Sony saving us money for once – adds local garage petrol prices to its satnav displays

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With it now costing more to drive to the shops than you spend on food when you get there, this little GPS innovation from Sony could be the answer to saving literally several pence a month.

Sony’s taken its Japanese PetaMap system and added support for local petrol price data – which can then be viewed on your Sony GPS system, letting users shave fractions of a yen off the price of each litre – just like the UK-based…

Google showcases new experimental search views: map, timeline, info

google_experimental_labs.pngGoogle has announced a trio of new views for search results, currently in an experimental stage. They provide some useful alternatives to the bog standard “ten results per page” text links many Google users are most familiar with.

Combining Google Search with Google Maps unsurprisingly gives rise to the Map view, which will plot the key locations contained within a batch of search results on a map.

Great for a school project — a slapdash one at least — is the Timeline view, though this potentially needs to be taken as carefully as one would, or should, treat Wikipedia. It lists search results as usual, but plots a timeline graph along the top of the page, showing when things happened (according to the search results). Looks good for an overview of a person, a historical event, or a concept, which can lead to further study.