everyday

Google Maps has added a new feature called “Terrain”. It overlays a street map on top of a terrain map. While this feature isn’t particularly useful for your everyday mapping needs, it could prove useful in a number of scenarios. What’s more, it is just another example of Google continually improving it’s products.

I just listened to the album from Eddie Vedder (of Pearl Jam fame) that was used as the soundtrack for the movie Into The Wild, and I am loving it. Eddie Vedder has an amazingly powerful and evocative voice that is used to great effect on this album. I highly recommend it! The movie was also great, it is highly recommended as well.

Unsubscribing from an email mailing list should be simple, one click simple. Microsoft makes the process relatively painful, except for one glaring design fohpah. The instructions to unsubscribe seem simple enough:

To unsubscribe, select the checkbox next to the desired communication(s) and click the Unsubscribe button below.

What the directions fail to explain is that the “checkbox” is entitled “Subscribe”! So I need to click on the “Subscribe” checkbox, then click the “Unsubscribe” button? That isn’t confusing at all.

You probably haven’t heard about OpenID yet, well if you are one of the few readers of this blog I can almost gaurantee that you haven’t. OpenID is, quite simply put, the end to usernames and passwords. Think about it, how many different sites do you frequent where you have to login with a username and password? How great would it be to be free from all that mess?

This has been done in the past, Microsoft tried with their “Passport” system (now called LiveID), but it was dependent upon Microsoft. There has been a move to get SAML into the mainstream, but that has all but failed as well due to vendor issues (although Google is using it for Google Apps).

All of these various systems basically work the same. Let’s say you want to sign in to some website to access some online service , maybe Last.fm (which I love!). Well, Last.fm needs to know that you are who you are so that it can provide you with its services. Currently they maintain their own username and password database for authentication. If they were to implement LiveID or SAML or OpenID then you would simply provide your username and password for one of those services and after some behind the scenes magic, Last.fm would authenticate you and allow you to log in.

The primary difference between OpenID and the other attempts at SSO for the web is that with OpenID you get to pick who does the authentication. With Microsoft’s Live ID, Microsoft provides the authentication. With SAML, it is some 3rd party identity provider. With OpenID it can be you (well, your website at least) or any number of OpenID providers. The point being that it is free, open, distributed authentication; which is cool!

via: Inhabit

MIT has created a site with a mock-up of a super compact car for use in a city. This is a really interesting concept! As you can see from the picture, the car is super compact when stacked and not too small when flattened out. A quote from MIT’s site

By placing stacks in urban spaces and key points of convergence, the vehicle allows the citizens the flexibility to combine mass transit effectively with individualized mobility.

This would certainly address a key problem associated with the use of mass transit.

Rain Heroes from FUROBOT on Vimeo.