Automated Home

Google added bike lanes and bicycle directions to Google Maps today, allowing you to find routes that aren’t too hilly or congested. It’s pretty awesome! Bike functionality is available for over 150 American cities at the moment, but it’s safe to assume that, like everything Google does, it will eventually expand to cover most of the planet. [ Google Maps via Physorg ]

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Google Maps Gets Bike Lanes/Directions Just In Time for Spring [Biking]

I respect what Barnes & Noble is doing with this multi-reader ebook strategy, and I’m glad Samsung’s finally been brought in from the cold , into the warm presence of a real ebook collection, but $300 for this thing ? Really? UPDATED A six-inch-screened device with a sliding keypad, the Samsung E6’s biggest draw is probably its stylus, which allows for full, paper-style annotation and notetaking

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Samsung’s Barnes & Noble eReader Launch Ruined By the Existence of the Nook [EReaders]

The TX-SR608 receiver will be available in April for $599, just in time for pairing with a Panasonic or Samsung 3DTV , and with a whopping six HDMI inputs it’s very well-specced for its price. All six HDMI 1.4 inputs are capable of passing 3D video, and upscale to 1080p if needed—with one of the inputs handily located on the front. All HD audio formats are able to be decoded, and it uses 192kHz/24-bit Burr-Brown DACs. Dual subwoofer outputs and 7 x 160W output is a definite upgrade over the previous TX-SR607 model, which had just 90 watts per channel.

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Onkyo’s TX-SR608 Is The First THX-Certified 3D AV Receiver And Has Six HDMI Inputs [AV Receivers]

Google meddles in just about everything on your phone and computer—think Google Voice, searches, Chrome, and all that jazz. Now the search engine company might hop over to your TV with a programming search service it’s been testing. According to the WSJ, Google’s been testing their “television programming search service” for about a year. The project is a partnership with Dish Networks and the testing of it “could be discontinued at any time.” This doesn’t sound too optimistic, but a discontinuation of testing could mean many things.

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Google’s Testing A TV Search Service, Might Take Over Yet Another Device [Google]

Nvidia seems to be shopping around a teeny netbook running the company’s Tegra ARM chipset and, of all things, Windows CE . It looks very barebones, since Tegra is really meant for smartphones, and nobody seems too thrilled with it. Tegra is a huge strength for tiny devices like the upcoming Zune HD, but in a full-sized netbook, it’ll have a hard time running media or multitasking. OS is a problem too—does anybody actually like Windows CE? Maybe a Linux distro (or Chrome OS) could work, but even that’s kind of pushing it. Regardless, it’s rumored to have a September release date, though of course we hardly know anything about the product and don’t have any particular reason to trust that date. Come on, Nvidia, just stick the Tegra in a bunch of smartphones where it belongs! [ Semi-Accurate News via Crunchgear ]

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Nvidia’s Tegra-Based Netbook Christened "Firefly" [Unconfirmed]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has released his own response to the Kindle book debacle . While his response comes a bit late, it seems genuine. Hopefully he really has taken all the criticism to heart and we never see a similar incident again. This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission. With deep apology to our customers, Jeff Bezos Founder & CEO Amazon.com [ Amazon ]

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Jeff Bezos Issues A Personal Apology for Kindle Debacle [Kindle]

Kermit: “See? It fits.” True. And here’s the proof. Like I said in Twitter , this is the funniest and wrongest image you will see this month. Probably this year. Next: An iPhone up Walt Mosspuppet’s buttocks. [Thanks David, for letting an internet meme destroy the last of my childhood memories]

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Idea of the Day: Use Your Hand Puppet As a Cellphone Case [DIY]

This video explains more about the SAGE system I wrote about last week , the huge Airforce used in the 50s to the 80s to make us feel safe from supersonic Soviet bombers. The video here has a lot of information. If you’re short on time, I recommend watching the simulation of how the system would assign and deploy fighter jets and surface to air missiles to each threat, which is at about the 20 minute mark.

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Computing Classic: Video on How the Airforce Protected Us from Attacks in the 1960s [Retromodo]

Oculis Labs has two products, Chameleon and PrivateEye, that protect your screen from over-the-shoulder peepers in two incredibly novel ways. The catch that makes this product unique is that it uses eye tracking , something we haven’t heard much of yet

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Oculis Labs Uses Eye Tracking to Blur, Obscure Screen For Massive Privacy [Eye Tracking]

Amnesty International has installed a new anti-domestic-abuse ad fixture in Hamburg, Germany which is equal parts clever and shocking: when you look at the photo, it’s a smiling couple; when you look away , it’s a dude punchin’ a lady. The billboard works by scanning its proximity with an eye-tracking camera, which triggers an image switch on the display panel when it senses someone looking at it. The change only occurs after a brief delay, so that observers understand what’s going on, and get the message

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Anti-Abuse Bus Stop Ad Only Batters Women When Nobody’s Looking [Advertising]