My Dinner with Carl

MWJ Publisher Carl Sheffres goes international
at the NYC Pizza Parlor in Amsterdam

All in all, its nice to see the sun today (between sessions) after a dismal, rainy Sunday in Amsterdam. Sightseeing was a rather damp experience for us Microwave Journal staffers who braved the wet weather and severe jet-lag in order to sample the local culture and cuisine. Yes, we went to the Van Gogh and Rijk Museums as well as the Melkweg, but it was the Irish bars that provided the comforting stew and suds.

It is now a busy Monday morning as European Microwave Week 2008 delegates register for the conferences and workers assemble the exhibition space. By 8:30 when the first sessions of the day began most attendees were already in one of the many sessions in progress. The day started with a healthy mix of microwave and millimeter-wave MMIC (GaAs) and Silicon IC talks from EuMIC and wireless transceiver presentations from EuWiT.

The EuMIC Plenary Opening got underway just before 11:00 during which four seperate EuWiT sessions took place. Meanwhile, three all day measurement-based sessions (EuMC and EuMC/EuMIC) were held on power amplifier modeling and linearization; advances in modeling low and high power devices; and determining/dealing with errors in Mw measurements. The EuWiT plenary is scheduled for the afternoon while a number of EuMIC sessions will take place.

Google Earth now available for the iPhone

(cross posted with the Google LatLong Blog)

The world just got a little bit smaller. Google Earth is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch, allowing you to fly to the far reaches of the world from the palm of your hand. Since we launched Google Earth for the desktop in 2005, we've had over 400 million unique downloads, and people from around the world have used it to view their house, research travel destinations, learn how to make the world a better place, find local businesses, and view geo-located photos. Now, with a free download from the iTunes App Store, you can fly through the same 3D immersive world of Google Earth you've come to love, without having to fire up your desktop computer.


Check out this video tour to see Google Earth for the iPhone in action:



Not only is having Google Earth on your iPhone convenient, but the touch interface is a very natural way to interact with the Earth. Just swipe your finger across the screen and you fly to the other side of the globe; tilt your phone and your view tilts as well. You can pinch to zoom in or out, or just double tap with one finger to zoom in and two fingers to zoom out. We also integrated the My Location feature, so with a touch of a button, you can fly to where you are in the real world on your phone. In addition, we have over eight million Panoramio photos, which are geo-located photos of places, and you can view any and all of them from your iPhone. Besides being beautiful, high-quality pictures, they're specifically of places, so you don't have to see some guy's family on vacation in Thailand--you can see the beaches, the temples, all the things that give you a real sense of the place. Here is a nice shot of the Grand Palace that I found on my virtual tour of Bangkok.


All versions of Earth include search, and the iPhone version is no exception. You have access to the same great local search that you get with Google Maps, so you can search for places, businesses, and landmarks. With Google Earth you get to the full detail page for businesses, so you can get reviews, photos, user content, business hours, and other useful information. We also added a "search near me" feature, so with one touch you can find businesses near your location, without having to navigate there first or type in the name of the city. Looking for a good cafe when you're in Trento, Italy? It's a snap:


To get Google Earth on your iPhone, visit the App Store in iTunes or your iPhone, and search for "Google Earth."

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager, Google Earth