And speaking of new Google products, the classic, clean homepage will finally see a change. Here's a sneak preview. A customizable page, similar to myyahoo but a little less cluttered. Good idea or not? You can always bring the classic page back by setting preferences. Will be interesting to see how this evolves.

A while ago I discovered "Keyhole", an unbeliveably cool piece of mapping software that lets you zoom around the planet and look at very detailed satelite maps of the earth's surface, along with basic political and road outlines, and in some cases topography. Keyhole was the first stage in what is truely the ultimate earth resource, a piece of truely revolutionary technology.

Anyway, I'm sitting here right now, liveblogging at the Googleplex listening to founder Sergey Brinn annouce the next version of Keyhole. The product will be called "Google Earth" and it's essentially the same thing, but with massively upgraded quality. Sergey just flew us throught the grand canyon with full 3D topography, and then to Santigago Chile with the same quality that was previously only available for small parts of the US. Amazing. Scheduled to launch in a "few weeks". You heard it here first!

ED NOTE: Never mind a "few weeks". I just fired up Typekey and things are incredible. If you like geography and have $29.95 to shell out, I hightly recommend it.

I'm always impressed when people manage to find a way to make money out of absolutely nothing, but then again, sometimes appalled at the trivialities people will pay for. Anyway, most major cities now offer "EZ-Pass" (or something similar) as a way to automatically pay highway tolls without needing to stop at the toll booth. It's a really great idea. Trouble is, the EZ-pass transmitter looks kinda ugly stuck there next to your rear-view mirror. But not anymore!!! Now, for a mere 20 bucks, you can buy a sticker from "highway image" that will turn your EZ-Pass into a whimsical personal statement. But can you actually see it through the windshield?

The Following are posts from May, 2001 that were archived on the old system...