Long lost photos of the last samurai

Digg: “This is a collection of photographs hidden within Tokyo University’s
web site, displaying some of the last pictures of men from the samurai
class. They were photographed by Parisian Nader, in both Japan and in
Paris.”

FIXED : LINK

Vista-only game cracked to run on XP

Digg: “Both cracking and software development groups have come up with ways to
run certain Vista-only games on Windows XP, showing that there is
public demand for games that run on both operating systems.”

Google Maps: Drag and drop to tweak your driving route

Lifehacker:

Don’t
like the driving route Google Maps doled out to you? Now you can change
the driving directions by grabbing the blue route line and dragging it
to create a new destination point, which will in turn create a new
route.

As you drag your new destination point, the route changes on the fly
to give you an idea of how your new point will change your route. It’s
always been a little annoying—especially when you want to send a map to
another person—when you know the default directions don’t highlight the
best route, so this excellent and easy-to-use feature will certainly
come in useful. To undo your changes, just right-click the new
destination point and select “Remove this destination.”

Google Maps [via CyberNet]

Featured Firefox Extension: View your history in thumbnails with ThumbStrips

Lifehacker:

Windows
with Firefox only: The ThumbStrips Firefox extension displays your
browsing history in a filmstrip-style series of thumbnail images.
(Click the image for a better view.)

You can browse your ThumbStrips history by clicking the statusbar
icon to toggle the ThumbStrips view, then using your mouse to
intuitively move back and forth through the history, filtering by sites
visited or by live keyword searching. If you don’t want ThumbStrips to
record for a while, you can start and stop recording at any time.
ThumbStrips is free to download, works only with Windows and Firefox.

ThumbStrips [Firefox Add-ons]

Featured Mac Download: Manage your to do list with DoIt

Lifehacker:

Mac
OS X only: Freeware app DoIt is an extensible lightweight to do list
manager. Of all the to do list manager applications, DoIt has a set of
features that sets it apart from the run-of-the-mill to do list apps
out there.

Each to do item can be linked with a file on your computer,
a URL, such as the address of a website, or a contact from your address
book. The linked item can be opened directly from the Do It window. To
do items can also include notes, priorities and deadlines, which can be
set as reminders in iCal.

DoIt has a minimalistic interface that will not impede your
workflow. DoIt also has a plugin for Quicksilver integration to rapidly
create to dos on the fly. iCalendar and Quicksilver integration, linked
docs, and a tiny interface, oh my! DoIt is a free download for Mac only.

DoIt [jimmcgowan.net]

Air Travel Tip: Google wants to help you find cheap tickets

Lifehacker:

If
you like searching several of the popular airline ticketing sites when
you’re looking for cheap tickets, Google’s integrated a nice feature
into their search that identifies when you may be looking for tickets
and provides direct links to searches on sites like CheapTickets,
Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, Priceline, and Travelocity—like this search
fro San Francisco to Tokyo.

Granted, Google’s got some of the good ones left out (I’m rather partial to Kayak),
but it’s a nice way to get a quick overview from the Google search box.
This may not be entirely new to Google (it’s definitely not new to Yahoo), but it was news to me.

The Passion of the Jesusphone: iPhone short links roundup

Today is iPhone day….

Boing Boing:

Xeni Jardin:

Steve Jobs hosted a companywide town hall meeting for Apple employees earlier today, all about iPhone. Word is: Full-time Apple employees who’ve been there a year or more will receive one of the devices, free. This adds up to a total retail value of more than $12 million. Gizmodo: Link. Engadget’s posts: one, two.

Apple will limit day-of-release purchases to two iPhones per person, max: Link.

How many mobile phone consumers will switch from their current carriers to AT&T because of iPhone? Link, and here’s a “HOWTO dump your carrier” guide.

What about international markets? Snip from the relevant Apple press release:

iPhone will be available in (…) Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008.

Here are the 13 AT&T Store iPhone Objection-Response scripts: Link.

Apple published the AT&T rate plans earlier this week, here: Link.

One of the more commonly voiced skeptical points, pre-launch — how usable can this thing be as a texting device without a conventional, opposable-thumbs-friendly keyboard? Apple posted what amounts to a response yesterday: Link to “iPhone Keyboard” video.

Macintouch has a good features FAQ here: Link. SFGate published a pretty comprehensive FAQ here: Link.

Reviews from people who have spent time with the iPhone: Pogue (NYT), Mossberg (WSJ), Levy (Newsweek), Ed Baig (USA Today). I found this clever scorecard helpful: Link.

This PC World article lists 11 bummer factors: Link.

On the Apple website, official word that accessories and products certified as iPhone-compliant will carry a “Works with iPhone” logo: Link. More on the accessories market here, and a critical take here.

iPhone and security: A big deal. Not a big deal. Big deal or not a big deal?

Some people are taking Brian (Gizmodo) Lam’s “Jesusphone” thing too seriously: Link versus Link.

Here’s a Google Maps mashup that combines the Maps API with locations of AT&T and Apple stores, as well as listings on Craigslist and eBay. Link for more info on how to use it.”

Goonies of the Caribbean

This is some awesome, and funny, editing…

Neatorama: “It’s amazing how the two movies fit together perfectly: here’s The Goonies of the Caribbean by Steve Concotelli.”

My Wii purchase draws nigh

This fall, eh?  Looks like the Wii will make a good Christmas present…

Digg: LucasArts’ Talks Wii Lightsaber Game - approved and in development!

The president of LucasArts and senior VP at Lucasfilm has expressed
delight at the thought of a Wii lightsaber game by stating “we’re all
over that”. He claims that they have already played such a game on the
Wii and it’s a lot of fun. He also added that the concept was in place
and there’ll be more information out this fall.”

LINK

Prince Controversy in UK Music Press

I hope he does it just to kick the record execs in the nuts….

Housequake:

UK newspaper The Mail On Sunday is in negotiations with Prince to give away his new album for free. The UK music business is horrified!

FULL ARTICLE