This Isn't Lego Mindstorms!

nor is it an iRobot Dirt Dog, insert jaw drop here, wow! Check out this video of Little Dog from Boston Dynamics:

Google's Location Based Vision

Here is a TechCrunch interview with Google's Vic Gundotra regarding Google's I/O Conference announcements and Apple vs. Google... interesting!

BP's Gulf of Mexico Disaster - Up Close

British Petroleum (BP) is live casting a view from the submersible ROV that is monitoring the fractured well in the Gulf of Mexico, the result of the MC252 oil well disaster that has been spewing oil into the Gulf since an explosion rocked the well on April 20th. The video feed drives home the magnitude of the disaster but will probably also be interesting to view as BP tries to implement it's latest attempt, 'top kill', at stopping the leak. BP describes Top Kill as "The primary objective of the top kill process is to put heavy kill mud into the well so that it reduces the pressure and then the flow from the well. Once the kill mud is in the well and it’s shut down, then we follow up with cement to plug the leak."

British Scientist Infects Himself With Computer Virus...

Well not himself but a chip implanted within himself. Dr. Mark Gasson from the University of Reading contaminated a modified RFID chip, similar to those used to chip your pets, and is experimenting with the infected device and systems that it may connect to. The ramifications, as Dr. Gasson explains in this BBC video clip, could be extensive as more and more uses for the chips are found and more devices are scanning for the data contained within the chips.

"This type of technology has been commercialised in the United States as a type of medical alert bracelet, so that if you're found unconscious you can be scanned and your medical history brought up." says Dr. Gasson. An infected chip could hold an entirely different payload than that which is intended for use by the system scanning it. 

Can you say Minority Report?

Google Immortalizes Pac-Man Doodle

On Friday, Google celebrated the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man by including a playable version of the game in the Google doodle. By popular demand Google has decided to make the doodle a permanent resident at www.google.com/pacman, kudos to Google and to NAMCO who apparently helped make the doodle a reality. Now, back to work. No, seriously, stop playing Pac-Man and get back to work! :)

Google Teams Up With Sony And Logitech, Introduces Google TV

The rumors where there, it was not one of the best kept secrets, but it surprised many tech analysts when Google didn't announce some kind of TV play on day 1 of its annual developer conference in San Francisco. Day 2 did not disappoint however, with Google and partners announcing the coming of Google TV an Android based service which "lets people visit any Web site from their televisions and easily search for programs and Web video without scrolling through unwieldy on-screen TV directories." according to this NY Times article.

Google TV will come built into Sony's high-definition televisions and Blue-ray players later this fall and will also be available via a set to box developed by Logitech. Price was not discussed but the service is said to require Intel's Atom chip set which is bound to drive costs some. Sony exec's also hinted that they were likely to adopt Google's software over their own Bravia software at some point down the road as it is more robust.

“Google TV is more than anything finally going to create some energy over at Apple to make a television, or at least a version of the iPad that docks with a TV,” said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research.

The Official Google Blog has more details.

LinkedIn Attempts To Assure Users That It Does Not Face Privacy Issues Of Facebook

Speaking at the annual Mesh web conference in Toronto Arvind Rajan, LinkedIn's vice-president of international operations, tried to assure attendees that his company was very different from other social sites and did not face the same issues that Facebook is under fire for."It's not about your personal life or your social life, it's about your professional engagement and success," Rajan said, and  "That, by its very nature, helps us differentiate ourselves from other social networks."

Rajan also eluded to the fact that his companies users are more sophisticated and perhaps more educated and mature than say Facebook's users. "Everything you do on LinkedIn is tied to your professional identity and brand," Rajan said. "Nothing's anonymous. Because of that, people are pretty careful about what they say because they don't want to look uninformed." The average LinkedIn user is said to be 41 years of age with a household income of more than $100,000 per year.

I can go along with that... very different audience on LinkedIn, that's for sure.

Read more: CBC News 

Wired: "Tablets haven’t been this hot since Moses came down from Mount Sinai."

If I may butcher a line from Spider Man, it would appear as though with great power comes a great deal of interest from other manufacturers to get their own devices out the door. To that end Wired has created "...an overview of some interesting tablets we expect — or hope — to see this year." Among the contenders is a Google/Verizon offering, an Acer device expected in a couple of weeks, a Dell/AT&T device slated for later this summer, and reported other offerings by Sony, HP, and even RIM. Check out the line up at Wired.

As for me, I'd like to hold out for an Android powered device but the iPad's initial success and sleek Apple designs are just too strong to resist and therefore... me too please!

MySpace Making Promises After Facebook Miss Step On Privacy

MySpace has indicated in a post to users that a "simplified" version of it's privacy settings will be rolled out in the next few weeks. The announcement comes in the wake of the much publicized changes to Facebook's privacy settings which has drawn the ire of user over privacy concerns.

"While MySpace at its core is about discovery, self expression and sharing, we understand people might want the option of limiting the sharing of their information to a select group of friends," says MySpace's co-president Mike Jones. "We respect our users' desires to balance sharing and privacy, and never push our users to an uncomfortable privacy position."

This may just be MySpace's lease on life... while many Facebook users are abandoning ship.

Source: cnet and MySpace

Another Day, Another Personal Data Security Concern

It appears as though Google Street View cars were collecting more than photos and geographic data as they cruised down your street. When German authorities asked Google to divulge the data it had collected, Google revealed that it's cars had "been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open networks". This means that if you were surfing on an open/unsecured wireless network as the Street View car drove past, you may have been providing Google with parts of an email, text, photographs or the website you were viewing. Google claims that the problem dates back to 2006 when "an engineer working on an experimental wi-fi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast wi-fi data". 

Guess they thought that they'd just leave it in there until somebody noticed! Sorry Google but I find it a little hard to believe that this went totally unnoticed. 

Source: BBC News