Apple and Depeche Mode Team Up!

There has been a lot of news this week centered around Depeche Mode.

Depeche Mode has recently announced tour dates for their 2009 album Sounds Of The Universe.

I’ve also discovered that Steve Pavlina, the writer of a very successful personal development blog must be a Depeche Mode fan himself.  He subtly hints to Depeche Mode in his entry on the meaning of life.

So today’s big news is that Apple and Depeche Mode are teaming up to give users online access to new Depeche Mode videos and private releases as they become available for the next 15 weeks, for a (rather steep) price of $18.99.

This iTunes Pass will allow the users to download DM’s latest single (Wrong) as well as videos and exclusive music. They will also get the entire Sounds of The Universe album when it is released.

I was a sucker for the iTunes playing the Angel early release, which also came with a video for the song Precious. It seems that Apple and Depeche Mode have teamed up to figured out a good way to get my money this time!

To quote one of my favorite bands:

They know my weaknesses
I never tried to hide them
They know my weaknesses
You tried them

Apple, Depeche Mode Launch New ‘iTunes Pass’ (via pcmag)

 

Ocean Floor to be added to Google Earth

Google Earth Fills Its Watery Gaps (via nytimes.com)
Google Earth, Google Ocean: mysteries of the seafloor are mapped for the first time (via guardian.co.uk)

This is big news to all the Google Earth users out there!

Google Earth is a great tool for anyone who has any need for maps on land, and now, you can find maps of the ocean too. This is great for anyone looking at boating channels or looking to SCUBA dive somewhere. This isn’t a small undertaking either, considering roughly 2/3 of the earth is covered by ocean.

There is also some talk about incorporating global warming trends into Google Earth.  I could understand how some simulations of it could be very cool to watch.

Al Gore is going to be headlining the debut of this new software, so expect some talk about Global Warming.

And of all the songs named “Ocean”, this was the first that popped into my head.  So enjoy listening to this as you read the linked article.

Sebadoh – Ocean

In very related news, I am currently working on a program to convert ESRI shape files to GeoRSS and KML documents, which will open in Google Earth.  I already have the code working, and am working on the UI now, so if anyone out there wants to be a beta tester, please contact me.

 

iPhoto ‘09 kicks Picasa’s Ass!

Remember way back to yesterday with Picasa for Mac was released, and I was very happy over it, even though iPhoto ‘08 did an excellent job already. Well.. iPhoto ‘09 was just announced… and it’s GLORIOUS (sounding)

Here are some great things you can look forward to in iPhoto 2009:

• Two more “events” for photo storage
  • Faces
  • Yes, this is facial recognition!
  • It can totally guess people in photos, and then it asks you to confirm its guesses
  • and Facial tagging ripped right off of Facebook
• And the #2 event
  • Wait for it
  • GEOTAGGING – yeah take that Geotag free Picasa for the mac!
  • Apple appears to use google maps to assist you in geotagging your own photos… so I guess google still wins a little here
  • iPhoto geotagging syncs with Flickr’s geotagging
  • and they have added increased facebook support
  • The face detection is used for slideshows, so that faces are centered
• Also, Travel books, I suppose this is just another event group to show off a trip

All in all, good stuff from Macworld 2009!

Stay tuned for more!