Google Maps finally integrates subway stations

If you used Google Maps today you may have noticed that they have finally added subway stations to the map interface.

It’s nice visually, but doesn’t give you as much options as HopStop (directions by train, driving or walking) but nonetheless I am a fan.

At the very least, I can see how to get home from wherever I maybe.

What all the fuss over DRM !?!

So I had a conversation with a co-worker today about sharing music and it reminded me of the daddy over at Apple.

Steve Job’s earlier this month called for the world's largest record companies to start selling songs online without copy protection software (see the BBC if you’re interested).

If you are a consumer of movies, music or digital content in general you should care.

First up, what is DRM???

What is it?

• DRM stands for Digital Rights Management
  

• It’s a system that restricts how, when and where you can listen to music and soon will include movies

What’s all the fuss about?

• Consumers like you and me like to “do what we do” with our music
  

• The problem is today we all can make near perfect copies of music and videos, and distribute them over a broadband connection in a couple of minutes or over several hours
  

• Without restrictions on copying, content providers like the RIAA or studio houses say they could go out of business (yea right!)

Why should you care?

• There is no single DRM standard
  

• Apple has their own and Microsoft has their partners (see playforsure)
  

• If you purchase content on iTunes you can only play it on an iPod or a Mac computer. That sucks if you are like me and use a PC at work and a Mac at home (I miss my library!)
  

• Even worst yet, if you for some reason decided to buy a Zune there are time restrictions for play…say 3 days for a song or 24 hours for a downloaded movie
  

• None of these thing make for a desirable experience

What does it all mean?

• Once again our angelic leader at Apple comes off looking like the hero
  

• If he wins out, we get to freely swap music and movies
  

• If he doesn’t he comes off looking like the consumers knight in shining black sweater vest

Food for thought…sound off here…

The Blackberry is Crack

Sometimes we can become device dependent and this is a sad, sad case of tech taking over our lives. There are actual studies that have linked the internet to an actual addiction and this video is exhibit A

Pipes and Tubes

Yes the internet is a series of pipes and tubes and Yahoo takes that quite seriously. Yesterday they launched a service called Yahoo! Pipes.

It’s received quite a bit of traffic and went down for part of day due to the excess traffic to the site.

What is it?
It’s a service that allows you to create your own mashups

How does it work?
It provides a drag and drop editor that lets you find data sources and combine feeds in different ways

What can I do with it?
The service is social, in that you can have an avatar, view all mashups from a certain user and even edit existing mashups to create something new

The editor is pretty slick, using ajax-like technology, rather than Flash and shows actionable modules that are connected by lines.

It’s quite cool and may even be useful if you want to like viewing NYTimes articles with relevant images on Flickr or getting aggregated news alerts from Google, MSN, Findory, Bloglines and Technorati