Google Maps satellite photos of US government's reserve fleet

The United States government’s three reserve ship sites can be seen via satellite photos taken by Google Maps.

The National Defense Reserve Fleet is a group of ships that are used for “national defence and national emergency” crises.

The 'Boneyard': £22bn 'military aircraft cemetery' on Google Maps.

More than 170 vessels, managed by the Department of Transportations Maritime Administration, are located at James River, Virginia, Beaumont, Texas and Suisun Bay, California.

Its ships are classified as either ready “reserve force ships” (RRF), which can be put back into service between 10 and 120 days or “non-retention vessels”, which are past their serviceable life and have been nominated for disposal.
It is another example of how the US government’s disposal of military machinery.
On Monday, a spectacular series of new high-resolution Google Earth satellite images were released of the world’s most expensive military cemetery, a £22.6 billion centre dubbed “The Boneyard”.
The 2,600 acre facility, officially known Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, is home to thousands of outdated aeroplanes and helicopters mothballed by the United States Air Force and other allied forces.
Established under Section 11 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, NDRF vessels have supported emergency shipping requirements in seven wars and crises, according to is official website.
They were used by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support relief efforts during Hurricane Katrina.

Officials say that of the 93 non-retention vessels in the fleet, 70 are in the disposal process, or are ready for disposal while a further 23 are being prepared for disposal.
Last month the US government announced that a cleanup operation of Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet had been expanded.
A MARAD spokesman said that when a ship becomes obsolete, the department arranged for their disposal in an “environmentally sensitive manner”.
“When a ship is recycled, the recycler often salvages and sells metal and other materials, and disposes of other materials in accordance with state and federal law," he added.

By Telegraph.co.uk

Skype on Verizon: A Big Deal or Not?

Verizon Wireless and Skype say they’re teaming to bring Skype to nine BlackBerry and Android phones on the Verizon network.

I'm not sure if this is just an intriguing partnership or a major moment in phone history. But at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Verizon Wireless and Skype announced that they're working together to bring Skype to nine BlackBerry and Android phones on the Verizon network. A version of Skype Mobile will be available next month, permitting free Skype-to-Skype calls, chatting, and Skype Out calls to any phone number, including cheap international rates. And it'll all be done using flat-rate data plans rather than phone minutes.
There's nothing inherently historic about Skype being available on phones -- it's on the iPhone (albeit over Wi-Fi only right now) and I first used the service on a Windows Mobile handset years ago. (Only briefly, though -- it taxed the phone to the breaking point, and voice quality was pretty miserable.)

But a major carrier such as Verizon not only grudgingly permitting Skype but buddying up with it as a selling point for its phones is an interesting twist. I look forward to trying Skype Mobile on my Droid when it's available. And I have a few questions in the meantime...
Is there any integration with the phones' standard phone features? Say, access to the phone address book from within Skype? Or-dare I wish for it-the ability to route all calls through Skype, as Google's Google Voice app permits on BlackBerry and Android handsets? (Yes, I know that Google Voice isn't comparable to Skype-it uses phone minutes, and Skype doesn't)
How well does it work for incoming calls? Skype Mobile can run in the background, and I presume that you can use a Skypein phone number to permit people to dial a standard phone number and reach you in Skype. But does all this work smoothly enough that you could comfortably use Skype to take calls rather than the phone's standard phone features?
How's the quality? As good as a standard cell call? Better?
Are there any gotchas? On paper, this whole deal sounds...suspiciously enticing. The better Skype Mobile works, the more likely it is that lots of Verizon customers will do most (or all?) of their calling using it. Even if Skype cut Verizon in on any revenue it made, that couldn't be good for Verizon's bottom line.

More thoughts once the app's available.
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Nexus One Multitouch Arrives Officially

The update also adds the Google Goggles app;

Ever since the Google Nexus One was announced (and then released) last month, talks were on about its forthcoming multitouch support. We all knew that the phone was more than capable to integrate multitouch gestures. Google, however, for some reason, chose not to include it in the initial firmware that the Nexus Ones came. There was a small fix that enabled multitouch in the browser. But that was from unofficial channels.
That was then. Yesterday, Google issued a small OTA (Over The Air) update for the Nexus One that brings in multitouch support to it - apart from numerous other improvements. Multitouch has been enabled in the gallery, browser and Google Maps where now you can pinch and zoom - just like on the iPhone. Google Maps has also been updated to version 3.4 and brings with it items synchronization, search suggestions from users' personal maps history, and a very interesting "night mode" in Maps Navigation. The update also adds the Google Goggles application that was first seen in December 2009.
Under the skin, there seems to be not much of a change. We can expect another update in the near future that will help Google fix the 3G connectivity issues that many users faced initially. As for the update to arrive for on your phone, you would have to be at the mercy of your operator to have it issued for you. Of course, there is another way out where you can update manually to get this same OTA version. More on that here.
As always, if you plan to update, do take a backup of all your data. Just in case, you know.

Techtree.com