Google Chrome Logo and Simon are Distant Relatives!

Simon is a long pastime of Americans, a memory game which has been popular in the 80s and the 90s.

Although we agree that Google Chrome’s logo does remind us of the Simon, there’s a clear difference in that the Google Chrome logo has 3 buttons on the outside whereas the Simon has 4.  Of course, you can use the center button but still, they are “distant” relatives in our opinion and I am sure the logo designers didn’t whoop out a Simon just to make the logo.

via cnet

Google Chrome Browser Launched by Google!

Google launches their own line of web browsers called, “Google Chrome” and so far after couple hours of use, I am damn, fine impressed.

For more information on features and whatnot, head over to Zedomax.Net blog as I just wrote bunch of stuff about Google Chrome.

Okay, here’s something fun for the memorial weekend.  Goto your browser and type a character such as “A” or “B” or any other ASCII characters.

(Did you know that most characters default to Google search while “e” defaults to EOnline.com?)

If you find any other cool websites that come on on the new Firefox 3 (yes, you should be using this browser), leave a comment.

Happy Memorial Weekend, we will be back on Tuesday to get going again on tech posts. (I hear bunch of parties going on at my apartment as I write this now.  It’s the first weeks of school at SFSU)

DIY - How to Build Your Own HDTV Antenna and use Direct TV Satellite as Mount!

Don’t get the wrong idea here.  The idea is to use an existing Direct TV Satellite as a mount for the HDTV antenna.  This does awfully better than anything you can buy and probably get really good reception with this method.

I got my Tv converter Box (with the Government program Coupon). I hooked up with a regular rabbit ear antenna and although the signal and quality are waaaay better that the analog ones, I couldn’t get all the stations and some where a bit erratic. I went on Google and start looking for HDTV antennas and I found several easy to make DIYs setups, but they can be big and ugly to keep in my living room. So, I build the antenna but and I use an old Direct TV dish mounted in my garage (I don’t have the subscription and I don’t want too), the dish has been in my place since I move, and the best thing, it’s wired to my living room.

via instructables

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

This homebrewed Wii App called Wii Physics is similar to Microsoft’s Physics Illustrator and will let you test out your ideas before applying them in real life.

Wii Physics is a clever little homebrew app. You use the Wiimote to rotate, size and place objects on a stage. Pulleys, ropes, gears and joints can be used to connect objects together, and when you press the play button, a 2D physics system is turned on, causing the objects to fall and interact with each other.

You can download this for free and run it from the Homebrew Channel. If you’re ambitious, you can also download the source, add new features, or base a new game off of it. It’s written using libwiisprite, a library you’ll want to check out if you’re thinking of doing any 2D game dev for the Wii.

via hackszine, Wii Physics on Google Code

Microsoft Ultimate Office is supposedly being sold for $59.95 for a limited time only.

We think this is just another horrible act by Microsoft to make money off their outdated software before everyone starts realizing that most of Microsoft’s software can be now replicated by Google Docs or other free software.

But if you do need MS Office, you can get one for $59.95.

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 21, 2008 — As part of Microsoft Corp.’s commitment to education, the company is re-introducing The Ultimate Steal program this school year, inviting students who are actively enrolled at educational institutions to purchase Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 at a low student price of $59.95 (U.S.). This program begins in the United States today with additional countries to be launched throughout the year. The offer will be available to students throughout the academic school year.

via gadgetell, Microsoft, Press Release

Here’s some leaked pics of what the Nike+ would look like working with the iPhone.  You do have to admit iPhone is useless for fast internet browsing on the go but it may proved to be a very good tool for running around like crazy and graphing out how you ran.

the biggest improvement over the old Nike system may be Google Maps support:

We don’t know just how robust the Nike+ maps support will be, but mapping routes directly on the iPhone could make for more organized training sessions. If only we had the coordination to use the iPhone’s touch interface while running.

via gizmodo, iPhone.fr, Ubergizmo

RoofRay is a site that let’s you calculate your home’s solar power potential using the power of GoogleMaps.

It’s very interesting as the site will caculate the solar power potential based on the roof area and the slope of the roof.

It’s probably pretty accurate as most data is using direct satellite images off GoogleMaps.

The greatest part about this site is that you can find out how much energy you will be able to make with new solar power cells.  Then you calculate how much it is to install new solar panels on your roof to see how long it will take you to payoff the panels itself.

The RoofRay site allows you to specify location, size and slope of your roof via Google Maps. It then uses this info to estimate how much energy can be generated from your available exposure.

via make

Google is providing some live scores and schedules if you type, “xxx olympics”, where “xxx” is the name of your sport.

Try this for soccer

Search Engine Land noticed that Google now shows a onebox* for certain Olympics-related queries, like tennis olympics or taekwondo olympics. This seems to work in the US and China but not, for instance, using normal google.com results from Germany. In the onebox, you’ll see an icon alongside the upcoming events for the sports category, linked to Beijing2008.cn.

via lifehacker - gb