An anonymous reader writes “Good news for OpenStreetMap: the main website now has A-to-B routing (directions) built in to the homepage! The OSM website offers directions which are powered by third-parties using OSM data, providing car, bike, and foot routing. OpenStreetMap has a saying: ‘What gets rendered, gets mapped’ – meaning that often you don’t notice a bit of data that needs tweaking unless it actually shows up on the map image. It will make OpenStreetMap’s data better by creating a virtuous feedback loop.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
See the article here:
OpenStreetMap.org Gets Routing
KindMind writes According to AP, Waze has caused trouble for LA residents by redirecting traffic from Interstate 405 to neighborhood side streets paralleling the interstate. From the article: “When the people whose houses hug the narrow warren of streets paralleling the busiest urban freeway in America began to see bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling by their homes a year or so ago, they were baffled. When word spread that the explosively popular new smartphone app Waze was sending many of those cars through their neighborhood in a quest to shave five minutes off a daily rush-hour commute, they were angry and ready to fight back. They would outsmart the app, some said, by using it to report phony car crashes and traffic jams on their streets that would keep the shortcut-seekers away. Months later, the cars are still there, and the people are still mad.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Google Search now has a completely new look for iOS , though it’s one many Android users will be familiar with. The Search team is bringing Android Lollipop’s Material Design language to the Search app along with lots of other features and optimization for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Read more… 
Having a PIN code or pattern to protect your device makes a lot of sense, but it’s also annoying. Thankfully, the new version of Android lets you automatically turn off this security layer when you’re at home or the office or anywhere else you regularly go. Here’s how to set it up. Read more… 
mikejuk writes The announcement on the Google Geo Developers blog has the catchy title No map is an island. It points out that while there are now around 2 million active sites that have Google Maps embedded, they store data independently, The new feature, called attributed save, aims to overcome this problem by creating an integrated experience between the apps you use that have map content and Google Maps, and all it requires is that users sign in. So if you use a map in a specific app you will be able to see locations you entered in other apps.This all sounds great and it makes sense to allow users to take all of the locations that have previously been stored in app silos and put them all together into one big map data pool. The only down side is that the pool is owned by Google and some users might not like the idea of letting Google have access to so much personal geo information. It seems you can have convenience or you can have privacy.It might just be that many users prefer their maps to be islands. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
A new study on solar energy from Deutsche Bank bears very good news . Thanks to technology and innovation, solar energy will be just as cheap as energy from fossil fuels by 2016. That’s basically tomorrow, and it’s awesome. Read more… 
Good news, you lovers of freedom and justice. The FTC is going after AT&T for throttling the mobile internet speed of unlimited data customers. In the words of FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez: ” The issue is simple : Unlimited means unlimited.” Read more… 
Google Drive is down, and it’s taken all of your docs with it. Users have been reporting outages since 11:20 , which is very annoying if you use Google Docs for work—like all my coworkers and I do. Fingers crossed they fix it soon! Read more…