A summary of the more interesting blog posts to come across my desk recently...

• Most of you are familiar with the Google Street View where Google  sent cars around most major city streets photographing the buildings from the street level so when looking at a map you can see what the building you plan to visit looks like. Surprisingly many crimes in progress were captured by the Google photographers and now live in infamy on Google maps as documented on criminal justice blog, The Blotter.

• The dynamics of open source development continues to fascinate me, particularly in the test tools arena where surprisingly high quality test tools are readily available for free. A post on webchick.net provides a fascinating peak into the process of adding enhancements to the core of a major open source project.

• I remember an old Outer Limits or Twilight Zone episode where a man looking into a microscope realizes that there are tiny parallel worlds hidden within every day objects, and iteratively worlds within worlds when you keep looking with more and more magnification. Take this notion and extend it to looking at a photo and you get the idea behind National Geographic's infinite photograph. Check it out here.

• ars technica does a great job summarizing the exciting state of the E-book market with lots of players jumping into the fray. On a recent cross country flight I was surprised to see more the a few passengers using their Kindles and whenever I take my Kindle in public it inspires curious questions form everyone that sees it.

• Testing web site Flash implementations is always challenging, so this internetnews post caught my attention with HP rolling out a new version of their WebInspect Internet security application that include analysis of Flash implementations for security holes.

• As I have blogged in the past, I am a big fan of Amazon and do almost all my shopping on the site. A ZDNet post states that Amazon now represents a third of all U.S. e-commerce transactions. That is a staggering percentage from a company whose market share continues to grow!

• Finally a couple of strange posts. The first involves a woman who installed a video security system in her home and happened to be at work and while glancing at the real time feed from her house (to check on her dogs) noticed two burglars ransacking her house. The second involves the bizarre emergence of a blood red frozen river in the antarctic that contains an ecosystem that may provide clues as to how life can exist in extraordinarily harsh conditions such as other planets.

I'd enjoy reading any comments you have on these items!

Jim