Bytes · MS vs Flash - 2012 tech failure predicted - Google Maps Easter Egg

• Microsoft have introduced a competitor to Flash, especially Flash Video in Silverlight, a "cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web".
  
  It allows developers the ability to code in C sharp, bypassing javascript and HTML. Comment is mixed.
  
  
• Over-broad Sponsorship deals are undermining technology for the 2012 Olympics.
  
  Derek Wyatt, the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Olympic group told a security conference in London that potential suppliers had been overlooked in favour of games sponsor Visa.
  
  

  Andrea Simmons, a member of the British Computer Society's security group, said there was potential for "another IT project failure" — most scarily in the security area — in the way the technology was being allocated.

• The Google Maps Easter Egg - "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean — 5,572 km" - has proven a big viral hit.
  
  You'd almost think it was deliberate marketing (though I doubt it) ...
  
  
  
  If you haven't seen it, ask for directions from anywhere in America to Europe or vice versa.
  
  
  
  According to Joe White, that's the only route which produces a 'swim' instruction. Not to Hawaii, or Australia.
  
  From America, the starting point is Long Wharf, Boston (it goes to Terminal Grande-Bretagne, Le Havre) but if you ask from there it just tells you to "head south". They also think a swim would take 29 days, meaning 5 miles an hour. a better time would be 72 days.
  
  Plus, the shortest route is actually Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Quiberon, France.
  
  They could have looked that up using the new Google News Archives (that'll be $2.95).
  
  
  
  I'd think they ended up with an opportunity to plant an Egg simply because what else can you tell people? Head to the airport? Or perhaps the Port? Or the Marina? Which airport?
  
  Those dots aren't yet connected in GMaps.