I really like ReadBurner - quite frankly because it's doing exactly what Google Reader should be doing: Displaying information about the most shared items across the web.

I also happen to be one of the site's first "Featured Burners."

Tomorrow I will be a guest on their new weekly live podcast, ReadBurner Weekly Live. Listen in if you're so inclined. It should last about an hour.

The fun starts at 7 PM PST tomorrow. Be there.

I don't generally post here about non tech or entertainment stuff anymore, but I'm going to today to hopefully save a few people from a big hassle I just had to go through in moving. This post will be discussing the horrible experience using Move AAA.

As some of you know, I recently moved from San Diego from San Francisco. Having never done a long distance move where I had to take stuff with me, I turned to the Internet to look up movers. I put my name and contact info into one of those free moving quote sites and within a few days I had about 20 calls all wanting my business.

I ultimately decided to go with one that wasn't the cheapest but also wasn't the most expensive. I figured that was a fairly safe bet. I did the usual Google search to see if there was anything bad about the company I chose: Move AAA, but couldn't find anything of note. Hopefully with this post, people will be directed here when they search for the company.

The experience with Move AAA was awful. No, worse, it was bullshit. It started off well enough, I talked to a very nice woman on the phone and set everything up. The problem came when the actual movers came.

First of all they were supposed to notify me 24 hours before arrival -- they never did. Instead, they called me when they were at my door the morning of my move. I had tried calling the company the day before to say I never got a confirmation, never heard back. Luckily I was ready to go on the day of the move when they showed up.

It was two movers, both of whom spoke hardly any English (I'm fairly certain one spoke no English at all), which wouldn't be a problem except if I had a question about something, which I did. Once they had everything loaded up in their van (which wasn't very much stuff, I only had a studio apartment), they informed me it was going to be an extra $400+ above the quote.

I tried to argue that I laid everything out in my conversation/estimate when I got the initial quote, the mover basically understood nothing of what I said. Since everything was already in the van, what was I going to do, have them unload everything and wait another few weeks to find someone else? Couldn't do that, I needed to be out of there. So I basically just said "screw it" and gave them another $400+. Stupid, I know, but I was on a tight schedule.

I figured I could chalk it up to experience and realize that I should never use a company that hires out for its movers ever again. Sadly, that was hardly the end of my problems.

I got up to San Francisco the next day and the movers showed up the following morning. This time at least they called an hour beforehand (if only to tell me they were lost). They eventually found the place and this is where I got hit with another $100+ round of charges above my estimate and the extra $400+ I just gave them. According to them, my apartment had stairs. It did, and I told them that in my estimate. I think what the movers were actually trying to say was that it was too far back from the street, but they just kept repeating "stairs."

My efforts to argue this point kept getting met with "stairs." It was pointless.

So my initially estimated move for $1,056, was all of a sudden surging past $1,600 -- again, for a studio apartment. Once again, I just thought to myself, "whatever, I won't have to deal with moving again for a while." Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come.

The movers moved everything in as quickly as possible. I felt bad for them, it was a very hot day here, over 90 degrees, and they did have to move my stuff up stairs. Once they got done I gave them the money that I owed, tipped them, and sent them off telling them I'd set everything up (which I think they were supposed to do, but whatever, I just wanted it over).

So they left and I started moving stuff around. This is when I really started getting pissed off. Nearly everything was broken in someway or another. Boxes were almost completely smashed, the steels base of my TV stand was bent beyond repair, the legs of my couch also bent, my computer desk had one leg completely detached (these are undetachable legs), one chair was completely taken apart (and it wasn't supposed to be), my coat rack was utterly destroyed, 3 stand-up lights: destroyed.

Best of all, my desk chair: missing. Another table I had: missing.

Naturally I tried calling the company to let them know about all of this and to hopefully get some of the insurance on it. I heard nothing back. I emailed them. Heard nothing back. I would not be surprised at all if they simply changed the name of the company now -- but in case they don't, consider this post a warning to anyone else out there: DON'T USE MOVE AAA.

I had expenses that went almost 50% over my initial estimate. I had no notification calls when the movers were coming. The movers who broke nearly everything I gave them. And they did not get back to me at all when I complained. It's a nice little scam.

Had I known all of this I simply would have left everything there and bought all new stuff up here. It seriously wouldn't have been that much more expensive -- and nothing would have been broken.

