Webware

This week we got a sneak peek at a new social tracking site that's launching a little later this year. Called Strings, it's made up of tools that let you passively share your various on- and offline activities with others online, all in the hopes of both getting and giving recommendations from its online community.

In many ways Strings feels a lot like FriendFeed. For example, just like FriendFeed you're able to tie Strings into to various services you're using like Amazon, Netflix, and social-bookmarking tools so that it can implicitly share information about what you're doing on each of those services with others. And like FriendFeed, this information can be tracked and filtered depending on what type of content it is, and what group of friends it's coming from.

Where it differs though, is that this data feed begins with complete anonymity; nobody ever has to know it's you who is feeding the site. If and when you decide you want to start identifying data as your own, Strings has a very deep set of privacy controls to protect what other people can see.

H1N1 influenza, better known as the swine flu, is guaranteed to make an impact across the U.S. and the rest of the world in the coming months. But knowing what to expect, and how to determine if H1N1 is impacting where you live, should be the first step in your evaluation of the swine flu.

And that's where this roundup comes in. Listed below, you will find several resources that will help you not only track the swine flu, but probably help you learn a little something about it as well.

Find out about that swine flu

Centers for Disease Control -- The Centers for Disease Control has some of the best information on the swine flu of any site in this roundup. Everything from its causes to its symptoms are available.

Information on the swine flu from the CDC is the best I've seen on the Web. The site offers basic information for those who want an overview. It quickly digs deep into treating family members afflicted with swine flu, why a vaccination might be useful, who the flu is most likely to affect, and more. It also produces videos and podcasts. Overall, I liked the CDC's presentation on the swine flu. It's extremely informative.

The Centers for Disease Control is a great resource.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

FluTracker -- Rhiza Lab's FluTracker app is one of the best ways to track the swine flu on the Web.

When you get to the site, you'll see several colored circles around a map of the world. The color of each circle denotes the severity of the outbreak in a given location. Inside those circles are numbers, giving you a tally of confirmed outbreaks in a particular country. Perhaps most importantly, the site allows you to zoom in to see how many outbreaks have affected your area. You can even see how many deaths have occurred. If you're looking for in-depth but easily understandable tracking of the swine flu, FluTracker is your best bet.

FluTracker tells you where the swine flu is.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Mint.com is launching a new tool on Tuesday that's makes tracking personal finances more fun. The service now rewards you for things you're doing to keep your "financial fitness" in check in the same way gamers get achievements in Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games.

Each time you save more money than you spend, avoid bank fees, or come in under budget, it nets you a certain number of Mint points that go toward your total financial score. The goal is to realize the things you're doing right or wrong, and use that information to attain the most points possible each month and compete with others on the service. While it won't show you specific user data it will give you a general idea of how you stack up.

Mint.com will be attributing points to user actions and putting them toward monthly goals.

(Credit: Mint.com )

Along with each goal, the service explains the benefits and follow-through of each action, and in some cases the means to get it done. For instance, if it thinks you can save more money by switching to a specific credit card or savings account it will tell you how to do it and let you make that switch right on the site. The service did this before, but now it's tied to an actionable item where the user will receive an immediate benefit. Users are also rewarded for continuing to do certain goals month over month with collectible badges.

Thrive, another competing personal finance site, also does this tracking method and tells you how "healthy" your finances are on a scale of 1-10. However it doesn't have a points system, or a long-term track of your achievements--something Mint is hoping users will get instantly thanks to experiencing the same thing in modern day games.

Each month Mint will break down points by goal and let you see how far along you are.

(Credit: Mint.com)

The new program is a limited, invite-only beta, but we've got 500 invites set aside for CNET readers. If you're a Mint.com user who is interested in trying it out you can send an e-mail to CNET-getfit@mint.com with the e-mail address you have registered with Mint.com in the e-mail's body.

IngBoo is a new service that aggregates RSS feeds and can track topics and keywords across multiple content sites. The service was pitched to me as a tracking tool, but it also serves double duty as a headline reader the likes of Netvibes and My Yahoo. It analyzes each feed to find out how fresh the information is, and will show you with a simple pie graph how often the latest stories came in. You can also preview some of the most recent headlines and click straight to them.

