Google Maps is a great tool for anyone looking for locations, driving directions and more. Today Gogole has released the ability for you to create your own map, where you can annotate, outline, add photos or videos to your map. Once you have your map created you can share it with your friends.

I tested this out today and created a map of one of my favorite places for a good IPA beer (Marin Brewing Company). You can check out the screen cap I took here or select this link which will then show you my map in your browser.

To create your own map you need a Google Account which is free, check out the how to here.

One of my good friends who works for Factor5 spoke at the latest Game Developer Conference (GDC) about “Creating Next-Generation Materials for Lair”. This presentation gives you a bit of incite on the next generation of game development and the directions the top developers are going in order to create great visuals for you gamers.

Screen Grab from Presentation

This is more of a technical presentation geared towards artist but if you have any interest in game development its worth checking out the PDF that Matthias Worch released recently.

BTW this screen shot the full 1080p was hidden somewhere in the presentation.

Links:

Lair GDC Presentation Page
Factor 5 – Developers of Lair
Lair HD Trailer

Keep and Eye on this game to hit your PS3 some time this year!

Got a cool mobile phone that allows you to stream video? Check out my new project im working on which is going to try to demystify the issues with mobile phone streaming as much as possible. Currently their are so many different mobile phones and each has its own way of streaming or downloading video that it drives developers made. I have set up a site Mobile Video Streaming Project which aims from the help of you guys to try to eliminate as much hassle for both developer and user who wants to watch video on his/her phone.
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I have been waiting for this game for some time and still have to wait till the end of the year to get my hands on it. While a lot of media (video, photos) of this game have been released I was wowed the other day when looking at these new photos that match their in game visuals vs the real life areas that they mimicked in the game.

The game engine dubbed CryENGINE2 is used in the upcoming game Crysis by the company Crytek. What a mouth full but here are some screen shots of game vs reality, enjoy!

If these photos arnt enough for you check out some videos from the game at GameTrailers.com .

If you work on many computers and need to sync your bookmarks, cookies and more I have a great tool for you. I work in many locations from home, office and remotely while traveling with my notebook. How ever I get damn tired of having to set up my bookmarks, passwords, cookies from computer to computer. I recently found an firefox extension that was developed by Google Labs that that continuously synchronizes your browser settings.

Google Sync Firefox extension helps you sync bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.

Let me give you an example how I use this after you have installed it. Lets say your reading a web page at home maybe while doing some research. Instead of having to write down the url, or email it to your work account, you simply exit your browser at home, and then open up your browser at work. Google sync pops up a small window with all the urls that you had open from the last time you closed your browser. You simply click restore and it loads the page up.

This is just one example of what Google Sync does.

To grab this goody head on over to Google Sync home page.

Enjoy..

UPDATE: Found a nice self contained unit that replaces the Pocket PC, and Bluetooth gps receiver, more information at the bottom of the post.

I have been wanting to set this up for some time and recently found a combination of hardware and software that work for me. What is this all about you ask? Well let me shed some light on this. Geo photo, coding, or what ever you want to call it, is the ability to write GPS data to jpeg EXIF headers. This text data is stored in the header of a jpeg adding the longitude, latitude and altitude you took your photo at.

You can do this a few ways, first of all you can buy a camera with built in gps (as of this time they are still pretty low quality), buy a hand held gps device that stores (waypoint, GPX, NMEA data) or a combination of devices. I have chosen the latter because I had a few piece of hardware already. Most if not all devices export out to some data format the one I choose is NMEA data since it works with the software im using on my PC.

My hardware setup consists of:

• Pocket PC with built in bluetooth
• Canon SD900 10 mega pixel camera
• i-Blue 737 bluetooth gps.

and the software im using:

• Navio for the Pocket PC
• RoboGeo for my PC

So how do you make this all work?
Well in theory you connect your gps to your pocket pc via bluetooth launch the Navio software, start it’s gps logging option which can record every few seconds your location to a file and then take your photos.

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Ok last weeks buzz was all about the iPhone but news seems to be still trickling in about this device even though its not do out till some time in June if you can get your hands on one. I wanted to share this video from CBS News because it really shows someone going though the iPhone’s interface and showing off some of the features. This is a great way to actually see how the proximity sensor stuff work on he device.

Here are some of my issues I’m having with the current information of the phone.
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