Quantum of Solace

007 Quantum of Solace is out today, and the video game too! http://www.007.com/

Google Maps Move Aside...

Google Earth now available on the Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch through the Apple App store in iTunes. And from this Google post it looks amazing. Be sure to check out the video too. This will make you get an iPhone or iPod Touch, you have been warned!
Heres the link to the Google Blog

Update: Here is a good review of the new app, just follow this link

Bonjour

Networking can be a pain, and there is an alternative. Say bonjour to Apples solution. A part of the Mac OS X operating system that is dedicated to making networking easy and straight forward. It automatically detects and assesses available services such as shared files, printers or even shared iTunes libraries on any network. It is available for windows users too courtesy of this download and enables instant networking for PC to PC/ PC to Mac/ and Mac to Mac networks.

Electronic Money

How much of the UK's money is backed up with physical notes/coins? Not very much according to this article. We are living is an a economy that is run using electronic money. Here's the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7670313.stm

Bloodhound SSC Land Speed Record Attempt (1000mph!)

Bloodhound SSC is a British designed jet powered car hopes to break 1000mph and set a new land speed record. The vehicle is called Bloodhound SSC and is being designed by Richard Noble (of Thrust SSC fame) and will be driven by RAF pilot Andy Green.

The previous vehicle achieved 763mph but the new 42 foot long car will hopefully be capable of 1050mph.

The project is at the cutting edge of technology. It will cost approximately £10 million as reported by the Telegraph and they hope to tour schools to boost interest in engineering in young people.

Here is a link to the projects website: bloodhoundssc.com
Here is the press release for further reading.

Gmail Update - canned responses

Firstly:
Fans of the blog / RSS feed viewers should note that in todays shake up of the Web Warp Blog layout Astronomy picture of the day has moved beneath the posts. Although you now have to scroll to see it now it isn't the main point of the page so I thought it would be ok :-)

And now the main post:
Google Mail (www.gmail.com) has updated their (amazing!!!) (and free!!!!) email service to include 'canned messages'. If you write a reply often Gmail can save it as a canned message and you can just select it from a new drop down. I don't think it will be good for everyone but if you have to faff around with copying and pasting standard text quite often (e.g. responding to customers with contact information?) then it would be useful for you.

For all the details just click here to visit the official Gmail blog.

Solar Power Station

Could solar power stations provide us with renewable energy in the future? This type of solar power station could be ideal in countries/climates with a high number of sunshine hours. Heres the link.

Muse honored by Plymouth University

Rock legends Muse have received an honorary doctorate of arts from the University of Plymouth! http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=21889

For information about the Devon born rockers www.muse.mu

Apple MacBook Product Update

Apple have updated their range of laptop/notebooks which they call MacBooks. They have unveiled, to go along side their MacBook Air, a new MacBook (13 Inch) and a new MacBook Pro (15 inch). Keen Apple fans will have spotted that the new range only features one physical size in each of the MacBooks but there is still a range of component specifications. The party trick of the new MacBooks is that they are made from a unibody, a single block of aluminium. And (less importantly) they keys light up!

Apples MacBook overview

MacBook image reproduced without permission, Copyright © 2008 Apple Inc.

Updated 23/10/08:
For a decent review of the new MacBooks check out this link to Engadget

TopGear.com Redesign

The new series of Top Gear will be aired from Sunday 2nd November (a week later than previously scheduled) and to coincide with this wonderful news the website www.topgear.com has had a thorough redesign. I think it loads faster than the old site and is much easier to navigate with an easier to follow layout. This should be a template for other websites to follow!Unlike to awful www.microsoft.com (theres no link cos you don't want to go there!!!)

Windows 7

Windows Vista is still causing people problems with upgrading but on new machines it often works fine now that the hardware has caught up the power required to run Vista. (Unlike Apple where Mac OS X is only shipped on capable machines, although Microsoft wouldn't have any control over that.)

So what next for Windows? It's obvious that Microsoft are already in development of the next version as it takes a long time to build an operating system but yesterday it's name was announced. The next version will be Windows 7.

For more information see the announcement for yourself with this link.