Google Maps mashup idea

We all knew that Google Maps is an ideal tool for finding places, directions, terrain, traffic and street view. I regularly use Google Maps to find directions to drive and see street view to get accustomed with the route.

With the fundamental infrastructure in place, I am thinking, could we line up the street view photos and take users on a virtual drive along on the driving directions. Such a mashup should give a virtual tour of the route. It will easy drive on the route direction and locate landmarks along the route.

Such a mashup will entail lot of bandwidth to get all the photos along the route and the load on the server serving the photos will be high.

Laptop battery life

The new generation laptops use Li-ion batteries for the power. I have observed that these batteries go defunct within a short time (~1 to 2 years) based on the usage.

As per my usage characteristics, I was assuming that the laptop remains hooked to the docking station most of the time and the discharge cycle from the battery is very low. Very rarely the battery gets discharged completely. And thus this affects the battery life.

On reading a few articles, it seems that Li-ion batteries does not suffer from the "memory" effect. But rather the heat generated from the laptop is the one that reduces the life span of the battery. More over these kind of batteries has the aging effect.

If you use keep your laptop hooked to docking station most of the time and have a reliable UPS backup, then remove and store the battery in a cool place to get most out of it.

Digital fuel gauge

How about having digital fuel gauge to neutralize the rampant fuel theft by pump operators?

The recent cars displays predictions on the odo, about the distance the car can go with current fuel quantity in the tank. Then why not have digital fuel gauge. Before refilling, note how much fuel is in your car's tank. If you add 10 lts of fuel, check whether it reflects in your odo.

This will prevent fuel theft by the pump operators.

Where am I? - mobile service to find location

Wish to start the new year with an idea!

Last week when I was traveling in a train during night, wanted to find out where am I? The best tool I had was my mobile. Tried 'Cell Info', but found advertisements from the cell phone service provider or some location name which was difficult to identify (say like EB Bhavan, CHB colony).

How about having a "Where am I?" mobile based location service. Send a SMS request and you will get a short map with the cell location. For revenue purpose, the reply can include local hotels/restaurants (more like Google Map search).

This might not be as accurate as GPS enabled service. Since the location could be on the border of the cell or there could be overlap of the signals from different cells.