Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Mission Blue: filling in the blanks...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/ysuuxLXgfDI/mission-blue-filling-in-blanks.html

Last year, we launched Ocean in Google Earth, expanding the scope of Earth to include 3D maps of the world's oceans and videos, photos and narrative from the world's leading scientists and media sources to bring them to life. We worked with more than 100 partners to begin to fill in the "blue" part of the planet, adding hundreds of placemarks in more than 20 ocean layers. Since then, we've added hundreds of new posts to the Ocean layer with the help of Sylvia Earle's Mission Blue Foundation and dozens of committed individuals around the world. The posts come from a diverse range of partners including National Geographic, independent videographers and dive enthusiasts, government organizations like the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and international organizations like the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Today, the layer will become part of the default set of annotations seen by all Earth users. Although a humble step given the dearth of information available about these vast expanses of geography, we are happy to take one more step to make the oceans a first-class part of Google Earth and to give them at least a starter portion of the thick soup of photos and places that describe the land part of the planet. One of the greatest things about Earth is that it allows everyone to see and experience the fullness of their planet, from revisiting places they know well to venturing out to formerly unknown mountain peaks, desert vistas, and increasingly, the blue heart of life on Earth. As Sylvia has said of the Ocean on many occasions, "With knowing comes caring, and with caring there's hope."

Soon after last year's launch, Sylvia asked attendees at the TED conference to ! help her realize a wish: to create a series of marine protected areas she calls Hope Spots. Sylvia and a group of influential thinkers are now on a Mission Blue Voyage to the Galapagos Islands to brainstorm how they might best achieve better ocean protection. You can follow them on their journey by visiting the the Mission Blue Foundation website and on Twitter at @MissionBlue. There you can learn more about the launch of their Hope Spots initiative and visit all 18 of these spots using the Google Earth plugin.

We've also created a narrated tour featured in the Ocean Showcase to introduce you to eight of the regions proposed for protection: the Eastern Pacific Seascape including the Galapagos Islands, the Gulf of California, the Mesoamerican Reef in the Caribbean including Belize, the Sargasso Sea in the mid-Atlantic, the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, the Coral Triangle, the Ross Sea in the Antarctic and Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic.

We'd also like to take a moment to thank the partners who have helped us improve our 3D canvas of the world's oceans in the past year: NOAA (global coverage), MBARI (Monterey Bay! Canyon) , The California State University at Monterey Bay (California Coast), The Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping - Joint Hydrographic Center at the University of New Hampshire (Arctic) and The Living Oceans Society (British Columbia and Canada).

As Earth Day approaches, we hope you'll take a little time to explore the planet, including the blue part.

Posted by John Hanke, Vice President of Product Management, Google Geo

Make QR Codes in a Jiffy with Goo.gl [Cameraphones]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5511793/make-qr-codes-in-a-jiffy-with-googl

Make QR Codes in a Jiffy with Goo.gl Google's official URL-shortening service, Goo.gl, just added a very cool trick to its shortening arsenal: Quick QR code creation with a simple URL tweak.

We recently highlighted how to make your personal QR code, but for those of you who don't recall, a QR ("quick response") code is a square barcode that makes getting URLs, location coordinates, any text or contact information onto a phone fast. With a barcode scanner app installed, you just point your phone's camera at the code to read its contents.

Gina detailed how to create QR codes using code generators like this or this, but if you're already using Goo.gl to shorten your URLs, simply add .qr to the end of a shortened Goo.gl URL and it'll instantly generate a QR code for you.

Once you've got your shortened Goo.gl URL—like http://goo.gl/3p8r, which points to Lifehacker's home page—just append .qr like so:

http://goo.gl/3p8r.qr

...and you've got your personal QR code. Not bad.

Note: To use Goo.gl to shorten URLs, you need to be using the Google Toolbar, or you can point your browser here or try this bookmarklet. Also, the other generators listed above offer QR codes that embed text, phone numbers, maps, and ready-to-send text messages in addition to URLs, so if you want more than just a shortened URL, they're probably better options.

