The Smidgen

I’ll be honest, when Microsoft revealed Bing I was glad to see something that might finally give Google a little competition to keep things interesting but I really didn’t expect too much.  I use Bing now but of course I still use Google as well, moreso in fact, and iGoogle is still my homepage.  When Bing Maps unveiled some cool new tech a while back using Photosynth for a Streetview like display I took some more interest but it still wasn’t quite a “game changer” or anything to steal the thunder from the Googs.

Well with yet another TED conference to unleash the cool involved with Silverlight, Dragon and Photosynth here, Bing Maps has just really blown my mind.  Augmented Reality photos from Flickr, live video that is photo-stitched into the streetview image and the full night’s sky viewable from wherever you are in the street level view courtesy of WorldWide Telescope.  Watch the presentation video after the break, you shan’t be disappointed. continue reading…

John McCain, presidential candidate and self professed technology curmudgeon, who admitted during his presidential campaign to having little or no knowledge or interest in modern technologies like email or the Internet, seems to suddenly be very interested in it’s ‘freedom‘.

His new bill, the ‘Internet Freedom Act’ sets out to stop the FCC from going forward with any sort of Net Neutrality regulations after the FCC has unanimously voted to go ahead with talks to formalize net neutrality guidelines.  In the bill the FCC “shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services.”  Now I have to echo Tony Bradley of PC World’s statement here and ask, isn’t that what the FCC is supposed to do?

Now McCain certainly knows nothing about the internet but he does know about removing regulations in the thought that the free market will police themselves, just like AT&T did when they blocked VoIP services or Comcast did when they throttled peer-to-peer networking on the down-low, both of which only retracted after threat of FCC net neutrality rules.  Go team “Honest and Fair”!

You know guys, if there is a legitimate reason to block net neutrality guidelines you have 120 days to gather your data and present your case in the debate the FCC has just voted to have.  No guidelines have actually been set yet so perhaps waving around legislation like a torch to scare off ‘the beast’ is a bit premature.  Remember, 120 days, and since you’re probably not good at math that’s about four months to prepare to defend the internet’s ‘freedom’.  Which I supposed would be the ‘god’ given freedom to rape and pillage, right?