latitude

Stephen Shankland stops by the podcast studio to talk about Google's new mobile tracking application, Latitude. The app will let you track the physical locations of your friends and family (or vice versa) if they give you permission. It creeps me out, but Stephen's optimistic that people will use it responsibly. Will you use the service?

Also in this podcast: the world's first carbon-neutral cell phone; Yahoo helps organize your research projects; Amazon starts selling game downloads; and The Sims 3 is coming in June.

Today's stories:

Latitude keeps tabs on family, pal locales … Read more

She's a writer, a blogger, TV personality, and comedian. She's a Jaquelyn-of-all-trades. But her name isn't Jaquelyn--it's Alison, with a Rosen afterward. We usually don't trust Natali Del Conte's guest recommendations, but we make an exception just this once and it pays off, because Alison truly does understand our brand of "juvenile" humor. This episode is all about milk jugs, printer ink, YouTube porno, sleep boning, and much more. I think Alison just won Dirty Birdy of the Month.

The 404 and Alison Rosen were designed to be together. In a platonic … Read more

While there are stories about Windows 7, the FCC investigating Cox Cable, and the Palm Pre launching in March, you really need to listen to the story of the Klingon who robbed a convenience store. Really.

Six editions of Windows 7: Better than Vista, still too many http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/official-windows-7-skus-revealed-six-editions.ars http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10155943-56.html http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1890

Vuze calls for FCC probe of Cox Cable traffic management http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/02/vuze-calls-for-fcc-probe-of-cox-cable-traffic-management.ars

AT&T to … Read more

The newest solid-state drives are just starting to hit retail. But would you buy one?

Solid-state drives are attractive because they're generally faster than hard-disk drives, particularly at reading data--generally something PC users spend most of their time doing.

But price is still an obstacle, especially to the frugal consumer.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based OCZ Technology is now offering some of the most competitively priced solid-state drives based the high-speed Serial ATA (SATA) II interface.

OCZ Vertex SSD drives start at $129 for a 30GB SSD. Other capacities include a 120GB drive for $469 and a 250GB SSD for $869. … Read more

Wanting to know more about N-trig's multitouch technology, now that it has reached the consumer market with the HP TouchSmart tx2 tablet, I spoke with N-trig's VP of Business Development, Lenny Engelhardt, earlier today. Here's what I learned.

The HP TouchSmart tx2 tablet features similar multitouch functionality as the enterprise-focused Dell Latitude XT with a few differences. Both tablets provide multitouch gestures such as dragging and dropping, flicking, and pinching. If you make an M gesture with your finger on the TouchSmart's screen, however, you'll launch HP's MediaSmart application. For its part, the Dell Latitude XT includes two gestures not found on the HP: two-finger scrolling and a double-tap gesture that turns off the display and touch sensitivity. The scenario for the double-tap is this: you have the tablet in slate mode and want to pick up it up and move to another room. You can carry it with your palm or fingers gripping part of the screen without worrying about moving the cursor. Simply tap the touch pad, mouse button, a key, or remove the stylus from its garage, and the screen and touch sensitivity return. … Read more

Discontent with Intel graphics goes back a few years. But the unsealing of 3-year-old e-mail exchanges between Intel and Microsoft reveals something about the present, too.

First some background. Intel makes integrated graphics silicon--that is, graphics functionality that is built into its chipsets. Performance is not the name of the game for Intel. Delivering power-efficient, adequate graphics that can handle everyday tasks and do basic gaming is the goal. Anything beyond this is left to the high-octane discrete chips from ATI and Nvidia.

"We've always been consistent that high-end gamers should use discrete graphics," said Intel spokesman … Read more

Is the MacBook Air overpriced? Competitive offerings from Dell and Toshiba reveal that the MacBook Air may not be so extortionately expensive.

Of course, it all depends on your perspective: $2,499 for a laptop is a lot of money. But put the Air into the context of its product category--ultraportable laptop--and you see that, by comparison, it's not necessarily overpriced.

(Note: Here we're talking about the just-announced update to the MacBook Air.)

Let's start with Dell's recently announced ultraportable laptop (or 'subnotebook," choose your nomenclature). The 12.1-inch Latitude E4200 is priced at $2,… Read more

Will Apple's decision to use Nividia chips in its new MacBooks be a catalyst for change?

With all the hoopla surrounding Apple's choice of Nvidia graphics in its new MacBooks fading, it remains to be seen if Nvidia's GeForce 9400M has legs.

Intel has a successful integrated graphics franchise and is the leader in laptop graphics. Before I get slammed, let me be clear that I'm not talking about performance. I'm referring to market share. Many laptop suppliers--particularly in the low-cost and ultraportable segments--default to Intel graphics because it offers adequate performance, reasonable power efficiency, … Read more

Will 2009 be the year that solid-state drives take off? Maybe not. The speedy drives are catching on, but wider acceptance will take time--and the bad economy isn't helping.

Costs are still high for these drives, which typically outdo--and in some cases blow away--hard disks in performance. "2010-2011...that's when we think the price points for the SSD market get attractive enough to really drive stronger growth," Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief operating officer of SanDisk, said this week during SanDisk's third-quarter earnings conference call.

Indeed, there is still a wide price gap between hard-disk … Read more