This is awesome, though not very surprising. It's been a long wait for getting some 3D information in online maps, and Amazon's a9 service was one of the first to show street-level maps. In those, the maps would display pictures of the stores and buildings along a side of the street, and you could use arrows to move further in a direction down the street. But there was the possibility that something was obscured and the coverage was limited.

Google's also got limited coverage, but where they've got it it's amazing. The images are much higher quality, and you can not only navigate streets, but you can also turn the camera angle to look straight down the street, perpendicular to the street, or anything in between. It looks like the cities they do cover have a lot of area covered. Check out the Luxor hotel in Vegas:


I can't wait 'til they expand to Chicago!

In related news, Microsoft has come out with true, full 3D city views for a few select cities, including New York City:

That's right...Michael Cera, the actor that played George Michael in Arrested Development, has a new web series with an actor friend of his, Clark Duke.

Last November, Brett told you that Michael Cera (Arrested Development) would be starring in a new Web series with his pal, actor Clark Duke. The series would be called The Good Life, and it would be available for viewing on the CBS innertube broadband site.

Well, two things have changed, apparently: the new series is now called Clark and Michael, and it's not on innertube, it's at ClarkAnd Michael.com, so go check it out.

The series will focus on the two young men as they try to sell their script in Hollywood. The first episode boasts some truly funny performances by Tony Hale (Arrested Development; Andy Barker, P.I.) as an insincere television executive, and Eric Wareheim (Tom Goes to the Mayor; Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job) as their weird next door neighbor.

The humor is quite dry, but it works well, and it's funny to watch as the two friends continue to delude themselves into thinking their ideas are even remotely viable.

I think it's awesome that he got Tony Hale to be in it, and I'm excited to check it out when I get the chance.

This is crazy. Apparently some guy was trying to illegally transport 700 snakes on a flight.

Customs officers at Cairo's airport have detained a man bound for Saudi Arabia who was trying to smuggle 700 live snakes on a plane, airport authorities said. The officers were stunned when a passenger, identified as Yahia Rahim Tulba, told them his carryon bag contained live snakes after he was asked to open it.

Tulba opened his bag to show the snakes to the police and asked the officers, who held a safe distance, not to come close. Among the various snakes, hidden in small cloth sacks, were two poisonous cobras, authorities said.

The Egyptian said he had hoped to sell the snakes in Saudi Arabia. Police confiscated the snakes and turned Tulba over to the prosecutor's office, accusing him of violating export laws and endangering the lives of other passengers. According to the customs officials, Tulba claimed the snakes are wanted by Saudis who display them in glass jars in shops, keep them as pets or sell them to research centers.

That would have been a hell of a day for the person staring at the baggage screening monitor. "Um, bag check? Something's moving in there. It's a lot of somethings."

There's already some shenanigans going on related to the next Batman movie:

A few days ago, a viral website for The Dark Knight surfaced, and we got the first glimpse of Heath Ledger as The Joker. Now that site, IBelieveInHarveyDentToo.com, has changed.

Go there, and you'll see a message that says "Page not found." If you highlight the page, however, you'll see a series of Joker-esque "ha ha"s. Pop reader Paul S. points out a hidden message between the "has" spells out "See you in December." Could this be a hint as to when we might see the first trailer for the movie, or is The Joker just playing with us again?

Pretty sweet...I hope they have some kind of internet puzzle going on to promote the movie and these are just the first pieces.

There's a vending machine being created that will dispense pouched drinks on demand, mixing and packaging the beverage when it is ordered. Sounds like the current intent is for fruit drinks, though I don't see why it couldn't mix soft drinks too.

Md of Crawley-based WaterWerkz Adam Green got the idea for the PouchLink system after seeing street vendors in India selling water in plastic bags. He says the system offers a more efficient, eco-friendly and cost-effective method of vending soft drinks than "traditional" vending machines.

In the past three years the team has worked with several project partners, including top vending machine manufacturer, Vendo Sanden, out-of-home drinks dispense specialist IMI Cornelius, and several pouchmakers, to perfect what Green believes is the world's first drinks vending system able to mix and fill drinks on-demand in the machine using a combination of mains-supplied filtered water, bag-in box concentrates, and spouted and capped flexible pouches supplied on the reel delivered via a micro-pneumatic pouch handling system. The latter component is currently supplied to Vendo Sanden's Italian factory for incorporation into a new vending machine, the PouchLink PL1.

When the user selects their drink the micro-pneumatic system detaches a pouch, mixes water with a syrup or fruit concentrate, and then fills and caps the pouch before dispensing. WaterWerkz says the reduction in transportation of bulk water content means the new drinks will boast a very low "food mile". As pouches can be supplied in continuous chains of several thousand, re-loading times are also substantially cut.

PostPack (WaterWerkz's name for systems using its patented PouchLink pouches) units can hold 2,000 pouches of various capacities. Among the first users, in the next quarter, will be Nestlé, for a new fruit juice, Jusante, and UK adult soft drinks manufacturer, Bottlegreen Drinks, for four post-mix fruit cordials. Green says: "Our aim now is to get out and identify the many other drinks producers we believe can benefit from this exciting new system."

