Monday Links: Roadtrip! Edition
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Written By Reprise Media | July 10, 2006 | Share This
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We don’t know about you, but when the mercury’s up we get the itch to hit the road. Some folks prefer to fly. No matter how you plan to get out, Yahoo! Travel’s trying to capitalize on summer vacation fever. They’ve taken their Trip Planner application out of beta, and added some new social features. If you’re stuck on a trip idea, you can check out the itineraries made public by other travelers by using a search box or looking at an AJAX map of the world with the Explore feature. When you get back from your journey, you can share a journal of your adventure (complete with pictures), and other users can let you know if they liked your trip with a button push (a little like a Digg). Before you get going, though, mosey over to the rest of these links:
Mysterious Google Test #7852-B GDrive, the semi-confirmed, unreleased online storage system from Big G, has been sighted again - this time disguised as a duck-billed critter. A screenshot of “Platypus (GDrive)” comes from Corsin Camichel, who happened across the (now defunct) page while fiddling with Writely. The list of features implies, among other things, that you’ll still be able to get at your GDriven files even while “on the plane.” As for when we’ll see an actual working model, well, let’s not set our watches just yet (via Garett Rogers).
“Open up, Internets. This is the FBI!” News.com reports that Senator Mike DeWine is set to introduce new legislation prepared by the feds that would help law enforcement get access to online communications like VoIP calls and instant messages. If made law, it “would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping.” It would also, by the way, derail several lawsuits questioning the legality of such controversial activities as the NSA’s notorious surveillance of US citizens.
We’d like a ’stop’ button for ideas like this: Numbering the enemies of ABC is easy: NBC, CBS, Fox, a host of cable channels, and now? The fast-forward button. Ars Technica says that the alphabet network wants to put the brakes on a “new generation” of ad-skippin’ whipper snappers by convincing DVR makers to disable fast-forwarding while spots for Chia Pets, Tae Bo and The Clapper are running. While an independent outfit like TiVo might not go for it, the cable companies that provide a lot of the nation’s DVRs might be amenable to such a plan, since they pocket some of the ad revenue themselves.
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