Slate on Gonzales vs. Google

Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu has an interesting take on the Bush administration's subpoena to Google:

"But the big news for most Americans shouldn't be that the administration wants yet more confidential records. It should be the revelation that every single search you've ever conducted—ever—is stored on a database, somewhere. Forget e-mail and wiretaps—for many of us, there's probably nothing more embarrassing than the searches we've made over the last decade. Google's campus LCD sounds like it's just fun and games, but when a search can be linked to you (through the IP address recorded by Google), that's a lot less fun. And when, as we're seeing, it can all be demanded by the government, that's no fun at all."

Link to Slate via BoingBoing.

It's about time

I'm a bit late in posting this mini round-up but there's good stuff on the Disney/Pixar merger here and here and Digital Lifestyle uber-Guru Om Malik chimes in with this post.

Canadian Election Results

Canadian Election results should be available on-line by 7PM PAC time... but obey the laws! :-)

Link to MeFi.

EFF Action Alert!

To all my American pals, a call to action from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

"New Senate Broadcast Flag Bill Would Freeze Fair Use"
January 20, 2006

Draft legislation making the rounds in the U.S. Senate gives us a preview of the MPAA and RIAA's next target: your television and radio. (Please write your Senator about this!)

You say you want the power to time-shift and space-shift TV and radio? You say you want tomorrow's innovators to invent new TV and radio gizmos you haven't thought of yet, the same way the pioneers behind the VCR, TiVo, and the iPod did?

Well, that's not what the entertainment industry has in mind.

Carribean Google Map Mashup

I hope there's a location pinpointed where I can buy Bermuda shorts!

Link to GoogleMapsMania.

A Talking Head talks

In reference to the music industry and the proposed "Digital Content Protection Act of 2006" musician David Byrne is calling for a consumer boycott of DRM protected content:

"So, first they start off suing their customers, and now they are maliciously making it hard for their customers to even listen to music, and they will cripple your music and media player to boot. These guys deserve to go out of business, they obviously don't love music, and they don't understand their own customers. They must have a deathwish or be run by....who? FEMA? Rumsfeld? Bin Laden?"

Link to BoingBoing.

Help Google?

Given all the "Google is evil" stuff floating around I'm not sure if this news is good timing or just brilliant strategy on their part but wow, are things ever getting interesting.

Links to Of, By and For and The Electronic Frontier Foundation and BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin has an interesting chat with Alex Chadwick on NPR.

UPDATE: and John Battelle points to a Steven Levy Newsweek piece here.

Sweet Rig!

Radiation burns aside, check out this totaly dope desktop set-up. :-)

Mouse Ears for Steve Jobs?

Reuters is reporting that Disney would buy Pixar in a mostly stock swap transaction.

"The newspaper report said terms under discussion would have Disney pay a small premium to Pixar's current stock market value of $6.7 billion. The deal would be a stock transaction and make Pixar Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs the biggest individual shareholder in Disney, the newspaper reported."

Link via DisneyBlog.

Way Cool "GeoBlogging" feature in Navizon

"NEW YORK, Jan. 17 -- Mexens Technology, the creators of Navizon, (www.navizon.com) announced today the launch of the Geotag, a new feature available immediately to all members of the Navizon network. The Geotag allows members to post information based upon a specific geographic location, such as a restaurant or business, thus creating the world's first geographically based blogging system. This feature reinforces the idea of information submitted by the people and for the people that is at the epicenter of the Navizon philosophy."

C'est si bon, Cyril, C'est si bon! :-)

Link to GISUser.

Apple is kicking ass!

Om Malik points out that:

"Nicholas Carr reminds us that on October 6, 1997, Michael Dell proposed that Apple be shut down and the money given back to its shareholders. On Friday the 13th, Dell was lapped by Apple. Oops! Dell has a market cap of about $71.97 billion while Apple’s market capitalization is about $72.13 billion."

Amazing.

Link to Om Malik.

Rodin & Friends

When I lived in Palo Alto I had tons of friends stay for brief visits (for both business and pleasure) and a regular ritual was a walk around the Stanford University Campus. For a brief time Stanford kept a collection of Rodin's works gathered near the main Quad / courtyard where I'd usually try and "capture the moment" with a wide array of guests.

I've been sitting on this collection since I got my first digital camera way back in 1989 and just posted them as a flickr photo set.

Enjoy! :-)

Google Voodoo

Jeff Jarvis has a great post about about Google's evil factor, something you'll be hearing a lot more about in the coming weeks and months as Big Media gears up to fight the "beast".

UPDATE: and this article just in from Business Week (via Dave Winer).

GoogleMapsManiac Mike Pegg on NPR

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada's esteemed "GoogleMapsManiac", Mike Pegg, was featured on NPR's "All Things Considered" with Robert Seigel today. A fantastic segment for anyone Geospatially inclinded... or any Google Maps / Google Earth enthusiast.

Here's an NPR special segment page with the RealAudio stream and here's a link to an MP3 download page I just set up.

Apple missing something at MWSF?

Reuters reports that Apple files "Mobile Me" as a US trademark which is interesting when "mashed-up" with this cool rumor from Wired magazine's
"Cult of Mac" blog.

Cool GoogleMaps images

I'm too busy today to zoom down onto the nude beach but take a look at some of these cool places via Google Maps. You can click, drag and zoom in on the images.

Nikon says: "Sayonara" Silver Halide

Nikon says goodbye to cameras that use film. Glad I'm not Kodak.
Link to the NYTimes.

iPod-o-rama

Yeah, I'd say that's a platform:

"I’m really pleased to announce that last quarter we sold 14 million iPods .. that is over a hundred every minute, 24/7 throughout the quarter. And it still wasn’t enough. We’ve now sold over 42 million iPods — as you can see the curve is going up again …. have sold on iTunes over 850 million songs … a billion in the next weeks …. market share continues to be very strong - 83 percent. Since we launched on October 12th we have sold over 8 million videos. For the first time last week we added some sports. For the first time with ABC and ESPN we put up some Bowl games.”

--- Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, January 10, 2006.

"Live, from the iPod, it's Saturday Night!"

The New York Times reports: "Apple to Sell SNL Skits for iPod Use".

Why does this not surprise me. I already have dozens of SNL skits in the MPEG format (via TiVo export) already loaded in iTunes that are dying to jump onto a Video iPod :-)

Link to NYTimes.

Polaris is really 3 Stars?

The Hubble Space Telescope squints and sees three stars (via Slashdot).
Twinkle, Twinkle indeed!