… when you step out the office and feel like in Beijing.
Monthly Archive for December, 2007
Page 2 of 2
Reason enough to reconsider my current minimalistic mobile gadget strategy: rumors say that TomTom is doing a GPS module for the iPhone.
Sweet, though, built-in would be sweeter than plugged-in. [via Geograffiti]
Update: the picture and news about the TomTom iPhone GPS module turned out to be fake, but today Engadget reports about another iPhone GPS hack. So I guess there is something cooking…
A good new reason to give Ask another try as search bar default: unlike most other search engines, Ask released a tool, called AskEraser, which allows users to delete their search histories entirely from Ask servers.
User privacy as PR campaign: I’m not sure if this will help Ask a lot since the average search engine user is not aware or simply does not care about left online traces.
However, in terms of user interface and smart features Ask is already my favorite search engine. The problem is that Google still returns better search results and eventually that’s what counts in search engine business. Otherwise the Ask logo would already have been set as default on my upper right corner too… [via NYT]
Rainer links to an interesting NYT article about the recently introduced My Location feature in Google Maps mobile. Actually the first thought coming to my mind when I heard about My Location two weeks ago was: “How come that Google knows cell tower positions, almost worldwide?”.
As far as I know it’s one of the best kept secrets among mobile carriers. Christopher Schmidt gave a talk about that issue at the Where 2006 conference, explaining the ignorance of most mobile carriers and showed us his GSM location hack.
According to the NYT article, Google gathers cell location information the same way as Christopher did: users equipped with mobile phones and GPS devices send cell and location information back to a central unit, where it’ll be provided for other users without GPS devices.
Or in other words, Google uses GPS enabled mobile phones, like your 800,- EUR Nokia N95 for instance, to enhance their service. Strangely not every Google employee supports this strategy and dare to sell a N95 on eBay.
However, Rainer points out, and I totally agree, that an API for LBS is needed. We have seen what happened when developers gained access to geographic information through APIs. LBS has been the next big mobile thing for a couple of years now. I think an LBS API could finally make it happen and bring thousands of ideas and map mashups to mobile devices.
The flu is making the round again and people, including myself, start feeling the first symptoms of upcoming colds: headache, slight sore throat, stuffed nose and ears. To prevent a flu outbreak in advance we started summing up what home remedies we know.
So far we’ve got:
- get as much Vitamin C as possible, fruits, oranges, lemons or those fizzy Vitamin C tablets.
- increase body temperature with tea or hot baths
- herbal baths or inhalations to free nose and throat
- Aspirin seems to simulate fever and taken in early stages it apparently helps preventing colds
- use a scarf, even indoors
- last year I actually achieved noteworthy results with Mojitos
Some good old grandma treatments:
- “Essigpatschen”: cold vinegar soaked socks or towels wrapped around your feet to decrease fever
- “Topfenwickel”: wrap cottage cheese in a dishtowel and put it on your neck until the cheese gets dry, helps against a sore throat
Is there any other home remedy you’re aware of or had good experiences with?
The video is crappy, but it gives an idea of how it works: stare at the center point of the visuals and the projection suddenly turns into an endless 3D-like colorful rotating tube.
At Wärmespender, Vienna’s fanciest punch booth, they have an old discosomething projector doing those weird visuals. Basically it seems like a simple trick, but anyways, fun to watch and kind of being sucked into it, while enjoying an awfully sweet hot punch drink of course.
Those visuals in combination with smooth soul music and pink furry booth decorations qualify Wärmespender for Vienna’s best Christmas market feature!
…when you search across 2 social networks for a phone number before trying the public telephone directory.
Online shopping can be very convenient, in particular for buying (drm-free) music I prefer digital media over hard copies. Simply because digital media doesn’t visibly pile in my apartment.
Well, online shopping can be convenient unless you’re forced to register twice and fill out required fields starting with your birthdate up to your mother’s maiden name.
No thanks, that’s for one thing way too complicated and for another thing I don’t see a reason why a music vendor or payment service would need my mother’s maiden name. Strangely the service calls itself Clickandbuy, which is anything else but click-and-buy.