Category: Miscellaneous

Using Buzztracker, you can see the geospacial relationship between Google News and the world.

Check out this Google Hacks link I picked up via Slashdot. My favorite new hack is using Google as a proxy server. Personally I don’t need to use one, but if I did, this would be the way to do it.

Did you know you can use Google as a free proxy server? By submitting a specially-crafted, English-to-English translation query, you can capitalize on Google’s translation service to anonymously submit all your Web requests.

So if you’re at a school or workplace and would like to reach content that is otherwise inaccessible, try this hack. It’s not like they’re going to ban the world’s best search engine.

Gran Faro is a blog with 622 links to various music videos. From “A Perfect Circle” to “Yeah, Yeah”.

Update: I have discovered a similar but more updated list.

I came across another short cartoon from Blur Studios. This one, created in 2002, is called Aunt Luisa.

A couple of days ago, somebody mixed Craiglist’s house listings with the elegant interface of Google maps.

Today Engaget shares the secret of hacking Google Maps. I have to say, this is extremely cool. I suppose you could read that as, “this is extremely geeky”, but whatever I think it’s great.

Google is acting more like Ask Jeeves in that you can now type in questions and get fast facts. It’s about time they did this.

This is based on an idea I got from Matt Haughey, it’s an airphoto of the neighborhood I grew up in with notes appended over specific places telling about a memory or story associated with that place.

Would you settle for an island that sort of looks like a part of a continent? Well now you can – assuming you have several million to buy it.

It’s a collection of (soon to be) man-made islands designed to look like the world. Construction has begun on the $1.8 billion(US) project that is scheduled to be completed late 2005.

The World will consist of between 250 to 300 smaller private artificial islands divided into four categories – private homes, estate homes, dream resorts, and community islands. Each island will range from 250,000 to 900,000 square feet in size, with 50 to 100 metres of water between each island. The development is to cover an area of 9 kilometers in length and 6 kilometers in width, surrounded by an oval shaped breakwater. The only means of transportation between the islands will be by marine transport.

Here is a report from The Emirates Network. While you’re there, check out their interesting promotional video.

Not everyone is happy with the islands, with complaints about harm to the ocean’s natural eco-system and eroding shorelines due to current changes.

Soccer players David Beckham and Michael Owen don’t seem to be worried about it, because apparently they each bought apartments in one of the archipelagos. It’s also been reported that singer Rod Stewart bought the island designed to represent Britain. (link to divernet.com article)

Also check out ‘The World’ Official Site.

The following picture shows the location of Super Shuttle’s fleet at the time of this posting.

The search giant Google is tracking participating shuttle and taxi services using technology from their Google Maps. So far the list of participating cities is small and even then the services within each city is limited, but I’m betting this will catch on – BIG TIME. In New York, as pictured here for example, these marked points represent the locations of each of Super Shuttle’s vehicles.

I think this concept is great, are other real time services just around the corner? When does all this easily accessible information become “too much information”?

In other Google news, it’s been a year to the day since Google announced Gmail and in a continuing effort to keep everyone happy with the free service, they are now offering 2GB of free storage for their web based email service. Happy April Fool’s Day!