We’ve got some High Resolution Satellite images of the fires that have been burning across Southern California for the past 5 days. (Images were taken over the past two days.) As of now there have been over 900,000 forced evacuations, over 1,600 homes have been destroyed, and 500,000 acres have been burned down stretching from Santa Barbara to the Mexican Border. Many who have not yet been asked to evacuate are leaving due to the poor air quality. Both Governor Schwarzenegger and President Bush have declared a state of emergency and federal aid is being provided.

As for the images, they have been taken by NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response System. The first image at the top was taken yesterday (10/24/07) and the two images below were taken October 22nd (left) and October 23rd (right). To save server load, we’ve only placed the low resolution images in the thumbnails, however if you would like a copy of the full resolution images, save the zip file provided below.

Download: california-fires-2007.zip
Links: California Wild Fires Of October 2007 (wiki)
Related: Hurricane Katrina Satellite Images

There have been a slew of online Web 2.0 applications introduced over the course of the year boasting to be desktop replacements, but to be honest, I’ve haven’t really been all too impressed with most of them. Sure, there are a few good ones, like for instance, Google’s online office suite, Google Docs. For the most part there hasn’t been too much to get excited over. Until now that is!

One application that has finally convinced me that there might very well be a true market and future for Web 2.0 online applications is Picnik. It’s a powerful, yet simple, online photo editor, based off of a clever combination of AJAX programming techniques and some pretty advanced Flash. Although this is no replacement for powerful tools such as Adobe Photoshop, it is an amazing tool for average web users. With its Full Screen mode, your computer literally is taken over (in a good way) by Picnik offering more space to work with. All the standard manipulation tools are present including: auto-fix, rotate, crop, resize, exposure, color correction, sharpen, and red-eye correction.

Not only does it allow users to upload and edit photos in near real time, but the developers have also done their best to seamlessly integrated Picnik into a wide variety of social networking sites, including: Facebook, Tumblr, Photobucket and Flickr. On top of that it also allows users to easily send their finished images off to a variety of printing services through Walmart, Costco, and a bunch more.

At the moment, this is by far one of the best photo editors we’ve seen, but that might change when Adobe launches their online version of Photoshop. As for now, if you’d like to read a more in-depth review check out Tech-Talkers.com or just start editing by visiting Picnik.com.

Link: Picnik – Edit Photos The Easy Way
Full Review: Tech-Talkers.com

This morning, Digg’s founder Kevin Rose announced a few new features that digg will soon be getting. The fist implementation, which will be pushed out tonight, will revamp digg’s user profile system by making it more “social”. Registered diggers will now have the ability to send each other quick messages called “shouts”. When the recipient logs in, a notification will be visible in the headers as well as his or her profile page. With the new “share” feature, users can also send other users links to digg stories. Previously the only method to share a story would have been to send an actual email. Digg’s new favorites feature seems to be replacing the “My #1″ feature. Once a story is dugg the option to add to favorites will become available. As for the profile page, it now displays larger profile pictures, full name, location, member since date, about section, personal photos, recently dugg/comments, favorites, and contact information. (50 new additions!) And just like Facebook, diggers will have privacy settings to choose whether or not to display each component. Only time will tell whether this feature will be accepted or ridiculed by the digg community.

Also, due to popular demand, digg will soon be implementing a pictures section next month. In addition they will also be fixing the problems with the slow comment loading system, offering email alerts, and automatic suggestions based off your digging history! Check back tomorrow to see the what’s changed and if you are in a hurry, a video demonstration is available on Digg’s Blog.

Links: digg.com | digg blog | my profile

Earlier today, Google and X PRIZE announced the “Google Lunar X PRIZE,” a race to the Moon to win a $30 million prize. The same foundation, Ansari X PRIZE, offered $10 million for the first non-government manned spacecraft to enter space in 2004. That project was won in October of 2004 by Tier One using the SpaceShipOne craft. Shortly after they succeeded, they were approached by Virgin Galactic and later signed a deal to begin routine space travel as early as late-2008.

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity,” X Prize CEO Peter Diamonds. “We’re confident that teams from around the world will help develop new robotic and virtual presence technology, which will [...] reduce the cost of space exploration.”