[via @mattcuts]

Xmarks for Firefox Syncs Open Tabs Between Browsers [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5512326/xmarks-for-firefox-syncs-open-tabs-between-browsers

Xmarks for Firefox Syncs Open Tabs Between Browsers Firefox: Fans of the Xmarks bookmark and password syncing service, rejoice. You can now close down any Firefox browser connected to Xmarks and open whatever tabs you left standing on another browser. It's a nice little bit of worry reduction.

Mozilla's own Weave tool added tab syncing in its 1.0 release, so its nice to see Xmarks catch up to the competition. But given that Xmarks works, in one form or another, across Safari and Internet Explorer as well, a future update could make tab syncing much more convenient for the home/office divide.

Xmarks for Firefox Syncs Open Tabs Between Browsers To get the tab syncing, you'll have to download the preview version of Xmarks' add-on from the blog link below (or grab it here, directly), or wait about a week for the update to show up in Mozilla's add-on repository. Head to your Xmarks settings in the Tools menu, enable tab syncing, and give the Firefox setup and computer you're currently using a name. Do likewise on other computers you've installed Xmarks on. To retrieve single tabs or whole sets from other browsers, head to the Tools menu, open the Xmarks sub-menu, and choose "Open Remote Tabs."

Xmarks states that it uploads your window and tab status in the background, when your browser has a "quiet moment," so it might not always pick up every last tab, especially before a crash. It is, however, a nice piece of mind that costs you nothing. Xmarks is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.

Tab Sync in Xmarks for Firefox! [Xmarks Blog]

Create Instant QR Codes with a Bookmarklet [Bookmarklet]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5512349/create-instant-qr-codes-with-a-bookmarklet

Create Instant QR Codes with a Bookmarklet Creating camera-phone-friendly QR codes with a goo.gl shortlink URL tweak is nice, but one of our readers took the next logical step. His bookmarklets creates a goo.gl link, automatically converts it to a QR code, and shows you the result.

Hosted at his public Dropbox, reader grewal12 put his JavaScript skills to work, offering up two different versions of a bookmarklet. You'll need to copy the code and save it as a new bookmark manually, but once you do, it's a handy little thing. Go to a page you want to make easy for Android and iPhone users to get to with their camera scanners, hit the bookmarklet, and, depending on which version you picked, your code will appear in either a tiny new window or in the same browser tab. Handy stuff.

QR Code Bookmarklets [via grewal12]

Runco's WindowWall gives you the $100,000 view you always wanted (eyes-on)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/runcos-windowwall-gives-you-the-100-000-view-you-always-wanted/

You see them, as soon as you set eyes on the gigantic, nine-panel screen. Those black lines are plainly visible. But the 46-inch Samsung panels in Runco's WindowWall have 7.33mm bezels that almost disappear from ten feet away, and when we first walked in, we actually thought they were part of the image. In a nutshell, WindowWall is a modular display system that turns entire walls into displays capable of rendering giant images across many screens, or display different media -- say, Doctor Who, LOST, FlashForward, V, Castle, 24, a couple computer screens and an episode of Firefly for good measure -- on each individual one. Making the system work in sync requires quite a bit of hardware, including a power supply unit and display controller unit for every four 1366 x 768 panels used, not to mention an upscaling box and a seriously sturdy stand (sorry, Humanscale) to hold up all that glass. The company boasts the whole system is scalable, meaning you can make it work with as few as four or as many as twenty panels and still run the entire system as a single screen at its full, gigantic native resolution. We weren't able to see these nine pumping pixels at 4098 x 2304, unfortunately, as the only content on hand was 1080p, but the footage did seem to be well synced across all nine screens. Of course, with a system like this the catch is cost -- for the nine panels, frame, reels of CAT cable and veritable server rack required to run this particular WindowWall, R! unco sai d we should expect to pay a heartstopping $100,000. Droolworthy, to be sure, but too rich for our blood. Perhaps if the whole neighborhood chipped in, right before Super Bowl?

Gallery: Runco WindowWall modular LCD multi-display