Slightly Off Topic: An iPhone, an iPad and a Mac Air walk into a bar ...

So, I'm sitting at a conference last week and I look over at the guy next to me and lined up in front of him are an iPhone, iPad and a Mac Book. On the one hand, I'm fairly elated because I own some Apple stock  and I'm wondering if there is an iPod in his pocket. On the other I'm wondering if there is really a need for all three devices at once and just what can I do to get this guy some therapy.

I'm sure this may be even something you've begun to wonder as well. If I've got a phone and a laptop, do I really need a tablet as well? I don't know about you but I don't need another portable device just to answer email and play Apache Sim 3D (I can do that on my iPhone). Two is just fine for me; one in my pocket and one in my backpack. That's about all the room I have anyway.

Without a doubt, the tablet form factor is ideal for certain applications: Data gathering in the field, going lightweight for quick demos, and visualizing map-related data for meetings and presentations (although  this one is a bit dubious because a laptop could suffice just as easily).

Certainly, you need a communication device (phone) and a work device (take your pick, tablet or laptop). Would you give up your laptop for a tablet? How much do you think they are interchangeable? Have you moved everything to the cloud yet? You see where I'm going here.

The funniest thing I've seen so far is someone standing up to grab a quick photo and pointing their tablet device. It just looks so clunky! I mean, they do, still make nice digital cameras for that type of thing. Certainly, for my purposes, the 8 megapixel camera that comes with my iPhone 4S is sufficient for my needs in covering events. I leave my 10 megapixel Nikon home for family affairs.

Eventually I'll get a tablet but not before I can identify a true, personal or professional use that renders the other two devices as less than ideal.  But for now, I'm good.

MapGL and other Google Geo News

Last week Google announced an update to Google Maps that makes it more 3D without a plug-in. The tech behind it is called WebGL and Google's implementation for Maps is called MapsGL. WebGL is supported by four of the five top browsers (versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera are in, Internet Explorer is out). Using WebGL reveals 3D buildings on the otherwise 2D maps of Google Maps, shadows based on time of day and some more elegant transitions from one view to another.

So, what is WebGL? "WebGL is a new technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without additional installed software." It's software that takes advantage of a the hardware's GPU, so you need both the a compatible browser and the right hardware to test it out. (I wrote about GPUs in Directions Magazine.) The library is managed by the Khronos (corrected TWICE per comments, was "Chronos," then Kronos but now correct!) Group (a standards organization) was released as version 1.0 this past March.

- Google Blog

Danny Sullivan reports that the new Siri voice automation on the new iPhone 4s disappoints in the Google Maps department. He could not, with voice, get to the details of a query as he would have liked.

- Search Engine Land

Google Maps breathren, other Google efforts, have been "fired" as of last week. The announcement prepares for the demise of Google Code Search, Google Buzz and Buzz API, iGoogle (I use that!), Jaiku and the University Research Program for Google Search.

- Crazy Engineers

Creating a map on Google Maps allowed the language technology group to add places and points of interests and even upload videos providing information on that location in Cherokee. Cherokee is one of the many languages that Google supports.