Today’s new prize requires that a private company land a robotic rover on the Moon, travel over 500 meters, and transmit video/images back to Earth. The first to pass the requirements by the end of 2012 will receive $20 million. An additional $5 million will be available for completing optional tasks such as traveling over 5,000 meters, imaging artifacts or discovering ice/water. The second team to succeed will win the remaining $5 million. As for the public, everyone will have access to view high quality footage of the moon, since all rovers will be equipped with high-definition video and still cameras.

Links: GoogleLunarXPRIZE.org

Last week Creative introduced a new “credit-card-sized” multimedia player with a 2.5-inch simply called the Creative ZEN. One neat aspect is that it now supports playback of the new unprotected iTunes Plus tracks in addition to DRM-Free WMA and MP3. As for paid media, the unit is compatible with Napster to Go. And for video formats the ZEN can read WMV9, MJPEG, MP4, DivX, and XviD. In addition it reads JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF since it’s also a photo viewer.

Other features built into the ZEN, which aren’t found on iPods, include a FM radio with 32 custom presets, a voice recorder, and an organizer with contacts, to do lists, and calendar which syncs with Microsoft Outlook. The unit is available in capacities of 4GB, 8GB, and a whopping 16GB (all flash-based). In addition the unit accepts standard SD cards, which are available at prices as low as $20 for 2GB. As for battery life, Creative claims approx. 25 hours for music and 5 hours for video playback.

The new Creative ZEN hit the market this month (September 2007) in Asia and unfortunately isn’t available yet in the United States. Creative is expected to launch this product worldwide very soon. As for pricing, after a currency conversion, the units will approximately cost $150 for 4GB, $200 for 8GB, and $300 for 16GB ($USD). As the holiday season is only a few months away it will be interesting to see what types of media players other companies including Creative will introduce to compete with Apple’s infamous iPod. We are trying to get a hold of a unit for review, so check back soon!

UPDATE 09/20/07: We’re getting one next week for sure and we promise an in-depth review!

Links: Creative Zen Product Info
Pre-Order: 4GB | 8GB | 16GB via Amazon

“Webshots understands the variable needs of photo uploaders and is providing AllYouCanUpload.com as an answer to those seeking a tool for fast, easy, free uploads,” – James Park, Webshots Director

After testing this service I feel that the UI is very clean and easy to use and has no obtrusive ads. The only issue I could think find is that if a user uploads a photo and forgets the URL, he or she will have to either remember it or re-upload the file since AYCU doesn’t require users to register in any method. Other than that All You Can Upload seems to be good since it supports the major image formats.

Links: All You Can Upload | Service FAQs
Similar Services: ImageShack | ImageTiger | PhotoBucket

“Yahoo! has acquired global map data and medium resolution images, which lets users find and see cities, towns, and major land feature in the world, [...] It’s a logical extension of Yahoo!’s recent product enhancements that included multi-point driving directions and improved zooming technology.” – Yahoo Spokesman.

Although they may lag behind in imagery, one feature Yahoo offers that others do not is multi-point directions. With multi-point directions a user can set not only point A and B, a start and end, but instead as many destinations as they’d like (C, D, E, etc.). Yahoo also offers a feature called “round-trip,” which is quiet different from reverse directions. With reverse directions, if the user has set the first, second and third locations, the standard application will only flip the exact same directions. However, the new innovative “round-trip” feature, Yahoo Maps will find new and closer directions if possible to get the driver back to the origin from their final destination without needing to go through mid-destinations again.

Links: Yahoo Maps Beta | Yahoo Maps
Related: Google Maps | MSN Maps

Google Mobile has just introduced a new feature to their service which allows accessing Google News from any cell phone. With the service you can get the latest news right from Google News. The new feature allows full access to the latest Top Stories, U.S., World, Entertainment, Sports, Sci/Tech, Business, and Health categories. The service already offers Web, Image, Local, and Mobile Searches in addition to the personalized homepage service they recently launched. The service is still in BETA, like most Google products, but still works great. Expect to see more features for this service soon. To get to G-News Mobile, type google.com/xhtml into your mobile phone’s browser and hit the “News” link.

Google News for mobile devices keeps you updated on current news articles when you’re on the go. You can access top headlines, browse through news categories, or search for exactly the stories you want all in a phone-friendly format that’s easy to read and navigate. All you need is a web-enabled phone. [From Google Mobile]

Link: Google Mobile News Tour | Google Mobile News
Related: Google Mobile | Google Blog Announcement