retail) but it’s surprising that in the area of travel I still have to bounce from site to site as I look for travel ideas, find good deals and email or IM friends with plans or asking for suggestions. The idea is great, and Kukunu’s execution looks pretty good.
What’s the best way to write a byte array to a hexadecimal string: build the string using a for loop, use the bit converter and replace the delimiters, or another method? Damon Armstrong ran a little test to find out and the results might surprise you.
You expect that digital representation of 3-D space and objects is still rapidly evolving, but when I see a demo like this simulation by Thiago Costa done using Lagoa Multiphysics solver, it’s hard not to be astounded!
The title of the NYT article is “Digital Diplomacy”, but it’s really about how Twitter, etc. is completely changing the way the US government gets its message out, and how right now simply increasing dialogue and engaging constituents-of either party-through technology is as vital as the specific message.
“A lot of the 21st-century dynamics are less about, Do you comport politically along traditional liberal-conservative ideological lines?” Ross says. “Today it is — at least in the spaces we engage in — Is it open or is it closed?”
Government and the private sector recognize the benefits of this nascent symbiosis:
“NGOs keep asking for a way to be able to understand, in a country like Kenya, who’s doing clean water, who’s doing education,” one Google employee said. Several engineers chirped back and forth about the virtues of user-generated feedback and the challenges of multilayer mapping technology, until Schmidt cut them off. “We have a big operation in Kenya,” Schmidt said. “We have the smartest guy in the country working for us. Why can’t we just do this?”
Fascinating article on the intersection of government and personal communications tech in 2010; the relationship is already even more sophisticated than I would’ve thought.
Over at Redmonk, Stephen O’Grady has written a lucid analysis of the debate over whether or not the premium Wordpress theme Thesis (really all WP themes, including themes for which developers charge money) have to be licensed under the GPL. Is it even possible to say that a Wordpress Theme is 100% derivative or not?
This is only peripherally related to ‘digital media’ but it probably has relevance for most people reading this post, and it certainly surprised me. Here’s an overview from the NYT of a study that indicates that regular physical activity does not outweigh the effects of sitting for long periods of time. The study looked at how many hours per week men watched TV and sat in cars, but presumably it has negative implication for those of us who are addicted to Farmville. Those who sat for more than 23 hours per week had a 64% higher chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours or less per week.
There I was feeling pretty good about getting at least some physical activity every day… I wonder if one of those little gadgets that let you pedal under your desk is the answer? A stand-up desk? There must be a huge business opportunity in this for someone.
