We all know the scary yet fun aspects of Google Earth, and to continue the tradition of releasing such services, Google introduced Google Moon. Now, and no surprise coinciding with the arrival of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the ubiquitous search engine has launched Google Mars. On the screen, it’s apparently a rectangular projection map of the surface of the red planet in false-color to show relief. Furthermore, you can also see the black and white visible and infrared views. Far more detailed than Google Moon, this goody shows you landing sites of both successful and failed Mars missions (including the Viking probes and the ill-fated Beagle 2). Click on "mountains" to see the location of Olympus Mons, the 88,600 foot tall volcano that dwarfs Everest.

All in all, this is a fun waste of time even for the non-astronomy-inclined. I sure enjoyed it, but then again, I am an astronomy buff.

I don't often have praise for Microsoft, but they do a pretty darn good job of creating buzz. Everywhere you go on the net lately, it seems you're inundated with the new "Ultra-mobile Personal Computer" that was under the codename Origami. Interestingly enough, I like the codename better than the official one.

Anyway, back on subject. It's no secret by now that this little gizmo is an odd little animal that falls between branches on the computer evolutionary tree. According to what we already know about it, the gizmo is bigger, heavier and more powerful than any phone, PDA or Blackberry. It's also smaller and far more underpowered than any notebook... and it has no real keyboard. Running a full version of Windows XP and being upgradeable to Vista, power is a serious concern. I have yet to see XP run well enough with less than 256MB of RAM. And not to mention, being XP, your new gizmo will deal with the same security flaws your home Windows-based PC does. Let's say you can overcome the disadvantages to a full Windows OS, the short three hour battery life and the surprising bulk for an allegedly "ultra-mobile" device. That leaves some gaping holes still. Its cost is nearly triple that of other multi-function devices such as the common PDA and the video iPod. Even beyond that is consumer overload. With the myriad of choices out there, this device is just another headache to sift through when making a decision to buy. And naturally, if I already own a cell phone, and an MP3 player as well as a notebook, why on earth do I need to spend $1,000 for a device to replace my previous investments?

It has been a legend told for centuries: a warrior from a land far away will rise and battle against the tyranny of the giant in the North... ok, maybe not. But it has been a rumor on the net for a while now that Google has been planning its own word processing suite, possibly as a part of what could be viewed as an online operating system. Naturally Google dismissed it, but with their recent acquisition of Upstartle and their Internet-based word processing software, it makes you really wonder what's going on. Combining this with the recent leak about the GDrive, it sure looks like Google just might have the fabled GooOS in the works. Naturally, this is dangerous territory. The Giant in Redmond makes money off of their operating system and even more off of their Office suite. Knowing Google, these services will likely have a free version, and a full version for a very reasonable price. This is clearly an attack at Microsoft and how they do business.