Google Open Sources Liquid Galaxy

Google has open sourced Liquid Galaxy, a biproduct of the company's now-famous 20% Time, that uses Google Map data to create immersive, 360-degree live panoramas. Liquid Galaxy accomplishes this by using Google Earth and series of HD monitors stacked side by side in portrait.

The public releases of Google Earth for LInux, Mac, and Windows all include the features necessary to make Liquid Galaxy work. Google has also opened the Ubuntu sysadmin scripts. There are even blueprints for the company's in-house Liquid Galaxy conference platform.

Research In Motion Renames BlackBerry Widgets, Open Sources the Project

Research In Motion announced that its web-based development platform BlackBerry Widgets is getting a name change and moving to open source. BlackBerry Widgets is now BlackBerry WebWorks. Like Widgets, WebWorks uses BlackBerry Web App Packager, allowing developers to create rich Web apps with HTML5, CSS, XML and other languages.

This announcement follows RIM's announcement of the PlayBook, a feature-rich tablet that supports OpenGL, Flash 10.1 and POSIX. Like the BlackBerry Torch, the Playbook features a Webkit browser, which supports HTML5, CSS, and other rich features.

If RIM opts for Web app-based product, the move is a logical one. Unlike other devices such as the first-generation iPhone, which began its life focusing on Web apps, BlackBerry devices use BlackBerry Internet Service to compress and encrypt outgoing information and decrypts incoming information as it arrives to the phone, adding an additional level of security.