Pinging Europa

Well i am very excited about the news out of NASA this past week. they have decided to send a probe on a 9 year mission to the jovian moons. sticking mostly to Ganymede and Europa. the really exciting part is if you are unaware of the characteristics of those moons, they are believed to have vast underground oceans that would be perfect for harboring life. one would assume since the planets are so far from the sun that they would be frozen solid, but due to the immense gravity from its parent planet Jupiter, tidal forces cause a great amount of stress on all the moons. causing friction to heat them. it is an interesting display of exotic situations life could exist in. most assume life would be contained to thermal vents that spew nutrients into those vast oceans much like the ones on the earths seas floor. entire ecosystems built around volcanic mounds. one can not help but to think about 2010: Space Odyssey and how Arthur C. Clarke so elegantly explained how life could and probably does exist on in these places. one exciting aspect is that this will be a joint venture between NASA and the European space agency. these are the easily the best places to look for life in our solar system, and i am super thrilled we will be going there in a decade.

So Ping is pretty useless right now. kind of sad that it is among apples biggest failures. i have a concept for how it could be used for its full potential. what i would like to see is a collaboration with facebook, that allows for a seem less and instant viewing of anything a person is listening to. so lets say i am in the car with my iPhone listening to Angels & Airwaves, right now the only really good way of letting people know about that is by tweeting that song with an app. which gets posted to my wall and people can read it but that is all. the user experience stops there. imagine ping being built into the iPod app itself, a simple toggle on and off and what it does is it "pings" what song i am listening to and instantly updates a status independent of my wall on my facebook profile page. at anytime someone wants to know more about that song they can click on the track name and instantly be linked to the iTunes web store/iTunes store. one can also comment and like any song i am currently listening to, which would then place it on my wall as a mentioned item. this feature could be turned on for any device i am using. if i am at home listening to iTunes, or at my parents house using pandora with my iPad, or roller blading in the park with my iPhone. it would instantly update a "listening to" status on my facebook page allowing people to experience the music i am experiencing.

Wiki Page of the Day (WPotD)

Kingdom Hearts (キングダム ハーツ Kingudamu Hātsu^?) is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square (nowSquare Enix) in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console.^[2] The first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is the result of a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company. The game combines characters and settings from Disney animated features with those from Square's Final Fantasy series. The story follows a young boy, Sora, as he is thrown into an epic battle against the forces of darkness. He is joined by Donald Duck, Goofy, and other classic Disney characters who help him on his quest.