To create alerts you have to use its built-in search tool, which will pick which of its trackers best fits your query. You pick which ones you want, then set the priority for each which affects in what order and how often the service goes through its searches. You can then pick how you want alerts delivered, which includes e-mail, IM, and SMS messages.

IngBoo shows you how fresh a feed is with a pie-chart, and lets you preview the latest headlines before you subscribe.

(Credit: CNET)

Where the service earns its stripes is letting you choose what time of day you want to be alerted when there are new items, which ranges anywhere from real time to just mornings, afternoons, and evenings. You're also able to set aside certain times when you don't want to be disturbed like on nights and weekends, which will control all of your alerts universally. There really aren't enough services that do this, and it's really nice--especially if you've got it set up to deliver SMS alerts.

While simple to use, I prefer Trackle and Alerts.com, both of which offer much more control over sources and per-alert settings, so you can set certain ones to send you real-time alerts, while others are simply provided as a weekly summary. If IngBoo were to add this, it would definitely be more valuable as a tool since you don't always want to get constant alerts for less important topics.

Three hundred eighty-five development hours, 3.5 median hours of sleep per night, 265 pounds of food, and roughly 4,000 cups of coffee. That's what it took for five teams to compete in last week's Microsoft's Mobile Incubation Week, an intense five-day hustle to create the best Windows Mobile application, from concept to finished product.

In the dark auditorium at Microsoft's modest Mountain View, Calif., offices last Friday, the breakneck development rate showed. Two bleary-eyed developers stepped onto a dark stage before a smattering of peers, press, and judges to present their showing: a Windows Mobile version of Brightkite, a location-based social network that lets you create a photo journal of your day that friends can track.

Gokivo Navigator will feature turn-by-turn directions and a Facebook tie-in.

(Credit: CNET/Photo by Jessica Dolcourt)

While Brightkite founder Martin May and his co-developer, Brady Becker, were the only team to take the stage without a finished application to demo, their mobile social networking application has two distinct real-world advantages over most of the other competitors--Brightkite's established user base and existing applications for iPhone, Google Android, BlackBerry, and the Web. All that's missing from the Brightkite lineup, May freely admitted, is a Windows Mobile app--even more essentially, the know-how to develop for Windows Mobile. Although Brightkite's Windows Mobile presentation consisted largely of prototype slides, the team is hoping they'll have a Windows Mobile client ready by the time Microsoft launches its Marketplace for Windows Mobile in the second half of 2009.

The cohort

Brightkite wasn't the only established company in the field. Networks In Motion, the brawn behind Verizon's VZ Navigator, AAA Mobile, and Yellowpages.com, was also there, introducing a first peek at Gokivo Navigator for Windows Mobile. It's the first NIM-branded turn-by-turn navigator that is already available for a subscription fee on AT&T phones, including the BlackBerry Bold.

Spark Nano: A tiny GPS device

You've seen them in movies: tracking devices so small they can be put inside a tooth or embedded under the skin. In reality, tracking devices--for the general public at least--are not that tiny, but they can be pretty diminutive.

Lightning GPS introduced a small tracking device on Wednesday called the Spark Nano. Of course, you'll need to take the "Nano" notion with a big grain of salt. The device is actually about the size of a 9-Volt battery--you know, the big one that's used in a smoke detector. The Spark Nano is, however, rugged and waterproof.

The new Spark Nano GPS tracking device.

(Credit: sfs)

Its size means you can easily install the Spark Nano on the object that needs tracking; you can clip it on a person's belt or put it inside your kids' backpack to keep tab of their whereabouts. The Spark Nano also features a panic button that the wearer can use to alert people if he or she is in danger. The alert would show exactly where the person wearing the tracking device was located.

For people at home, the Spark Nano can be tracked in real time via a Web site, either with a computer or via a smartphone. It can also be set to periodically send e-mails and text messages indicating the location of the tracked object.

The Spark Nano has a built-in rechargeable battery that can power the device for five continuous days with a full charge. It sports "Safety Zone" Technology that alerts you when the tracked object arrives at a target or exits a predefined area.

