Pala-isip

Google Street View continues to impress. It has now brought underwater imagery to Google Street View. Here are some samples of what you can see. This is Apo Island, Philippines View Larger Map Heron Island, Australia View Larger Map Sunset at the Great Barrier Reef. View Larger Map Beautiful isn't it? No, Google didn't drive their car underwater, they got their images from Catlin Seaview Survey .

Google Maps is now available for 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES). Availability in Google Store is TBD but you can try it on your browser by going to http://maps.google.com and clicking "Quest" in the upper right hand corner of the map.

An inside look on what it's like to work at Google. The perks and amenities for the employees cost millions. I'm sure a lot of companies especially Philippine companies (not all) would never imagine doing this, yet Google employees are one of the most productive in the industry. If you know of any Philippine companies that does something similar, please drop me a comment and let me know what company and what perks they offer their employees.

Apple Study: 8 easy steps to beat Microsoft (and Google) View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon .

Google introduces Google TV. It's an Android based device that's either integrated to a new TV or a separate box you can connect to you TV. He's a video explaining it. Whether this competes directly with Apple TV or Tivo, I don't know. But it would be interesting to see how these companies plan to revolutionize how we watch TV. More details at Appleinsider.com and TechCrunch .

David Wong was able to hack an iPhone and got it to run Android OS. Here's the video showing the hack.

Interesting new service from Google called Google Buzz. It's like Friendfeed on your Gmail. They're finding more and more ways for us to be connected all the time. It makes it hard not to know what your friend are doing anymore. :)

If you love Google Earth, you'll love learning how to use the Moon and Mars maps on it.

Google is considered to be one of the best places to work, and this is the reason why.

Want to see how good Bing or Google is for search? I found an easy way to compare them. Go to http://www.bing-vs-google.com/ Type in a search term and it will show a split view of the search results of the two services. Pretty cool.

Here is a link to a mapping service to help victims of Typhoon Ondoy that flooded Metro Manila on Sept 26, 2009. The link takes you to a Google Map service to report help or rescue needed, news updated, report missing persons and location services for donation stations. Here is the link. http://sites.google.com/site/ondoymanila/map-update-form

Just read a report where 360,000 IBM workers have been told to stop using Microsoft Office and switch to the Open Office-bases software Symphony. The inside source says that staff were given ten days to change to Symphony, IBM's in-house Lotus software. The use of Microsoft Office in the future will require manager approval. With this change, Open Document Format (ODF) will rule as files ending with .doc will be replaced. I'm glad to see these kind of changes as it frees people from relying too much with one system. While I don't have anything with Microsoft Office, having only the .doc format sometimes limits ones ability to switch to another system if you decide to change. Specially now that were are more connected, having an open standard gives you an ability to just put your document online without worrying if it will open in another browser or computer system. You can't expect to always have your laptop with you. That's one of the beauty of Google Docs and wh...

The ongoing controversy about the Apple iPhone, App store and the rejection of Google Voice has brought a lot of bad press to Apple. Apple is also being investigated by the FCC. Today, Apple has put out a press release answering questions from the FCC. Here some summary of the answers based on the FCC questions. 1. Google Voice wasn't rejected. It just hasn't been approved yet. It's still under review because it changes the whole interface for calling which Apple has worked very hard to make. 2. AT&T has not decision whatsoever in approving or rejecting iPhone apps. 3. Apple alone makes the final decision on approving or rejecting iPhone apps. 4. Apple does not know if Google Voice has VOIP. But it has already approved several other VOIP apps like Skype, Nimbuzz and iCall. 5. Some other applications that has been rejected: Twittelator - Rejected at first because of crashed, later approved once fixed. iLoveWifi - Rejected because using undocumented application protocol. ...

Here's the full response of Google to the FCC regarding Google Voice and the iPhone. Google Response to FCC

Yahoo search died today. If all goes well, Microsoft's search engine called Bing will be taking over Yahoo Search. Microsoft launched Bing two months ago and currently owns 8 percent of the U.S. search market. This partnership/takeover is a way for both Microsoft and Yahoo to fight against Google who owns 65 percent of the U.S. search market. In the deal, Microsoft will provide the search engine and Yahoo will provide their experience in selling advertising. In terms of payment, Yahoo will get 88 percent of the search advertising revenues on Yahoo owned sites every year for the next 5 years. This is good for Microsoft since they don't have to pay anything upfront and they immediately get ad selling experience and access from Yahoo. From the looks of it, Yahoo might be getting the bad end of the deal as they only get paid on searches in Yahoo sites while Microsoft gets paid on every search whether Yahoo or Bing albeit only 12% on Yahoo sites. But easy enough for Microsoft to eve...