NVIDIA's PhysX SDK Now Available for Wii, PS3

Just two days after announcing a similar initiative for the PlayStation 3, NVIDIA on Thursday announced that it has been approved as a third-party tools solution provider for the Wii, meaning the NVIDIA PhysX SDK is now available to registered Wii developers.

Naturally, the Nintendo Wii has way less processing power than the PS3 or the already-licensed Xbox 360, and thus is expected to leverage the technology less.

In terms of the Wii, Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at NVIDIA said:

"Nintendo has reshaped the home entertainment and video game market with the success of the Wii console. Adding a PhysX SDK for Wii is key to our cross-platform strategy and integral to the business model for our licensed game developers and publishers. With NVIDIA PhysX technology, developers can easily author more realistic game environments for the evolving demands of a broad class of Wii gamers."

and in terms of the PS3, he added:

"NVIDIA is proud to support PLAYSTATION 3 as an approved middleware provider. Games developed for the PLAYSTATION 3 using PhysX technology offer a more realistic and lifelike interaction between the games characters and other objects within the game. We look forward to the new games that will redefine reality for a new generation of gamers."

In 2008, NVIDIA acquired AGEIA Technologies, who developed the PhysX technology.

Google's Street View Launches in the U.K., the Netherlands

Is it time to start a pool on how long it takes for the first privacy lawsuit against Google to be filed in the U.K.? Why? Because Google's Street View has launched in 25 cities.

Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth, and provides a 360° horizontal and 290° ground level view.

Here is the list of U.K. cities covered by the new U.K. Street View service: London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Bradford, Cambridge, Cardiff, Belfast, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Oxford, Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby, Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Swansea, York, Newcastle, Dundee, Southampton, Norwich and Scunthorpe.

Also launching on Thursday was a version in The Netherlands; the number of countries covered is now nine.

Street View was already in other parts of Europe (France, Italy, Spain) as well as Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Google's Street View launched in 2007, and has been the source of privacy concerns and lawsuits. It's even been banned from entering some townships. It's also been banned from U.S. military bases, and been the source of both humor and angst.

But it's also been used to foil a kidnapping.

Additionally, Google will remove images from the service if requested (see that little "Report a Concern link in the embedded map above?).

So, as it continues to roll out, what do you readers think? Cool toy, useful navigation tool, or privacy risk?

Internet Explorer 8 Set to Launch

Faced with a slow, downward spiral in the market share of Internet Explorer, Microsoft will launch its latest version of the browser, Internet Explorer 8 on Thursday.

The announcement was made at the MIX09 conference in Las Vegas for Web developers and designers as well as by press release, which noted that downloads of the final version of the new browser will be available starting at 9:00 AM PDT on March 19th, in 25 languages.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft said:

"Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use. With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match."

This version of Internet Explorer is more standards-compliant. Ironically, this breaks many sites which had been written with the vagaries of older IE versions in mind. To get around this issue, Microsoft has added a compatibility mode, which uses both a preset, updateable list of sites requiring compatibility mode as well as manual activation of the setting.

Based on that fact, it could in fact be less "easy to use," if users run into a number of incompatible sites that aren't already noted in the preloaded list.

• Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, share it, or more.
  

• Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.
  

• Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.

• In-Private Browsing. AKA "porn mode,"this keeps you from leaving your fingerprints around the Web as you browse the Internet.

Although Microsoft has tried to downplay the relative speed deficiencies of Internet Explorer 8 vs. some of the latest versions of its competitors, such as Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, it's true that most testing has shown IE8 to be feature-rich, and performance poor, meaning it's far slower than the others.

Thing is, slower in benchmarks doesn't mean perceptibly slower. On the other hand, I love my Firefox extensions, which keep me from moving to Chrome, and I'll use Internet Explorer only when necessary.

Still, the browser will have a major advantage over other browsers: Internet Explorer is built-into the OS, and will be in Windows 7, although there is an "off-switch" in Windows 7.

This relatively new option is likely a response to the European Union, which has said that it is considering sanctioning Microsoft for bundling a Web browser into its OS, a move that it says appears to violate EU antitrust law.

Watch a video from the WSJ's Walt Mossberg about the new browser: