Dive operators, dive guides and seasoned divers may soon have a new “toy” to play with – contributing details of diving hot spots around the world right down to the water conditions and maybe, just maybe to the species of corals and the residents living there.

Rumor has it that Google is brewing an exciting 3D ocean map with the help of marine experts and in selected areas, providing us with high-resolution pictures.

Google’s foray into the ocean comes as no surprise really – with the (Google) Earth and (Google) Sky already covered, it’s probably the next best extension of the project.

I’d say the guys behind Asia Dive Site would definitely have plenty to contribute. So would many, many other websites.

And for those who do not fancy descending 70 feet into the deep blue sea, it’s time to get ready to take a tour underwater – all dry.

No, this is not the sequel to The Hills Have Eyes. But be careful the next time you look at a billboard – it might just be looking right back at you!

Developed by Xuuk, Inc and first shown at a presentation at Google, Eyebox2 is an exciting new way for advertisers to track which billboards, shelves, or plasma TVs are attracting attention.

“You know when you use flash photography and people get red eyes? Normally, you would use photo editing software to get rid of that,” Vertegaal explains. “Our software works the same way, except it solicits a red eye in people standing in front of it, and uses it.”

This is like Google Analytics for the offline world, allowing advertisers to measure the effectiveness of product placements and advertisement performances.

Until now, eye-tracking systems only worked up to half a meter. But with Eyebox2, the distance has now increased up to 20 times, which is 10 meters.

Inventor Roel Vertegaal said the Eyebox2 is currently being used by advertisers in Britain, while United States advertisers have yet to adopt this technology.

Price: $999

Now you can easily click on “View as slideshow” and have the PPT shown, without ever needing to install PowerPoint.

The downside? Users have reported that PowerPoint documents created with Microsoft Office 2007 do not work. And Safari (both Mac and the new Windows version) users are out of luck too.

Google officially bestows its free WiFi service upon Mountain View today. The $1 million dollar project covers 90 percent of the city’s 12 square miles, and run at up to 1mbps. Not too shabby at all.

“The feedback was overwhelming positive,” said Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives for Google. “It’s glowing, and in fact it’s why we’re launching the network earlier than we planned. It’s hard to keep up with the requests to get on the network.”

So with the 380 transceivers mounted on the city’s light poles, both you and I can hop on to their network as long as we’re within 500 feet. But since I am more than 8,400 miles away from Googleplex (according to Google Earth), I guess I’ll pass.

Apparently so, according to the results of Google’s research on what people has been searching for with their cellphones. In fact, 20% of all Google searches via cellphones are related to adult material, whereas only 8.5% of all PC searches are for adult content. One would assume that cellphones with their small screens aren’t ideal for this purpose, but the Googlers’ explanation for this is “people regard their phones as intensely personal devices”. This does seem logical, as you probably shared your computer with others more times than your cellphone.

What’s interesting is that only 5% of queries from PDAs are adult-oriented. PDAs don’t seem to have much privacy issues. So does this imply that PDA users are less horny?

Mac users rejoice, ’cause Google Earth for Mac is now available for download. It requires Mac OS X (10.4), 500MHz processor, 256MB RAM, 400MB disk space, 128Kbits/sec network speed, 16MB 3D-capable video card, and a 1024 x 768 16-bit color desktop resolution.

For those who don’t know what Google Earth is, you must be living on Mars. Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.

This is one of the many examples of interesting Google Maps implementation. Package Mapper takes your FedEx, UPS, or USPS package tracking number and maps you your package’s route. Registering and signing in will allow you to save several package routes into your package list, enabling you to display multiple package routes on a single map. Nifty!

Now this is a really awesome trick for people who has been using proxy servers to avoid their school’s or office’s security to access forbidden websites. But more often than not, these proxy servers get blocked one after another by that damn administrator. But hey, Google can help!

Try this:
http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.forbiddensite.com

Well all it does, is translate your forbiddensite.com from English to…English! And there you have it, one naughty website served.

But of course, there’s no guarantee he won’t simply block Google.

[via OhGizmo!]