If you want a good feel for the advancements in Navigation systems in the last 10 years, you should check out my piece Looking for a Nav system from 2008. The article went through my key issues that lead to my recommendation of the TomTom's in those days. TL;DR …

The Register had an article last week quoting Richard Whitt, senior policy director at Google saying that Google is creating a set of tools to allow users to determine if their ISPs are filtering their access to the Internet. This is going to raise the bar a little...

TechDirt has an article that references a clip from The Daily Show which is pretty silly, but contains what appears to be an honest statement from Stewart saying "But to me, the situation is that there's a ton to gain for both companies. Viacom, they put their content on YouTube …

Google (or google if you ask the Merriam- Webster dictionary) is now officially a verb. According to a story from CNet, Google was added to the EOD on June 15th of this year, and today Merriam-Webster added google.

The following is the text of a letter that I wrote in response to an article in the Washington Post this morning. The article asserted that pro-net neutrality groups' call to "keep the Internet where it belongs -- in the hands of its consumers" is "empty fluff that is obviously designed …

Google's rolled out another new service, Google Romance, their bid for the online dating game. It looks like competing with eBay, iTunes, and Yahoo! just isn't enough for the multi-billion-dollar baby. Perhaps this is why they filed for another $2B in stock sales earlier this week?

I'm happy to announce today that LoadMyTracks (ok, make fun of the name if you must, everyone will be making fun of the icon), a program to download GPS data to the Macintosh in GPX or KML (Google Earth) formats is now available from the ClueTrust LoadMyTracks web page. More …

Google has released 3 new dashboard widgets for the Mac, including one that checks your Gmail, one that allows you to post to Blogger quickly, and one that lets you check out your search history.

Vint Cert, long-time internet founder and now at Google testified last week in front of the Telecommunications subcommittee of the Commerce committee of the US Senate. No telling how well the comments were accepted by the Senators, but I liked what he had to say. I'll leave off the details …

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted an article requesting that users take care when activating the "Search Across Computers" option in Google Desktop (available only for the PC right now). Although the article certainly raises an interesting question, there are some specifics that might mitigate at least some of this …

In an important ruling, a Nevada court found that Google's cache of the data of web sites does not violate copyright law and is covered by the "safe harbor" provisions of the DMCA and other laws. Comments from the EFF are available in an online article, as is the ruling …

BrandChannel has published their latest brand study. The 2006 brand stats place Google slightly ahead of Apple (the two have been trading places for the top spot since 2000). It might not be particularly meaningful, but it's an interesting thing to look at anyway.

OK, so Apple's all about the Widgets in OS X Tiger. Initially, mostly eye candy, but now they're starting to get useful. Think of it as a combination of Sherlock with a good UI and Desk Accessories (for us old timers) that get out of the way and perform real …

Here's an interesting tidbit using the new Google Maps feature. Thanks to RS for coming up with it. Go to Google Maps for downtown DC and do a local search for stupidity.

Google has announced the Summer of Code, whereby students who spend their summer working on certain open source projects can earn up to $4,500. The details are pretty cool. They're funding 200 developers, all students, to execute on plans to complete open source projects for a number of open …

My brother, Derek, is an acknowledged expert in crime mapping (see his web site: CriminalBehavior.org; and his book: Spatial Aspects of Crime), so I pay attention to things like crime mapping software. Google recently released Google Maps and now you can see week-delayed crime stats for Chicago visually via …

Well, somebody at Google like Apple's OS X. Check out Google X, a google home page with icons that magnify.

Gmail, google's free email service, has invited a bunch of newcomers in again. According to reports, anyone who has requested an invitation has been given one now, and although the service is still in "beta" (according to the masthead), it appears to be fully functional at this point. Google caused …

I'm guessing from the age of the founders, that they're not just trying to shore up their diets. If CNET is right in this article, Google may be seeking to build at least a partial backbone network.

According to an article from CNet, Google has entered into agreements with Harvard University, Oxford University, Stanford University, and the University of Michigan to scan portions of their libraries as part of Google Print, the search maker's effort to bring the world of print online. Although some of the participants …