Moving is a huge hassle and most companies out there know that. They know that you'll be willing to put up with a lot of bullshit just as long as everything gets done. The Internet had made this problem even worse because there are now so many companies out there and it's really hard to tell who is good and who isn't. Move AAA isn't. I highly doubt that any other company that hires out for movers is very good either. Try to find one that has its own movers, it might be a little more expensive, but it will be worth it.

Don't use MOVE AAA.

This is hilarious. Microsoft has started running its annual Santa chat bot (northpole@live.com) for Christmas on its MSN Messenger service - but this year it appears Santa is very naughty. Two users - ages 11 and 13 - were talking to Microsoft's Santa bot when a conversation quickly took a weird turn:

El Reg says: pizza (pi)
Santa says: Yum! What do you want for Christmas, El Reg?
El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat so much! You are quite large!
Santa says: My elves will get right on that. And what else are you wishing for this year, El Reg?
El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat it?
Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!
El Reg says: Eat it
Santa says: No thank you. I don't eat things!
El Reg says: Eat it
Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!
El Reg says: Eat it
Santa says: You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else...
El Reg says: You dirty bastard!
Santa says: I think you're dirty bastard.

A few words there I'm sure kids love coming from Santa's mouth: "oral sex" and "dirty bastard". Here's the screencapture of some of the conversation. As The Register points out, this is the very same company that banned the surname Woodcock for being indecent.

Microsoft has supposedly already fixed the "issue" (did they beat down Santa?), and are looking into the cause of such a tirade (long hours?).

There's a piece in this week's Newsweek interviewing Adam Rifkin, the filmmaker behind "Look", a film shot entirely through security cameras based off the fact that according to him the average American is caught on tape about 200 times a day - almost always without realizing it. This immediately made me think of Google's Street View project, which has raised major concerns from privacy experts since it rolled out in the United States earlier this year. Now it appears Google may change its policy on the program and begin to blur out faces and license plates.

This stems from Google's upcoming launch of Street View in Europe and Canada in which those areas' laws require Google ensure no faces are recognizable in the service. When I first saw the United States version I was quite surprised that they didn't have to do that here - the clarity with which you could see some people and especially license plates was shocking. But after reading about us being caught on tape over 200 times a day, maybe it's really not that surprising.

If you really want to be scared, just check out sites like this one, that highlight Street View sightings supposedly ranging from potential drug deals to people leaving HIV clinics. It's time to go anonymous Google.

I'm absolutely loving Flickr's new 'Places' feature. It's one thing to look at pictures from another place (which of course you always could do), but it adds an entirely different element when you get some context about that area - such as its place on the map, other interesting photos from that area, or even the weather there - all of which Flickr 'Places' offers.

I've probably spent a couple hours already simple refreshing the 'Places' main page and finding new areas to look at the most interesting pictures from (right now I'm looking at some great pictures from Utrecht in the Netherlands - a place I had never even heard of before). This reminds me very much of something that prompted me to write a post last month: YouTube videos in Google Earth. Both of these features lend to the idea of using technology to help people feel more connected to and a part of the larger world - something that is truly remarkable considering 20 years ago no one would have ever dreamed of any of this.

I would love nothing more than for Google (the company behind Google Earth and YouTube) and Yahoo (the company behind Flickr) to set aside the fact that they are rivals for a second and combine these two awesome programs into one. Imagine if you were flying through Google Earth and you could click on a city and its Flickr 'Places' page would open as an overlay - on this page would not only be the content that is currently on 'Places' pages, but there would be a new column with YouTube videos for that city as well. Doesn't that just make sense?

I'm sure Google is perfectly happy using Panoramio as the provider of pictures within Google Earth - but lets face it, everyone knows that Flickr pictures would offer a much richer experience. I have a Panoramio account, and it's nice, but it doesn't have nearly the community that Flickr has behind it to build comprehensive 'Places' pages.

What do you say guys? Can we play nice and get this done?

So I'm sitting here in San Diego which you might think is the most beautiful city in the world, but for the past day and a half has resembled something more along the lines of Mordor from The Lord of the Rings - and that is not an exaggeration. I mention this only to bring up something I've noted before, but now have first-hand experience with: Twitter's true power still lies largely untapped in breaking news and assisting in times of crisis.

