From the creators of Dot:

What is it?

Dot is a stylish, durable and downright pocketable 360º (panoramic) lens attachment and app for the iPhone 4.

What does it do?

Dot lets your iPhone capture immersive, fully navigable, panoramic video in real-time - and share with friends on your phone, as well as on Facebook and Twitter, or streamed online using our awesome panoramic video web platform and player.

Cool, right?

We're excited too. Why? Because we're uber lazy, and we'd rather put down the camera and enjoy the party. We're making a bet you will too. (Not that we think you're lazy...)

But seriously, our secret beta testers have already had a lot of fun taking it to concerts, the park, on moped rides in Italy, and showing cramped apartments to mothers halfway around the world.

So?

Well, up until recently it took major moolah and hefty gear to make a decent panoramic video. Now all you need is your phone and the world around you.

"Artist Aaron Koblin takes vast amounts of data — and at times vast numbers of people — and weaves them into stunning visualizations. From elegant lines tracing airline flights to landscapes of cell phone data, from a Johnny Cash video assembled from crowd-sourced drawings to the "Wilderness Downtown" video that customizes for the user, his works brilliantly explore how modern technology can make us more human. Watch his TED Talk below." 

More photos and info at Yanko Design

Cambridge, MA -

While the Notes crew was in Boston last May, we met and interviewed a variety of compelling characters in medicine, engineering and creative business - from rising stars to Nobel Prize laureates - the faces behind innovations who help to shape our human ideals, and who embody our collective hopes for the future.

I spied an interesting piece of news recently. HP acquired Palm. So why exactly does a PC manufacturing company acquire a cell phone company? The answer is obvious (they're going to make cell phones).

Visit Spokeo.com for 30 seconds, if you haven't already. Type in your name and state of residence or those of a loved one. (Go ahead, we'll wait...)

Yep, we agree. Very scary stuff.

Over the last few years, terabytes of tech buzz all over the net have hailed the iPhone as the "Porsche" of all mobile computing devices. More recently, smartphone manufacturers whose units feature the open-source Android OS have hit the ground running with some pretty aggressive marketing campaigns -- online and off.

Notes On The Road does not encourage nor advocate internet piracy of any kind - uploads or downloads. The information presented here is for informational purposes only.

Let's DeLorean it back to the late eighties and early nineties, to when Molly Ringwald was prom queen and the New Kids were still, well...nevermind, it's a tired joke. Zack Morris defined a generation, along with 49-er shoulderpads and offensively large hair. And who could forget Anthony Michael Hall, brutally typecast as "the geek" -- by the way, have you seen him lately? It's living proof that life can be fair...

I think most traveling professionals would agree: Thumbing e-mail replies on-the-fly in another country, on a foreign network, is a gargantuan pain in the @$$. When I arrive in a new city and check into a hotel where the wireless is less than divine, and I collapse backwards in dramatic fatigue onto a bed that isn’t even mine—the last thing I want to do is reach over and “thumb-cuddle” with my Blackberry.