March 2009

• See where your friends are right now
• Underwater robots keeping an eye on climate change
• Twitter could replace SMS
• Google - 4.8 billion searches per month and counting

1. See where your friends are right now

Google Maps
It is now possible to find out exactly where your friends and family are located right now! Google Maps is now available for your mobile phone. The built-in feature allows you to share your GPS position with family and friends, and for them to share theirs with you. The result is that you can view a map displaying faces and locations of friends in your area. The only drawback is that it does not currently support voice navigation.

To download it, simply go to m.google.com on your mobile.

Nav4All
For voice navigation there is a free mobile application called Nav4All. I have personally found this system to be excellent in navigating right around Sydney, Brisbane & Melbourne, and has helped me arrive on time and without fuss at countless client meetings.

To download it, simply go to www.nav4all.com on your mobile phone.

There is also a new addition to the Drawstring website called Mitch Recommends. I will continue to update it with useful tools, information and programs. Please let me know if there's anything that you're particularly interested in and I'll do my best to add it to the website.

2. Underwater robots keeping an eye on climate change

Thousands of Australian made robots (known as Argo Floats) are deployed across the world's oceans tracking sea temperature and salinity. These robots automatically dive up to 2km below the water's surface and surface to transfer their recording via satellite back to HQ.

The three thousand devices deployed by 21 countries provide accurate, real-time data to our scientists - critical information in the world's fight against climate change.

Argo floats have been useful in determining the following:

• the water's upper layers are now warming 50% faster than expected
  
• ocean sea levels are rising at just above 3mm per year
  
• ocean sea level has already risen 5cm over the last 15 years

Watch 5 min documentary here (ABC website)

3. Twitter could replace SMS

For those who have not yet heard of Twitter. Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Now, the interesting part of all this is that because Twitter allows you to send short messages via the internet to any data enabled Internet device, all you need is a mobile datapack and you can send unlimited numbers of messages per month for free. Definitely something to look out for in the coming months...

Learn more about Twitter

4. Google - 4.8 billion searches per month and counting

As an added extra this edition, I thought you might enjoy a few fast Google Facts:

• FACT: 4.8 billion searches are conducted through Google per month*
   
• FACT: That's 160 million searches per day
   
• FACT: Google makes up 59.7 per cent of all searches online
   
• FACT: 18.9 billion pages on the Google index
   
• FACT: "Google" is actually a misspelling of the word "googol" meaning 10¹⁰⁰

There's a new tool on the Drawstring website this month, allowing you to find exactly where your website is ranked on Google for any search keyword - called Instant Rankings.