Skatter Tech

1) This week was huge for Google fans. Google released the latest version of Google Maps. And in this version they finaly showed off the reason they bought out Keyhole. Google Maps is now the first service to integrate search results, addresses, maps, and satellite images to form the best maping service. In the past when we wanted directions from, say the San Francisco Airport to the San Jose Airport. We would need to enter both addresses to get the directions. But with Google’s search technology “SFO Airport to SJC Airport” will do. And if your thinking whats the big deal with satellite images, because even Mapquest had it a while ago. These images from Keyhole are amazing, and they dont provide you, with just a start and end image like Mapquest, but an image of where you start, end, turn and a continous image of the entire way through. And they have even highlighted the path you will be taking on the images. But now i’m sorry to say this, but goodbye MapQuest (who killed Zip2 a while ago) and to the java based Map24.
Link: Google Maps | MapQuest | Map24 | SFO AirPort | SJC AirPort

2) The New Sony NW-HD5. Sony has been trying to kill Apple’s line of iPods for a while now. Their latest threat is a 20GB Walkman, that not only plays Atrac3, like the rest of their players. But also plays WMA, Mp3, Atrac(3), WAV, and even AAC support. They have also beat the iPod with a battery life of 40-Hours. The sceen also allows rotating so you can hold it upright like an iPod or sideways like Sony’s players.
Link: EnGadget | Sony UK | BETA News | Gizmodo

3) Sony PSP Movies are here !!! (SOON) People have been starting to wonder if Spiderman-2 is the only movie sony will ever release, and if they are releasing more, When? It’s offically set to April 19. SonyStyle has a list of all the movies and is already taking in pre-orders. Some of the movies are XXX, HellBoy, Charlie’s Angles, Punisher, Saw and many more. The prices range from $15 up to $30 (Plus Shipping). The prices should drop once they hit store shelves.

4) MSN Messenger 7.0. This new version has many new features. One of the main features is proabably the ability to have an integrated blog (MSN Spaces) and messenger client. The messenger client allows you to preview the latest posts, pictures, and music that a person has posted. 7.0 even allows you to display what music you are playing in Windows Media Player or even iTunes. But when a user clicks on the song your playing it opens the MSN Music Store, which allows you to either purchase or preview that song. They have also included a fun little free hand tool which allows you to write to the buddy. They have copied Yahoo!’s BUZZing idea and they call it Nudge. But with this comes Ads. MSN Messnger has made deals with many companies such as Addidas, Sprite, Volvo, and many more. The ads are much worst now, mainly because they are not only on your buddy list, but also on the windows your are chatting on. But overall I think it’s a good idea to update.
Link: MSN Messenger | BETA News | WebMessenger

5) This week was extremely big for my site. It all started when I figured out how to convert The Broken Videos to enable playback on the PSP. This resulted in about 1,000 vistors for my site in one day. Then a day later I placed the exitFrame videos, and once again for the PSP on my site, which also resulted in about 1,000 vistors. Then a few days later I was playing around with my PSP and I found out how to play multiplayer games with only one copy of the game. After I posted this article my site, I had about 2,000 vistors that day, and about 1,000 the following day. My article soon was on almost every tech news site, blog, and message board. And somewhere after that I started to offer invites to the BETA Yahoo! 360, and there were about 500 vistors looking at that.
Link: Broken/exitFrame 4 PSP | PSP Multiplayer | Yahoo! 360 Invites
Places where my article showed up: PSP411 | Kotaku | EnGadget | BoingBoing | IGNIQ | GameHype | GearLive