Hi all!

Here is another cool stuff episode – with lots of technical news, because both Microsoft and Google were announcing many new things this week. For your daily dose of coolness, see the archive, subscribe to the feed or follow me on Twitter.

Photos and the like

• Photofinder Pro adds geotagging to your camera. Just sync up the clock in the unit with that of your shooter, clip it onto your camera bag for a day of scenic photography, and then pop your card in before downloading the pics that night.
• There is a number of particularly cute digital photo frames, but this Hello Kitty model beats them all.
• New e-book readers pop up all over the place. After the Kindle did some groundbreaking work, this week we saw the Cool-er hop by. Paper will be replaced. Really.
• Autodesk as a company is well known for producing some of the best 3D design and architecture software in the world, including AutoCAD. Now they enter the consumer market with the launch of DragonFly - a web based do-it-yourself home design and interior decoration tool. DragonFly is like an online version of Google Sketchup. Obviously, this has nothing to do with our own Dragonfly project – of which Autodesk apparently stole the name.

Miscellaneous

• According to new data from Inside Facebook, users over the age of 55 haven’t been as actively using Facebook over the past two months after triple digit growth in that demographic earlier this year. The report has resulted in speculation that while older people are trying Facebook, they’re not sticking around.
• Speaking of which: do you know what the difference is between Facebook pages and groups? Crucial stuff for marketing, I’d say.
• More social branding: what to do with Twitter?
• Something completely different: a couple of design rules for a check-out process. It’s kind of a reality check (no, don’t go there).

Hooray, technical stuff

• While the HTML 5 standard in Chrome was already a thrill to most of us, Google wants to take it one step further with a brand new method of communication for this new era. It’s called Google Wave. Today has been dominated by news and excitement surrounding the new real-time communication platform that will launch to the public later this year. Everyone uses email and instant messaging, but what if you could bundle them and add a load of functionality on top of it? That’s Wave.
• Read the Mashable article on the launch of Google Wave for more detailed information, or try the following:
  • Google Wave Federation Protocol: Google has provided some community principles, architecture information, and more detailed definitions on their Wave protocol webpage.
  • Google Wave API: For developers interested in building applications for Google Wave, be sure to check out the Wave API website.
  • Google Wave Updates: Want to be informed the second Google Wave is available? Here’s the sign-up form.
• Google has just announced that a new version of its Google Maps API (our Google Maps API Profile) is available as a beta release.
• Amazon's CTO says, that to upload a terabyte of data over a 10Mbps connection to S3 would take 13 days. So, the company is working around that issue by letting people submit data to Amazon Web Services via US Mail. Users send in a storage device with data they want added to the cloud, and when Amazon receives it, the data gets copied over and put online. And the other way around will follow soon, hopefully.
• Google O3D is a Javascript API which allows developers to create 3D applications within the browser. It uses a plug-in that allows for complex, hardware accelerated scenes to be rendered. The O3D page on Google Labs is packed with sample code. Click here to view a live demo, and right-click to view page source.
• Mir:ror is an Internet of Things app from the company Violet. As the name suggests, it is literally a mirror. It detects the objects you show it, triggering applications and multimedia content on your computer. It works via RFID stamps. Pretty cool.
• Suffering from the attention for Google Wave, Microsoft on Thursday took the wraps off Bing, the rebranded and rebuilt search engine formerly code-named Kumo, designed to replace Live Search. It's a solid improvement over the previous search product, and according to early reviews it beats Google in important areas.

And some cool things

• Evil Mad Scientists Lab releases a new version of their sugar-based 3D printer, the CandyFab 6000! Sweet!
• This Sparkfun project by Nate creates a keyless entry fob for a Mazda using a Nike+iPod kit, allowing you to leave your car keys at home.
• In the war between Man and Machine, kittens are a toss up of allegiance.
• A nice selection of "photos that changed the world". Cool. Warning: some of them are slightly disturbing.
• Transformers USB flash drive. You know you want one.
• Is that a really big mouse pointer or are you just happy to see me?