There are now 7 or 8 major fires surrounding all of San Diego, 265,000 people have had to evacuate their homes so far. Communications are obviously chaotic, all over the place, but one of the few steady sources: Twitter. Quite a few people have been giving updates on the event throughout the day including Robert Scoble and Nate Ritter who is Twittering just about everything as it unfolds.

Also interesting was something I heard on my ride home through the smoke tonight. KBPS (the channel NPR is on here in San Diego) actually had their website crash after understandibly getting slammed by people wanting updates, so on the air the hosts actually told people to instead check for updates on their Twitter page (which I'm pretty sure neither host actually knew what that was)! Sure enough, they have a Twitter page and it's been live the whole time with updates.

In my opinion this is absolutely the perfect use for a service like this. Communication is sporadic, cellphones are down, websites are down, Twitter is up and able to give updates from people in the area of a disaster.

CenterNetworks has more on the different ways social media was able to shift its role today.

At this rate, you'll be hard-pressed next year to find someone who doesn't have their own app on Facebook. Today The New York Times entered the fray with their own New York Times Quiz app that, as you might expect, asks users to answer question from world headlines and then assigns them a 'Times IQ' based on their amount of correct answers.

If you read my rant about the big media companies and the dumbing-down of the news, you should know I'm definitely in favor of something like this - a way to at least somewhat promote people to know what the hell is going on in the world, lest their friends see that they're 'Times IQ' is in the low range.

What's been obvious to some for quite a while now - but I didn't really start taking exception to until after CNN.com's redesign a few months back - is that the mainstream news has become absolutely infested with celebrity trash. A few weeks back the 1st most popular story on CNN was about Paris Hilton, the 2nd about Jude Law, and the 3rd about Lindsey Lohan. This is not just what people find the most appealing, or rate the most popular, this is actually what the most people are reading! That is just scary.

Today another perfect example. The Britney Spears "comeback" at the MTV Video Music Awards. Jesus Christ. Who cares? If it didn't happen to be the 6th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history today and Osama bin Laden didn't happen to release another taped message, I have absolutely no doubt this would be the most popular story - by far.

Read the Britney Spears' story, go ahead, I'll wait. Even the article itself reads like a cross between a trashy novel and an issue of Teen Beat!. Who the hell does CNN have writing for them now? When the story isn't oozing over the crowds' reaction to Spears, it's hyping the brush-up between Kid Rock and Tommy Lee. Wow. It then goes on to tell us what Jermaine Dupri and Jaime Foxx yelled out at the after party. This is real embedded journalism.

Not to sound too high-and-mighty. Well, why mince words - yes, to sound all high-and-mighty: Wake up America! I stopped watching any MTV awards show sometime before the 'teen' was dropped from the end of my age - and I really should have stopped long before then seeing the trend they were headed towards. Their award shows used to be considered hip and edgey - now every single one is just more lame and fake than the previous with people clearly just watching to see what celebrity will make a bigger ass of themself.

MTV as a whole has managed to transform itself in its 20-plus years from a music channel into a promotional vehicle for a flaming heap of no-talent ass clowns. Vh1 is arguably worse as it's chock-full of shows often featuring rejects from ass clown school - but at least they don't take themselves quite as seriously. But lets be honest here, neither channel should have their respective names anymore. Viacom: can you re-brand MTV as 'Sleaze' and Vh1 as 'Tongue-in-Cheek Sleaze'? Save the MTV and Vh1 names for channels that actually show - you know - music videos.

I'm not saying I think that everyone has to be all serious and on-point all the time - I in fact just rediscovered The Onion for the first time in about a year, hilarious stuff, and for us more tech-oriented folk, Valleywag is a riot at times - I'm just saying when celebrity gossip crap starts spilling into the real news at an alarming rate, I feel myself getting more and more worried about the future of America. Perez Hilton is great at what he does - but that doesn't mean he should be writing for CNN (instead he gets a show on Vh1, which coincidentally is starting tonight).

Yes, Britney Spears' life is in shambles. Yes, it's somewhat interesting to see how far someone can fall so fast. But if you're CNN, do a serious piece on her downfall, don't give me some gossip-filled account of what Jamie Foxx yelled while drunk at an after-party. If Britney Spears' life somehow ends in tragedy we, as a country, should probably feel partially responsible - but we won't. Instead we'll talk about this kind of ridiculous coverage being "price of fame" and say how sad it is while really just wanting to read about the juicy details and hoping to God there are pictures.

