links for 2010-08-10

"So I'm going to be honest with you and I've said this before and I've upset some people. I don't read the comments anything like as much as I used to because there is too much static white noise in them and not enough pure feedback. But if we could find a way of having a more thoughtful, less abusive debate via blogs I think that would be a good thing."

"Today we’re kicking off an exciting new project at Slate called 'Slate Labs'...As you may have gathered from the logo, this site will serve as a home base for all of Slate’s experiments with multimedia journalism. We’ve been doing a lot of them over the past few years, so we’ve collected a gallery of our favorite interactives from the Slate archives. To keep things fresh, we’re also posting projects currently in development that we could use some help figuring out how to use effectively"

It is a bike on a road trip across the USA that is wired up to tweet how it is feeling along the way, whilst raising money for Livestrong. A bike that tweets how it feels - what is not to like about that?

"Global small-ads colossus Google is trialling a small battery-powered camera drone of a type previously used by the UK police and special forces, according to reports. It's thought that the flying spyeyes might add a new dimension to the company's controversial 'Street View' picture database, compiled by fleets of camera cars driving along roads."