Sharper Image Owes Garmin

The Sharper Image declared bankruptcy yesterday. Among those with unpaid bills is Garmin, which hopes to get some of its $2 million. UPS is owed $6 million.

- New York Times

Geotagging is Hot

How do I know? It’s the headline for an upcoming Nokia N82 firmware upgrade: “New, yet to be released, Nokia N82 firmware to include geotagging ...” I can’t quite figure out this comment from the post: “Privacy advocates hold your horses, I’m sure this will be turned off by default.”

- IntoMobile

Pocket Virtual Worlds

The technology, a result of a partnership between Case Western Reserve and Bowling Green, uses a mobile device to explore photograph-based virtual worlds. There’s no GPS, nor Wi-Fi used, as I understand it, for the navigation of the worlds. It’s not clear how the datasets are knit together. Even if I don’t quite follow how it works, the New Media Consortium identified it as one of six emerging technologies in its 2008 Horizon Report. The end use?

This three-dimensional photographic virtual world is likely to be introduced to higher education and specific organizations within the next five years.

- Pocket Virtual Worlds website (flash demo available)

- The BG News

Yahoo Maps My News

At least it does in the Rocky Mountain News. The app is here (flash-based) Stories are color coded as news, sports, business or spotlight.

Global Map of Hotspots in Past Disease Outbreaks May Predict Locations of Future Ones

The research from the Zoological Society of London, the Wildlife Trust and Columbia University is published in Nature. (Payment needed to read the article itself, but a public news article covers the ideas and offers a small map.) The BBC has a different map.

Bottom line (from News-Medical.Net):

They have produced a detailed map highlighting the world’s hotspots for emerging infectious diseases and the main hotspots are located in low latitude regions, like South Asia and
South-East Asia, which were not the financial focus of global funds to prevent the spread of EIDs.

Peter Daszak from the Wildlife Trust, says the world’s public health resources are misallocated as most are focused on richer countries that can afford surveillance, when most of the hotspots are in developing countries.

Dr. John Gittleman from the University of Georgia describes the map as a “seminal moment in how we study emerging diseases”.

I wonder if like the “human impact on the ocean map” this’ll get buzz?

- News-Medical.Net