So it's September 11th and Osama bin Laden holds the top spot for most read item on CNN today, but tomorrow is September 12th, and you know damn well the most read story is going to be about Britney Spears' life spiraling down the drain. That is unless Lindsay Lohan beats her back to rehab.



[UPDATE 2:00AM]: Yeah so about the Osama bin Laden story being #1, nevermind - Britney Spears has already overtaken it. It's September 11th, the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks has a new video out, and Britney Spears at the VMAs is the most popular story on CNN. Sad.

On a side note, this article is the #1 article currently in the 'From the Blogs' section under the Osama bin Laden tape story, but NOT under the Britney Spears story. Go figure.
(Thanks LJ)

For more on the degradation of the VMAs and the whole story on the fiasco check out The Plugg's article.

Just about 2 months in having taken two trips and numerous other excursions with it, I'm still prepared to say that the iPhone is the best purchase I've ever made. Yes, it's an expensive up-front purchase, but my actual regular phone bill has gone DOWN now and that's with unlimited Internet! Anyone who can't live without the Internet, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't get an iPhone.

Just today I was at a park on the bay just sitting there reading a few stories on the Internet. It's become so simple and seamless to do that I really can't imagine not having an iPhone anymore. A lot of people probably don't realize just how much of life is spent waiting - waiting for trains, waiting for food, waiting for other people, etc - the iPhone is the perfect filler for those times.

One thing that I will say is that Google really needs to get on the ball and create a Google Reader app specific for iPhone. Yes, I know there is a bookmarklet JavaScript skin out there, but I want a fully-functional app straight from Google in the vein of the absolutely brilliant one that Facebook created.

Typical "May Gray" in California.

For the past couple of days it seems that all I've heard about is this new device out of Ireland by Steorn called "Orbo techology" that would supposedly be providing free energy to all. There was supposed to be a huge unveiling last night during which the world would see it in action, but that time has come and past and it appears they canceled the event at the last second and rescheduled for today. This whole thing is starting to remind me quite a bit of the movie version of The Saint (remember Cold Fusion?) did someone silence the team behind this, or does it just not work?

The whole situation points to how both the Internet is great and is also flawed. The Internet is great because in the old days an announcement such as this would likely never make it to the public. If the whole thing was a scam it wouldn't make it to public ears for obvious reasons, but if it were true, some group or government would likely step in and either buy the technology or silence the creators before the public got wind of it. As we all know, the Internet can spread news fast - so fast that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to try and contain.

On the flipside, when stories like this turn out to be false or not as big as the hype, it leads to a "boy-who-cried-wolf" state that there seems to be today. There have been quite a few stories with similar tones that have burst onto the Internet in recent years with all the hype in the world. The Segway was going to revolutionize the way we travel (yeah, that didn't happen), Microsoft's Origami was going to revolutionize the computing industry (yawn), James Cameron has found the tomb of Jesus (maybe, but probably not).

I mean if someone really did create a device that would give the world free energy, it would be the biggest story in the world. Yet on the Internet, such a stories dies after about 24-hours. The community is just smart enough to know now that it takes more than hype to make a major story. As soon as it leaves the front page of Digg, it's out of sight, out of mind, and on to the newest Apple story of the day.

I hope the company can get it together and show off a device that works. I hope it's not a Saint situation. I also hope the device is simply not a modified Nintendo R.O.B.


[UPDATE 6/7]: Oh, what do you know. looks like Steorn has canceled the demonstration completely now. Did someone get to them? Was this all a big hoax? Hopefully one day we'll know...

I just got my latest issue of Wired magazine and who's on it but a big old picture of me - integrated in to a Google Map no less. Very cool.

This was part of a promotion Wired did with Xerox - the first 5,000 subscribers to submit their photo got their own personalized cover. Needless to say I won't be throwing this issue away.

They would have gotten a few extra bonus points in my book if they made the Google Map customized for your mailing address location - but I'll "settle" for this.

It could be kind of interesting if I take this magazine to work to read at lunch and people aren't aware of the promo...

The New York Times has more on the promo.

With all the talk now about wireless energy, I think it's easy to forget that a lot of people have absolutely no idea who Nikola Tesla is. I've mentioned him a few times in posts on the subject, but this video gives you a better background.

