Google on Tuesday announced that it has released an update to its photo software, Picasa. Version 3.5 adds several new features, including facial recognition technology that is designed to automatically organize content based on the subjects in the pictures. The system works in a similar way to Apple's application, iPhoto, which added facial recognition early in the year.
Apple is laying claim to the navigation interface provided by the iPhone, a new patent application reveals. Published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the filing is simply titled Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Providing Maps, Directions, and Location-Based Information. Apple begins its claim by noting that as the number of functions presented by handhelds grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to build a matching interface, and multiplying the number of buttons present may be useless when dealing with applications such as Google Maps.
Apple is testing new iPhone software features that bring Street Views, public transit options, and location sharing features, according to a new report on a beta version of the software. According to iPhoneYap, a site dedicated to the iPhone, a beta of the next iPhone Software was released to developers on Friday. Screenshots of the release, version 2.2 beta 2, show that the Maps application now offers an additional feature: public transit directions. According to the screenshots and report, users can choose from one of three icons while in directions mode: car, public transit, and walking (from right to left) -- all of which are centered at the top of screen.
Ubermind on Tuesday unveiled Maperture, a new geotagging plug-in for Apple's Aperture photo editing and organization application, allowing users to add GPS data to pictures for placement on a virtual map. Maperture offers connectivity with Google Maps, and can either be used to add information to one image at a time, or an entire photo library. Ubermind is offering Maperture for no charge, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, with Aperture 2.0.
Google on Wednesday revealed that users of selected BlackBerry Pearl phones can find businesses via Google Maps by speaking into them. The new feature is made possible thanks to the same speech recognition software Google uses in its phone-accessible GOOG-411 directory assistance service. The BlackBerry voice search is still in experimental stages, but Google promises it will fine-tune its software's speech recognition capabilities over time.
The iPhone's WiFi positioning system can be fooled into providing false results, a report claims from researchers at ETH Zurich. According to TG Daily, researchers were able to circumvent the Skyhook-owned service in a "fairly simple manner". The technology traditionally relies on detected MAC addresses that relay information to the central server, and by spoofing a real access point, users can generate any number of false points, as well as jam up real ones.
