Gas Sipping Techniques Gaining Favour

Sky rocketing fuel prices have brought back into favour driving techniques aimed at squeezing every last mile out of a tank of gas. The trend, called hypermiling, is seeing the average practitioner getting 20 - 30% or more miles per fill up. "It's like a videogame," hypermiler Yahya Fahimuddin says. "Can I beat my new high score?" There are a number of things that can be done to push your vehicle a little further, more than 100 according to ecomodder.com, some are common knowledge while others may push the limits of the law. I'm thinking I'll get out the tire gauge and perhaps be a little more conscious of the speed limit.

Wired has more here.

3G iPhone Comes To Canada July 11th

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the coming of the new and improved iPhone 3G at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco on Monday, and with this comes the release of the device in Canada. Apple plans on releasing the new iPhone in 22 of the biggest national markets worldwide on July 11th. In Canada the 3G will be offered on the Rogers Communications network, “Rogers has a long history of bringing Canadians the very best in wireless services, networks and handset innovations,” Rogers Wireless president Rob Bruce said in a statement. “With iPhone 3G, we will provide our customers with an amazing mobile experience over Canada’s fastest wireless network.”

The updated iPhone promises improved sound quality and better battery life, giving 300 standby hours, five hours talk time, seven hours of video or 24 hours of audio, according to this Globe and Mail article.

Microsoft Signs Health Vault Deal With Kaiser Permanente

Microsoft and the U.S.'s largest nonprofit health maintenance organization, Kaiser Permanente, have signed a deal that will see Kaiser's 156,000 employees pilot a project linking Kaiser’s patient information with Microsoft’s Health Vault personal health-record service. The move is being touted as significant by some analysts according to the New York Times, "because of California-based health company’s size and its reputation as an innovative user of information technology." The goal being to give people useful information so that they can be more active in managing their own health. “We think we can start to transform the management of chronic diseases,” said Peter Neupert, the vice president in charge of Microsoft’s health group.

Google has also made strides in this area with the release of Google Health earlier this year. The funny thing is that most people I have spoken with are extremely weary of big business knowing their business, especially when it come to personal information such as health data. It will be interesting to see just how well received these services are.

Call In The Myth Busters Guys - Can Cell Phones Pop Popcorn?

Here is a YouTube video that is making the rounds, well this one and a number of others like it. If you believe the video evidence, it would appear that the signals emitted when 3 or 4 cell phones receive calls, simultaneously and in close proximity, are capable of popping popcorn! I'd like to see a scientific explanation or a reason to debunk the mystery. Perhaps I'll round up a few willing participants at work today and see if we can do a little myth busting our selves... any volunteers? Somehow I think it's just fancy camera work, but I just have to find out for sure. Neat party trick if it works!

iPhone 2.0 GPS Capability Has Other Hardware Makers Scared

Wired Blog Network's Autopia blog discusses the impact that a new iPhone with GPS capability is going to have on companies, like Garmin, who already in the portable GPS market. Suffice it to say that the appeal of the iPhone will likely steal some of that business away for the portable navigation system makers. The same was being said of Research in Motions business when the first iPhone was unveiled but the Blackberry lives on and sales are strong. Time will tell, but I must say that for a guy like me who has not already invested in a portable GPS, the thought of an all in one device is appealing.

Disney World In 3D

In January my family and I traveled to Orlando, Florida for a wonderful week at Walt Disney World. We jammed a lifetime worth of memories into a week of roller coasters, water slides and other attractions that only Disney could do right. A new collaborative effort between Disney and Google now puts us a mouse-click away from the place where dreams come true, in 3 dimension. Walt Disney World^® Resort in 3D, is an interactive, virtual Walt Disney World completely recreated on Google Earth including four theme parks and more than 20 of Disney’s Resort hotels. Think I'll head back to the Tower of Terror!

Had A Bad Day? Probably Not This Bad!

I've had my share of bad days on the job, as I'm sure you have... but it hasn't gotten to this... yet!

Obama Looking For A Few Good Coders

With a new slogan "Write Software, Change Washington" the Obama '08 presidential campaign is inviting software developers to put their skills to work and help:

• Create software tools which will enable an unprecedented nationwide voter contact and mobilization effort
• Help build and run the largest online, grassroots fundraising operation in the history of American politics
• Introduce cutting-edge social networking and online organizing to the democratic process by empowering everyday people to participate on My.BarackObama

What the heck, if you are a web developer with 5 years experience in a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) environment then you might have what it takes... at the very least, you could end up with a 6 month job in Boston.

Details Here.

Eye-Fi Card Identifies Camera Thief

Every now and then one of these stories pops up and it always amazes or amuses me. In this case, reported by Reuters and picked up by the Globe and Mail, a New York couple who's digital camera gear went missing on vacation in Florida returned home to find the photos they had taken along with photos of two employees of the restaurant from which the camera had been left, ended up on their photo sharing website. Luckily for the rightful owners, the camera was equipped with an Eye-Fi Card who's purpose is to automatically upload pictures to a home computer or photo-sharing service as soon as the user is linked to a familiar wireless network. In this case the restaurant employees passed an unsecured wireless network (90 feet is about the range outdoors - 45 feet indoors), whose factory-installed setting matched those of the home system of the camera's owners. I'd venture to say that this would never happen to me as I promptly change my wireless settings out of the box, but in this case the camera was returned to it's proper place and the two restaurant employees found themselves looking for a new job.

Footnote: The Eye-Fi Explore comes with a geotagging and hotspot access for a year, would be thieves beware!

Being unGoogleable

I found this interesting article while browsing for something completely different, but the topic caught my attention and set my mind to contemplating the dilemma of the author and his former colleague. How many of us can say that they have never been tagged in someone's flickr photo, or don't have a Facebook account for that matter? If you've ever been named in a blog post, on a company website, or in a local newspaper article, how can you truly remain unGoogleable?

“UnGoogleable? I don’t think it’s possible,” says Nilhan Jayasinghe, the head of natural search for online marketing firm iCrossing, a company that specializes in Search Engine Optimization and online reputation management for the likes of Toyota, Coca-Cola and Lego. “The problem is you simply have no control over all the outlets that publish something about you.”

If this is true then how can you manage what is out there? “With many clients, we have been able to help them suppress it [the critical chatter], provided they have enough positive material they can use to build up their reputation,” Mr Jayasinghe says.