Joe Levi presents Greener Living through Technology

The writing was on the wall for the likes of Tom-Tom and Garman when Google announced they would offer the next logical progression of their Google Maps software: Navigation.

Take a look!

The stock of both Tom-Tom and Garman saw a very notable drop when Google mentioned it would begin offering turn-by-turn navigation with voice guidance. Up until this announcement Google Maps’ directions had been just that, directions superimposed on a map that couldn’t even rotate to follow your heading (North was always “up”).

With Android 2.0 phones coming to market (like the Motorola Droid) Google upped the ante and released a beta version of their Maps software with Navigation built in. What’s especially cool is Google’s solution uses actual imagery of your route, including “Street View” at turns (or so it’s been reported, I have yet to see this in action).

The bad news for the majority of Android users was that the Navigation features were only available to those with the 2.0 version of the OS; most of us only have version 1.5 or 1.6.

The more techie among us (myself and Mike Dopp included) were able to find the new maps installation file and figure out and apply a hack a system file that tricked the software into thinking it was running on a supported device. What this proved is that our hardware (a G1 in this scenario) were able to run the software without issue (well, pretty much without issue). More importantly, it told us that our hardware was capable of running the new software, and that the software was simply locking out all but a certain set of phones.

Today (November 23rd, 2009) Google released an updated version of Google Maps (3.2.1) which should work with all 1.6+ devices (my G1 included). Read all about it straight from the horses mouth Official Google Mobile blog.

Some things are conspicuously absent, such as the ability to speak “Navigate to (some place or address)” via voice command, but on the whole, it’s an impressive first leap into the GPS navigation arena.

All the others should be afraid. Very afraid.

It looks like there is a variant to the fraudulent email that I discussed in my last post.

This version is almost identical, it just uses another subject line: “Watch for errors on Social Security statement”.

This is fraudulent as well, don’t fall for it!

If this, or any of my posts, has saved you time, money, or frustrations, consider making a donation in any amount to my Mortgage Payoff Project.

Here’s another case of email fraud, this time supposedly from the Social Security Administration (SSA).

This is not really from the SSA, nor does the link take you to the SSA’s website (it takes you instead to reedasv.be, which is not an agent of the US Government).

So, you’ve been warned. If this post potentially saved you money or frustrations, feel free to leave a donation in any amount you’d like.

From (allegedly)

Social Security Administration [notification@ssa.gov]

Subject

Review annual Social Security statement

Body

Due to possible calculation errors, your annual Social Security statement may contain errors.

Use the link below to review your annual Social Security statement:

Review your annual Social Security statement [hyperlink to http://statements.ssa.gov.reedasv.be/acu/IPS_INTR/controller.php?taxpayertempid=242334369360372349134421548663676460979798733856658787640377966529961698&email=jlevi@lifetimetest.net&reason=possible%20identity%20theft]

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This e-mail has been sent from an auto-notification system that cannot accept incoming e-mail.