Google Maps is another technological innovation by Google. Sites with maps have been around for a long time, including Yahoo Maps and MapQuest, and others.

The interface to Google Maps is very clean and simple, yet very functional. You double click to center, you slide the bar to zoom in or out, and you can drag the map.

You can search on an address or a business, and get driving directions.

Recently, Google added Satellite Images to the maps as well. They also expanded to UK and British Isles.

A new approach that is gaining in popularity among web developers is using XmlHttpRequest with Javascript.

This is not a new approach since XmlHttpRequest has been around for some time. What is new is that (a) it is being widely used by Google, and (b) a new name was coined for it recently.

Here is a presentation on Google's Core Technologies, by Google Engineer Jeff Dean. You can see at the University of Washington Computer Science web site, or at UWTV.

It covers various things such as:

• Hardware (Google Clusters), and Datacenters
• Google File System (GFS)
• MapReduce
• Word clustering
• Google News

It also has a brief overview of:

There is no doubt by now that Google is one of the top technology companies of this decade.This series cover some of the technologies that Google uses, new annoucements in this area, and how it is used in creative way, whether by Google or by others.

Jose Pardo Hidalgo, of Murcia, Spain writes to me by email:

Dear Sirs, Do you know if Iberia is coming of Ibrya=Hebrew,the Hebrew land of Spain and Portugal.Ivry is a Jewish surnames, Ivrya,may pe "Ladino", for femenine.. where Iberos semitic people, Assyrian tablets say even Celts were a tribe Lost of Israel, red.haired and blue eyes,losing his identity, not lost, only identity, Judah, benjamin, dan, etc... which is your opinion?.Thanks and peace,lover and friendships,Thank you.

I write back that this does not fit with the pattern of settlement of Iberia in pre-Roman times, before the Jewish diaspora, and I include a few links, such as:

Language similarities between apparently unrelated languages is quite a prevalent phenomenon, regardless of what the underlying reasons in each case are. Here is a link that clearly shows that totally unrelated languages can have the same words for the same concepts or objects.And how likely are chance resemblances between languages? Quite likely actually. according to this statistical study on the Zompist web site.

Another case is Yi-Yong-hui's book called Mou hitotsu no Man'youshuu (Another Man'Youshuu).Marc Miyake of the University of Hawaii, on his excellent Amritas web site, says:

One highly tenuous theory, is by Professor Kamal Salibi of the American University in Beirut. In his 1985 book Bible Came from Arabia, he performs phonology and applies it to toponyms in western Arabia today, and concludes that Palestine had absolutely no historical Hebrew presence, and rather it is indded South Western Arabia is what the Bible refers to as Israel!

Here is rather an interesting dilemma. When new technologies or behaviors evolve, there is almost always someone that will abuse or misuse it, for example using it for illegal or criminal purposes, or just as an annoyance.

This misuse eventually reduces the usefulness of the new technology.

Our response to this misuse varies a lot, depending on our cultural and social upbringing, and outlook in life. This collective response is very important since it may shape the technology's future. It could either be limited, adjust to the change, or be abandoned altogether.

Here are various bits of Canadian humor, all of them about the weather. 

• The four seasons in Canada are June, July, August and Winter. 
• Tourists like to come to Ontario in the summer month.
• A bit north of Toronto, people consider themselves lucky if summer coincides with a weekend.
• Best way to fight the winter blues is to take up a winter sport. Complaining about winter is the most popular one. 
• In the praires, you can be sure that it does not snow in July and August.
• If you complain about weather in Canada, then move to Vancouver. Then you will complain about high real estate values and cost of living.