Zurfer-like Picasa mobile shows off a Google Maps mash-up; adds location to your photos
Yesterday evening, Google announced the launch of the very descriptively-named Picasa Web Albums for mobile devices, which is another big step in the quiet photo sharing revolution.
With Map My Photos, Picasa joins Zurfer, which was launched two weeks ago by the Yahoo! Research Berkeley lab, in allowing us to mark photographs with location metadata, or "geotag" them, and then experience spatially-organized albums. Make sure to check out the Picasa team's test gallery for a demonstration of the mash-up at work.
Amazon, Apple, Google and eBay bashed for weak climate efforts
In a recent scorecard rating corporations on their green efforts, Amazon got a 0/100, eBay and Apple each scored 2. Despite its recent solar campus efforts, $5000 employee incentive for hybrid cars, and a fleet of biodiesel buses that cart thousands of employees to and from San Francisco and other Bay Area spots each day, Google scored a mere 17.
Climate Counts use a 0-to-100 point scale and 22 criteria to determine if companies have:
* MEASURED their climate "footprint" * REDUCED their impact on global warming * SUPPORTED (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation * Publicly DISCLOSED their climate actions clearly and comprehensively
I'm not sure if this is an 'AND' list or an 'OR' list. Either way, one can't help but wonder why a company like Amazon (who received a big fat zero), Apple, or eBay, would allow themselves to qualify on any of these grounds, save 'suggest intent to block legislation'. I could not find evidence that any of them have done so.
User Abuse: Apple's confines third-party iPhone applications to the web
Today Steve Jobs of Apple announced that the iPhone will not allow third-party developers to create offline apps for the iPhone, or really any iPhone apps at all. According to Apple, the iPhone's built in version of the web browser Safari will be able to run normal web applications, but OS-level applications are off limits to third parties. This is a disappointing move from Apple that really constitutes an announcement of the iPhone being closed to third party development.
From Bloomberg:
Jobs, 52, at first said he wouldn't allow any access for developers and then hinted May 30 that he had changed his mind, saying at a conference he would "find a way" to let them add programs while keeping the iPhone secure.
What a crock. He didn't "find a way" to let them add programs. He merely realized that, if the iPhone wants to claim that you can use the "real" web, as they did in a recent television commercial, standard web apps have to be feasible on the device. Here's the commercial:
So in a PR dance, Jobs claimed that this was a move that was actively made for the sake of developers, when really it was passively the only option. That, or neuter the web like some similar devices.
The real reason Apple did this: money.
I think this limitation of third-part developers is necessary if Apple intends to keep control of the device's music-playing functionality and the dollars associated with it.
I (and likely many others) planned to write a Flex media player that would stream music from my webserver or home computer, removing many file redundancies from my life and making iTunes' DRM (digital rights management) irrelevant by also allowing a user to load files directly onto the iPhone's memory in mp3 format. If Apple wants iTunes and their DRM and continue to gain power over the music industry, they have to cut these kinds of applications off at the head.
While a web-only version of such an iTunes-killer is feasible, it will be stopped short by an inability to run offline via something like Apollo or Google Gears, and by the browser's restricted access to local files. This means that, when the Blue Line in Chicago or the streetcar in San Francisco goes underground or you lose signal in some other way, your music would no longer be accessible. This lack of offline functionality may guarantee Apple's control of the device for the near future. However, especially for users that never lose internet access, I can still think of several ways to undermine -- err -- extend the iPhone's feature set :)
Sources: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJw25UvZ47DQ&refer=home http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/apple-announces-third-party-software-details-for-iphone/ http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6114686 which has a terribly inaccurate title, "Apple opens up iPhone for programmers"
