Jan 22, 2012, 3:06 GMT
Researchers say Open Street Map almost as good as professional maps
Berlin (dpa) - The free, open source maps from Open Street Map (OSM) can sometimes be as good as the commercial competition. Just like on other interactive web resources, the maps at www.openstreetmap.org are continually updated and expanded by an internet community. That means a relatively low rate of mistakes, say researchers from the University of Heidelberg in Germany who compared the data from OSM with that of a maker of satellite navigation devices.
The results showed that OSM lacks about 9 per cent of the data used by the satnav maker, but the researchers estimated that OSM would close the gap by the end of the year. The larger issue lay with road marking - such as no-turn zones - that are especially useful for drivers planning routes. It could still be a few years before OSM has caught up with the competition here. But, in other areas, information gathered by the community is more comprehensive than the professionally gathered data - for example, with information about bicycling and hiking paths.
PanicButton hides browser contents
Berlin (dpa) - There's always a reason to want to make the contents of your browser window disappear quickly - like if your spouse barges in just as you're researching anniversary gifts. The PanicButton add-on for the Firefox and Chrome browsers can solve that problem, hiding all open tabs and summoning them back up when the time is right.
The add-on inserts a small button into the toolbar. One click and the current web address is stored in a separate folder and can be called back up with another click. If you want to keep someone from using the button, you can protect the button with a password. Another option is to trigger the panic button with the F4 button.
If you don't plan to restore your bookmarks, you can make them disappear forever. Just go to 'Other Bookmarks' in the browser's folder and delete the 'Temporary Panic' folder.
Laptop hard drives in desktop PC saves energy
Berlin (dpa) - Owners of PCs that consume a lot of electricity can make their computers more efficient by using a laptop hard drive. According to German technical standard certification company TUV Rheinland, the 2.5 inch models from mobile computers tend to use less power than the 3.5 inch drives. The smaller storage devices fit into desktop computers with a fitting frame. Laptops are fundamentally more efficient than PCs with comparable performance as mobile versions of the current Intel processors use only about half as much power as the corresponding desktop model.
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