Gaiagi Driver it’s a mashed-up 3D driving simulator that uses a lot of web APIs across multiple windows to create a unique driving experience. Give it a starting and ending address and it follows the path created by the directions and shows your present position in four different views:

• Upper left: Google Earth view (if yoy have it installed)
• Upper right: Google Map view. You can toggle traffic information as well as street view information as overlays.
• Lower left: Google Streetview
• Lower right: Microsoft Birdsview

Given how much is going in all those windows, it’s more than a bit demanding, so it helps to have a fast Internet connection.

As a bonus, it includes a dozen pre-defined tours, just press the button and go:

• New York City: Central Park to Times Square
• Las Vegas: Along the Strip
• San Francisco: Market Street to Golden Gate
• London: London Eye to Buckingham Palace
• Paris: Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame

It’s an impressive bit of mashup engineering.

[VIA]

It appears that some time over the weekend, YouTube began experimenting with 3D videos. According Youtube "developer working on the stereoscopic player as a 20% project". "It’s currently very early, hence the silly bugs like swapping the eyes for the anaglyph modes."

The parameters to view such a video are:

• yt3d:enable=true Enables the view mode. (obviously you’ve already discovered this)
• yt3d:aspect=3:4 Sets the aspect of the encoded video.
• yt3d:swap=true Swaps the left and right sources. You may need to add this to videos when the player with fixed anaglyph modes ships. Apologies for the inconvineince.
• yt3d:left=0_0.1_0.5_0.9 and yt3d:right=0.5_0.1_1_0.9 These tags are very provisional and most useful for fixing up old videos. They set the source area for each eye as pairs of coordinates x1_y1_x2_y2. The scale of these coordinates is 0,0 for the the top left down to 1,1 for the bottom right.

If you want to experience the 3D videos, here’s the link @ youtube.

[VIA]

Google Earth has hooked up with the University of Virginia to produce a 3D rendition of Rome in the year 320AD featuring 250 “highly detailed” and 5000+ other buildings.

The modelling is, the Google Earth Blog notes, based on a physical model of the city dubbed the “Plastico di Roma Antica” created between 1933 and 1974. As well as exteriors, the virtual city displays 11 buildings with viewable interiors, including the Colosseum and the temple of Vesta.

To get the best from your Roman tour, Google also recommends you turn off the “3D Buildings” layer, after which should should be able to glide gracefully around the city.

Download Google Earth >>>

[VIA]

The 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator for Notebooks is one of a kind input device that lets you take control of the Z axis as well the usual X and Y.

Basically, you can push knob down, twist it, pull up and even tilt it, giving you the greatest control in 3D environments. And you don’t have to worry about the device favoring only the right-handed majority since USB controller is as ambidextrous as it gets. This is immensely useful in Google Earth, AutoCAD, Adobe PhotoShop, Maya and now Second Life.

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BumpTop is a fresh and engaging new way to interact with your computer desktop. You can pile and toss documents like on a real desk. Break free from the rigid and mechanical style of standard point-and-click desktops. Interact by pushing, pulling and piling documents with elegant, self revealing gestures. BumpTop’s stunning interface makes clever use of 3D presentation and smooth physics-based animations for an engaging, vivid user experience.

BumpTop is not publicly available just yet, because it is in private beta at the moment, but you can sign up for the mailing list to be the first to try it.

[BumpTop]