The new GPS tracking device is available now and costs $299.95. It also requires a service plan that starts at another $45 a month.

Baseball season is almost under way. So it's time we all get online and start forming our fantasy leagues. Perennial favorite sites from ESPN, Yahoo, and MLB.com will probably top the list for most people when they decide which service to use, but more goes into fantasy baseball than simply signing up for leagues. What about stats? Did you forget about the news? Did you happen to remember scouting tools?

Hear are the rest of the sites you need.

Step 1: Form the league

There are a number of fine league-building services out there, but if you want to have the best experience, stick to these selected few:

CBS Sports Not only is CBS Sports' Fantasy Baseball league free, it provides real-time scoring, live chat so you can talk with buddies during the game, and adequate player news and stats to help you make more informed decisions. I've used it a few times over the past five years and find it to be easy to use and high-powered for a private or public league. Disclosure: CBS Sports and CNET are owned by the same parent company: CBS.

ESPN Fantasy Baseball provides an easy-to-use interface.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

ESPN Fantasy Baseball I've also used ESPN's fantasy sports services for years, and I've been impressed with how much they offer. Leagues are free, player news and stats come straight from ESPN, one of the best sources for sports news, and managing your team couldn't be easier. But ESPN's penchant for charging for extra scouting help and more in-depth player information is annoying.

MLB.com If you want the most basic offering for your fantasy baseball league, you'll probably want to use Major League Baseball's service. It's free and makes it easy to set up a league. But I'm generally unimpressed with its stat tracking, and managing a team isn't nearly as easy as it is in competing services. It's a well-known fantasy site, but it's not the best.

Yahoo Sports Yahoo was one of the first companies to start fantasy leagues. More than a decade later, it's still providing an outstanding experience. All the leagues are free, player information is always up-to-date and reliable, and the service's stat tracking is second to none. Yahoo does charge some hefty fees for access to a draft kit ($9.99) and a scouting report ($14.99), but it's still a great service.

(Credit: in Xile Entertainment)

Even in the Web 2.0 universe, a literally two-dimensional concept can give way to a cult classic, provided it contains a compelling kernel of originality and ways to brand the finished product as your own. The sledding game "Line Rider" humbly began as an online Flash game in which a boy sledded down a track of your design, but it quickly garnered fans who created fantastically creative tracks across which the rider dramatically tumbles and swoops.

It's only fitting that "Line Rider" make the leap onto the iPhone. "Line Rider iRide" ($2.99) lets your fingers draw the track, pinching and pulling the iPhone screen to zoom in and out for a closer look. The basic controls to draw freehand, lay down a straight line, and erase lines are there. So are buttons to undo lines, move around the screen, leave a placeholder, and flag the rider's current position. If you have a LineRider.com account, you can make a name for yourself by sharing your sledding course, or download someone else's track to admire.

Although you can give your courses limitless scenery and outlandish jumps, the ride itself will be staunchly guided by Newtonian physics. Make your pawn fly too high, fall too far, or loop at unnatural angles, and he'll skid, thud, or somersault to his demise. Keeping him going right-side up is addictive--and harder than you might imagine. Just consider that the next time you hurtle down those snow-covered slopes.

Google on Thursday released an application called My Tracks that turns the T-Mobile G1 Android phone into a full-fledged GPS receiver.

The free software can record tracks showing where you've been, display them on a map, show elevation gains and losses, and share data with various online services.

As a geography buff, I have to confess that this one of the first applications that actually got me excited. I carry a Garmin standalone GPS device so I can geotag my photos and keep track of my trips, but My Tracks one-ups it in several ways.

For one thing, it's a phone and therefore much more likely to be toted at all times, not just on dedicated occasions. But more important, it's an Internet-enabled device, which means it shows my position on Google Maps--either map mode or satellite image mode, not just the feeble and expensive Garmin Maps--as long as it can find the Internet. Track data can be saved not just as a GPX file, but also uploaded and shared with Google Maps. And statistics can be uploaded into Google Docs spreadsheets or even Twittered (for example using the Twidroid application).