A few months back I wrote a post about wireless electricity, naming it the thing I probably most excited for in the near-term future. Well, it appears that future has gotten a little closer now as a successful test was conducted that used wireless electricity, or WiTricity as they're calling it, to light up a 60W light-bulb from 7 feet away.

There is no doubt work still to be done to extend the range and make it practical, but you can be sure now that powering and charging devices wirelessly will be commonplace in the not-too-distant future. Nikola Tesla would be very proud.

In other wireless power news, the Pentagon supposedly wants to use a series of satellites in space to collect solar rays and beam them down to Earth for power. Why, you may ask, is the Pentagon working on this? Well it seems they, like the rest of us, don't want to pay for gas anymore - to fill up their tanks and choppers...

Wireless power is seemingly all the rage right now and I couldn't be happier. When I can go anywhere - like the beach - and use my laptop without worrying about it dying on me, that'll be a great day. The wire - in all its forms - just got placed on the endangered list.

[photo by flickr user Danquella manera]

The video below represents what Apple, in 1987, thought computing would be like in 2010. While obviously it won't be entirely accurate - technology is something that grows too fast for anyone to accurately predict everything that far out - there are some very interesting aspects of the video.

As the World Wide Web didn't exist at the point of the creation of the video, Apple could not have known to include it, but really some of the things aren't that far off.

For instance, what if you assume the male computer guide to be Google? He's really not all that different if you simply replace Google's search box with a virtual person who helps you search for things not via keyboard, but via voice input instead.

When Jill calls back, the first thing that came to my mind at least was iChat. Then she starts to share some of her work and when you realize that Michael can edit it collaboratively in real-time - that is exactly what the new version of iChat is supposedy going to have.

Surprisingly the thing Apple might have been most off about was the GUI - in the video it's awful, looks like something Apple would do in the early 1990s, not 2010.



Also - is that a Sony Memory Stick Michael puts into the computer?!!

What that device most reminds me of in form-factor is a UMPC.

Remember that Steve Jobs famously wore a bow tie in Apple's early years, is the assistant meant to be him? How'd you like to have Steve Jobs answering your questions on your computer everyday?

"Could be", "Might have", "Maybe".

In the age of digital video and 24/7 Justin.tv can't someone just set up shop at Loch Ness for as long as it takes to prove once and for all whether or not there is a Loch Ness Monster (or anything else in those waters)?

I know I'd watch Nessie.tv...

Earlier when I said Microsoft's 3D Live Maps and Google's Street View were a glimpse of the future and pretty cool, I had no idea that a few hours later both of those announcements would be blown out of the water. Now this is pretty damn cool.

Microsoft has just unveiled their "Surface Computing" platform. Their Channel 10 blog has a first look - which I can't get to load - no matter though as Popular Mechanic's video of it is simply awesome.

It literally is the exact same thing from Jeff Han's video a few months ago, but fleshed out beyond the prototype stage to the point that we should begin to see these devices by the end of this year!

Now, I say in the title "Just-blow-the" Surface Computing because unless you have at least $5,000-$10,000 just burning a hole in your wallet, you won't be seeing one of these bad boys on a consumer level at least until sometime next year and possibly later. But Microsoft is supposedly already lining up the big-boy clients and we should seeing these things in places like casinos within months.

Just please watch that Popular Mechanics video and let it play at least up until the point where the demonstrator takes a picture with his digital camera, places it on the surface computer, and instantly that picture appears on the table for him to manipulate. He then places a cellphone on the surface computer and simply glides the picture into it - transferred. Brilliant.

Later Jeff Han talks about surface computing on wallpaper. And I thought nothing would ever beat Willy Wonka's lick-able wallpaper...

Scoble has more, as does CNET. Here's Microsoft's official release. This is going to be talked about for a long time coming...

Be sure to also check out Microsoft's own presentation.

Naturally I wonder how Apple will respond - as in tomorrow - when Steve Jobs will be one of the main speakers at the All Things Digital Conference alongside Bill Gates. DRM-free iTunes tracks suddenly don't feel big enough...

Who thinks it was just a coincidence that they announced this at midnight the night before before Gates and Jobs are going to be on stage together? Touche Microsoft. Touche.

Now you see, was that so tough? Create buzz-worthy products and the buzz does cometh...

After testing both Google Maps Street View and Live Maps 3D View, I have to say I'm very impressed by both. While they are two completely different features and it's hard to compare the two, I'd say that Microsoft's is more "wow-ing" while Google's is more practical and accessible.

