Hey, this could be fun. Although it's not completely original — we've seen location-based tweets before — the fact that it will be integrated into the main mobile Google.com search page, maps for Android, Windows Mobile and S60, as well as a new buzz.Google.com site for Android and iPhone, will give it extra oomph. Look for it to roll out all over Google-land in the next few days. Check out the video for details.

Via Google

We've seen Panasonic plasma 3D TVs, and they looked drop-dead gorgeous — colorful, contrasty (like 5 zillion-to-1), and downright crispy. However, we're not sure we're willing to spend $4,800 for a 50-inch 3D HDTV with very little programming available for it yet. Our enthusiasm for 3D undoubtedly has its limits. And really, Panasonic: $1,100 for four more diagonal inches? No ship date is announced yet.

Via Geeky Gadgets

My favorite feature is the short quiz that designated me a "wired thing," perhaps making me more profligate than most. There's a remarkable amount of data you can drill down to, all the way to the favorite shopping haunts of the people in your area. But really, people around here spin $893 a month on shopping? Compared to that, I guess I'm not such a spendthrift after all.

Bundle, via The Consumerist

There's a catch, of course. Only photos can be transferred from the app to your iPhone's photo library. That means you can't expand your storage for music, videos or apps using SD cards. So sure, you can drag data onto your phone, but you can't do anything with it unless it's a photo. But if you want to quickly dump photos you take on the field onto your phone for easy storage and viewing, this might just be worth the $60 price tag.

ZoomIt via Gadget Lab

We especially like the sign that reads, "Speed Limit 17,500 mph." The number of astronauts on board while this video was shot was remarkable, where it looked like a large, congenial and social group (in fact, there are 11 astronauts in space right now, five on the ISS and six aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor). We were thinking life on the space station was more solitary and lonely than this. Now we really want to go into space.

As soon as that Cupola with its expansive picture window is added in the next few days, the space station will be well on its way toward its completion by 2011. The latest estimates have it in operation until at least 2015, and maybe even to 2020. We're finding it hard to believe that eventually all this spectacular technology will have to "deorbit" (crash into the Earth or burn up in its atmosphere).

Via CrunchGear

This new Netgear router can help you do just that, converting a 3G wireless signal into WiFi your laptop can understand. Of course, it also works with traditional connections via ethernet, but where's the adventure in that?

Netgear via Engadget

The new version of Aperture has just hit the Apple store, and it brings along with it the Faces and Places features that iPhoto users have been enjoying for some time now. Faces auto-detects who is in each photo, letting you automatically sort pictures by who's in them. Places uses geotagging to place your photos on a map based on where you took them.

Will these features be enough to get you to drop $200 on photo importing and organization software?

Via Apple

So, why take existing books and truncate them? Timothy C. Moore, publisher of the FT Press, told The New York Times that it was "a good idea to be able to provide people with shorter, more expedient, more time-sensitive" versions of books.

FT Press's approach eats into publisher profits, as it's unlikely that someone would spring for the full book after getting the best bits. The authors of the original work, however, are entitled to royalties from the online sales.

So what's next? Who knows: maybe in the future people will buy their favorite chapters just as you would a song instead of an album.

The New York Times, via GeekSugar

Using sensors mounted on its top portion, the bot can detect when your beer mug is topped off with just a wave of the hand, and can roll over to your side of the bar due to a preprogrammed area map. You can see video of the Heineken Bot in action here.

Via GizmoWatch

The Wall Street Journal, owned by Murdoch's News Corp, is one such news site that charges a subscription fee for access to all of its articles. The New York Times, which isn't owned by News Corp, recently announced that it would also adopt a subscriber "pay wall" model in 2011. It's no secret that the magazine and newspaper industry is in trouble, and pay walls are seen as one way to help stop the bleeding.

Not all outlets see adopting pay walls as the way to go. Alan Rusbridger (above, right), editor of The Guardian, recently gave a speech in which he defended the virtues of free content and relying on ad revenue. One of the big fears behind the pay wall structure is the fact that it'd turn certain readers away, which would lower readership and drive down ad revenue.

Rusbridger called Murdoch out directly:

"Rupert Murdoch, who has in his time flirted with free models and who has ruthlessly cut the price of his papers to below cost in order to win audiences or drive out competition… this same Rupert Murdoch is being very vocal in asserting that the reader must pay a proper sum for content — whether in print or digitally."

More than just a different way to provide content, Rusbridger sees the Internet as adding a vital layer to journalism — an interactive, evolving one — that could be damaged by forcing regular readers of a periodical to pay. Casual readers could come and go, but "loyal" readers, as Rusbridger describes them, would seemingly be punished.

Murdoch, in response, said that he hadn't listened to or read Rusbridger's speech but that the general idea "sounds like BS" to him. He didn't say "BS" exactly, of course. He used the version not fit to print.

So, where do you stand? Sound off in the comments, and don't forget to hit up our poll below.

Read Rusbridger's entire speech here.

The Guardian, via The New York Times

After using the catch to hold our iPhone charging cable for a few days, we've given it a permanent place on our desk. We do have this suggested upgrade: The Catch's cable guide should have some kind of "flaps" to prevent cords from easily popping out of it. But even with that quibble, the $7 Catch has paid for itself with time saved in cancelled expeditions behind our gadget stack in search of fallen cords.

You'll need more bandwidth to handle the higher resolution, probably exceeding the 7 to 10 Mbps required to stream the company's 720p HD content on the Roku box, TiVo, the Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Let's hope Netflix has a better compression scheme up its sleeve for this 1080p trick, supported by Microsoft Silverlight 1080p streaming introduced last March.

All that additional resolution won't mean much unless Netflix can stream more than just a measly 6% of its movies in HD, as it does now. That's lame — even Netflix's own PR flack calls it "underwhelming." Beyond that, there's the problem of bandwidth-stingy Internet service providers, many of whom also sell pay-per-view movies on cable, balking at opening up their pipes for a competitor's 1080p content.

UPDATE: Now Netflix tells CNET the reference to 1080p streaming was a mistake. According to CNET:

"Netflix now claims that it incorrectly acknowledged 1080p streaming in the company's 2010 development road map. A Netflix representative has clarified that the company plans to bring 5.1 surround and closed captioning to its streaming HD videos later this year, though 1080p Watch Instantly is not on the books for this year."

Oh well. Netflix must think bandwidth won't be wide enough for that kind of rez, at least not this year. Or maybe it's just being coy, still planning a big 1080p splash!

Via CNET

Also along for the ride is Tranquility, whose technical name is the unassuming "Node 3." That module will have six "birthing locations" (or in plain terms, places to plug in more modules), three of which aren't scheduled to be used, and one will be where Cupola will be connected. Tranquility will also contain the most advanced life-support systems ever flown in space, recycling wastewater and generating oxygen.

Via Space.com

With this Darth Vader alarm clock, a shadow Vader will appear when the alarm goes off, reminding you to get out of bed or the forces of the Dark Side will overtake you. It also features a snooze button, just in case you feel the power of The Force deep inside you.

StarWars.com via Geek Alerts