This is pretty interesting in that it reminds me of the IPIFINI bottle. I would guess that you could pick combinations of flavors since it's getting packaged on demand, though the article didn't mention if that's the case.

What do you do when identical twins claim they're not the father of a baby even though they both slept with the mother on the same day? You go to court and whoever the woman claims is the father gets screwed, according to the article dave submitted.

Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don't know which is which. Or who is who. The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman's testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court. But a paternity test in this case could not help. The test showed that both brothers have over a 99.9 percent probability of being the daddy and neither one wants to pay the child support. The result of the test has not only brought to light the limits of DNA evidence, it has also led to a three-year legal battle, a Miller family feud and a little girl who may never know who her real father is.

"'Did you sleep with him [Richard Miller] while in Sikeston for the rodeo?'," Cameron Parker, Richard's lawyer, said she asked Holly Marie Adams in 2003 court testimony, to which she answered "'Yes ma'am.'" "She then said she went to appellant's [Raymon Miller's]home where they had sex later that night or early the next morning," Parker said. Asked if it is true that he did at one time formally date Adams, Richard Miller told ABC News, "Well, if you call that dating." Raymon confirms that he never dated Adams in any sense, but that they were "messing around."

"I want to go to the Supreme Court," Raymon told ABC News. "If they can't prove it's me then they should throw it out of court." And as for the child support, he said, "The state should eat it."

It seems, however, that the Millers and the courts will never know the true father. "With identical twins, even if you sequenced their whole genome you wouldn't find difference&they're clones," said Dr. Bob Gaensslen, a forensic scientist at Orchid Cellmark labs in Texas. "There are a few things in science that are cut and dried and this is one of them." Dr. Bob Giles, a paternity testing expert, agrees. "There is simply no test that explains the difference between two identical twins," he said.

The final appellate court decision, filed this year, ruled that Raymon will remain the legal father. In Missouri, a paternity test must come back with 98 percent or higher probability that DNA matches in order for a man to be named the legal father.

"They say you have to prove with 98 percent certainty that you're the father. But since with my brother it's a 99 percent chance and with me it's a 99 percent chance -- that seems like more of a 50/50. What if there was a rape or murder case with twins? Then they could just go around pointing the finger at the other," Ramon said. But a paternity suit is very different from a criminal case, noted Lori Andrews, a top genetics lawyer. "In a criminal case there is a chance that the twin would get off because the DNA cannot pinpoint only one person, but here there is a different issue. The legal standard is lower."

This is a really interesting case, and I'm pretty surprised that there's no (currently known) way to distinguish identical twins. I would have expected there to still be subtle DNA differences or something. That last quote about identical twins framing each other in crimes would make for a pretty compelling episode of Law & Order!

Apparently a California senator who voted to impose a fine on drivers using cell phones get into an accident because she was on her cell phone.

State Sen. Carole Migden, 58, D-San Francisco, was driving her state-issued SUV near Vallejo on Friday morning when she rear-ended another vehicle, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Officials say the vehicle in front of Migden was slowing down for a red light, when the senator slammed into the back of the car – which then ran into another van. One driver complained of minor injuries, and Migden has taken responsibility for the crash. Last year, Migden voted in favor of a new law that will impose a minimum fine of $20 for drivers caught using a cell phone on the road, without the aid of a hands-free device.

Migden will not be fined, however, because the new law doesn't take effect until July 2008.

Quite ironic. I'm also still interested in the fact that they've shown the bans and fines are somewhat ineffective because using a headset doesn't reduce the chance of an accident versus using a phone up to your ear. That and these laws haven't really deterred people from using cell phones anyways...you see it all the time when driving around.

I'm "live"-blogging the finale starting an hour late at 8pm Central so I can avoid all commercials. I'm including spoiler cues so anyone watching on delay can read as they watch without getting a spoiler if they scroll too fast.

To see the live updates, click Read More below to follow this story after the jump, and refresh the page for updates.

Overall recap: a pretty solid finale. Everything got resolved classic-24 style and there wasn't really a big cliffhanger for next season. See after the jump for the live-blog.

(And here's the character countdown.)


Read More...

This is going to be awesome! The end of the season has really picked up so I'm excited about this. I might be excited enough to live-blog about it, but I might also be watching this on some delay to avoid commercials, so I'm making that a game-time decision.

The Prince's Bride (S3E19)

Looks like another awesome episode. Of course the quote of the episode was: "Now Vincent, If you want this check to clear, you will go upstairs and fuck my wife like the superstar you are while I stay down here and play billiards with your friends."

Drama (convincingly) talks his way into a movie role and then into getting his plane ticket paid for, Turtle almost gets in big trouble, and Ari's little comments were hilarious. Apparently they've decided to do away with Vince's long-term love interests and instead just screw every woman that pops into an episode. The only question I've got now is where is Sloane? E needs a good storyline.

See more reviews.