Live Maps "wow-ing" doesn't come without its hiccups of course. While I'm very pleased that it runs on Firefox - something I never in a million years would have imagined - the 3D version of Live Maps does require you to install Microsoft's Virtual Earth. After a few minutes spent doing that, I was all set to go exploring in 3D, and then my browser crashed. But, upon restart it's working beautifully.

The cities available in 3D look really good, especially New York City. It's great being able to simply use your keyboard's forward and back keys (along with the Ctrl button for 3D manipulation) to glide through a city. The application even goes so far as to let you know when you are zooming through a building (though I did get stuck a few times). It would be nice if the trees of Central Park were also in 3D, but I'm nitpicking here.

The load times for the 3D building aren't great, but manageable. In my opinion, it's worth the wait to get the full 3D effect. Rumor is that Google will be copying Microsoft here and making their own fully-3D environments, and they should, it's a great product.

Google Map's Street View (kudos to Garett for calling this one) takes a different approach. In the cities where it is available (limited to a handful at this point), you click on the new 'Street View' button next to 'Traffic'. This will overlay blue lines on the streets where pictures are available of the area. These pictures are fully panoramic (360 degrees) and you can even zoom in on them.

What is really cool is that as long as picture data is available, you can use your mouse or keyboard keys to navigate forward and backward down a street without ever leaving the Street View. Doing this while in the full-screen (full browser window) mode is great, especially when you remember that you can spin around 360 degrees and become even more immersed.

It'd be nice to be able to pick a day or night view for something like the Las Vegas Strip - but I'm nitpicking again.

The images take a few seconds to load, but overall the feature is very fast. When Google gets this rolled out to more cities it will be a really amazing way to orient yourself in a place without actually being there. There is of course the question of security and privacy as with most Map features - you can see cars and people very close, though the images still are too blurry to make anyone or any license plate out for sure.

Both new services are great and bode well for the future where technology will continue to amaze.



[UPDATE]: After running it for about 20 minutes, Live Maps seems to be a complete system resource hog. Things slowed to not so much a crawl, as a complete stop.

And also forget what I said about blurry faces and license plates. I've been able to see quite a few license plates clear-as-day now and as for faces simply look no further than Google's own team outside the Googleplex and then there is this...

Oh, and this entire forum!

I have 3 invites to the new service Spock that is currently in closed beta. The first 3 people who say they want one in the comments will get em.

Spock is an interesting, easy-to-use 'people search engine'. I got an invite to sign up a few weeks ago via TechCrunch and definitely see its potential. I would best describe it as Wikipedia meets Facebook.

Anyone can tag or add reference sites to any other person listed on the service - but more interesting is that you can also add a relationship link, as in "MG Siegler is Sylvester Stallone's Old School Friend" (unfortunately not true). Once a relation link is added, other users can vote on if that bond is correct or not.

You can also 'star' (it's the exact same star I believe as the Gmail star) your favorite people or those whose profiles you find interesting. Spock also has a History section to keep track of which profiles you've viewed in the past for later reference.

As a user of the site, you add a profile for yourself and fill in any relevant information as well as upload pictures of yourself if you'd like. You can view my Spock page here (not sure why they gave me such an ugly URL...).

This could be a very useful tool in the future for quickly finding people - especially those not quite cool, or big enough to have their own Wikipedia page. It's also nice because it lacks a lot of the Wikipeida excess if all you are looking for is information on how to contact the person in question.

As I said, I only have 3 invites to give out right now, so get em while they're hot.


[UPDATE 5/27]: Invites are now all spoken for. Went pretty quicky (though not as quickly as the Joost ones, which I think I've personally sent out about 100 invites for), but check back here and I'll let you know if I get anymore.

Google Maps has just rolled out a feature I've wanted for a long time - the ability to click a button and get directions that don't rely on highways to get you to where you need to go.

I can't tell you how useful this would have been when I lived in Los Angeles and every single time I would look up a direction on Google Maps it would tell me to take either the 101, the 405, or the 10. Anyone who has ever lived in Los Angeles knows that you don't want to be anywhere near those beasts from about 3:30pm - 7:30pm on any given day. Online map directions were basically rendered useless in L.A.

But here's Google Maps now with a 'Avoid Highways' check box. Brilliant not only for places like Los Angeles, but for those trips when sometimes you just want to take the scenic route...