Cingular to increasing GSM investment

There have been media reports that Cingular will delay their 3G deployment to concentrate on GSM. For example, Unstrung have an article about Cingular investing $227 million in their GSM netowrk in two markets (Kentucky and Tennesse). See Cingular Spends on GSM. (See GSM Goes Wild.)

Free SQL Server 2005 Training

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 E-Learning

Virtual Earth is now live

Microsoft Virtual Earth is now live and it's a huge disappointment. I suppose it looks strong against Google Maps, but is a poor competitor to Google Earth.

One interesting component, however, is the Microsoft Location Finder. In theory, this will work out your location as you travel using IP lookup and the like. It then synchronises to Virtual Earth.

Controlling Google Earth from C++

Here's a quick trick to peak inside an application: Do a #import somewhere in Visual Studio and then examine the resulting IDL in the .tlh file after the compile.

I did this for the free version of Google Earth and got a googleearth.tlh. This exposed a basic COM interface. There is not much to control, but the following will give you some idea. (Sorry about the formatting of the long string. It looks ugly, but I'm sure you get the idea. Any KML is valid in this string, by the way.)

IKHInterfacePtr googleEarth(__uuidof(KHInterface));

// testing LoadKml()
BSTR kmlData = ::SysAllocString(L"
    <Placemark>
        <name>Sample Path</name>
        <LookAt>
            <longitude>-112.0822680013139</longitude>
            <latitude>36.09825589333556</latitude>
            <range>2889.145007690472</range>
            <tilt>62.04855796276328</tilt>
            <heading>103.8120432044965</heading>
        </LookAt>
        <LineString>
            <tessellate>1</tessellate>
            <coordinates>
                -112.0814237830345,36.10677870477137,0,
                -112.0870267752693,36.0905099328766,0,
                -112.082378303451,36.06778704771370,0
            </coordinates>
        </LineString>
    </Placemark>");
googleEarth->LoadKml(&kmlData); // loads the string

// change the view to the above area
IKHViewInfoPtr viewInfo = googleEarth->currentView;
viewInfo->latitude = 36.06778704771370;
viewInfo->longitude = -112.0870267752693;
viewInfo->range = 5000;
viewInfo->tilt = 45;
viewInfo->azimuth = 0;
googleEarth->setView(viewInfo, 0.1); // 0.1 is the speed

// open a file
googleEarth->OpenFile("Test.kml");

googleEarth->Release();

Remember you'll need a CoInitialize before this.

Update: Steve is controlling Google Earth using JScript.

Google Earth KML Documentation

See Google Earth KML Documentation and Google Earth KML Tutorial.

Google Earth Hacks

Google Earth Hacks

T-Mobile US future uncertain?

See this New York Times article.

Orange SPV C500 Update

Orange have finally released the Orange SPV C500 update: Orange SPV C500 (you may have to choose a phone and update to save the cookie).

The main new feature is Windows Media Player 10.

You can get the direct download here.