These days even Indiana Jones might think twice about packing his trusty trowel and theodolite for some fieldwork in southern Afghanistan. But guerrillas and foreign armies are no obstacle for archaeologists who are using Google Earth to identify hundreds of new sites. They have also drawn up plans of more than 45 known but previously unmapped sites.

Until recently, satellite images have been too expensive and variable for widespread use by archaeologists. Now Google Earth’s freely available high-resolution images are helping David Thomas and colleagues at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, to forge ahead with a project called Archaeological Sites of Afghanistan in Google Earth, which catalogues details of 463 potential sites in the Registan desert. These include mounds called tepes - the remains of ancient mud cities - hand-dug underground water channels and villages.

Thomas has also produced basic plans of sites such as the Qal’a-i Hauz fortress, believed to be a winter dwelling of the Ghaznavid elite of the 11th and 12th centuries. The images show evidence of structures which may have been hides used to hunt gazelle, and raised features probably used to manage water supplies.

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As it was told before the fall of 2007 that a mobile telephone would lead people to a better future free of roaming charges and buttons. Times, which likes to anoint things, has named iPhone as the ‘Invention of the Year”. Being pretty and versatile in cases like ‘airplane’ mode (i.e., no cell service, Wi-Fi, etc.), a tiny little orange airplane zooms into the menu bar, make Times to name iPhone as the “Invention of the Year”.

But the article accompanying the awards lays out several reasons why iPhone is very important in computer industry. The relentless buzz around the world, as well as the sales figures, are signs that people really think about what they want in a mobile computer. The iPhone has made wireless industry sit up and realize that it is setting a stage in the future in which mobile computer gradually occupies a larger part of your world. iPhone isn’t just cellphone, it’s also a Platform! Apple engineers use OS X, a full featured operating system, suited in that elegant glass and stainless steel case.

Indeed, iPhone is one little thing you shouldn’t miss!

There’s hope yet for the flying car. Really. The Jetsons-era dream of personal air vehicles (PAVs) has recently received a few gasps of fresh air. An advocacy group, the CAFE Foundation, has launched a $250,000 PAV challenge for new and interesting flight concepts. Plus, companies from the aviation (Boeing) and automotive (Honda) industries are pursuing mainstream airborne-vehicle technology, though no designs or deadlines have been announced. In the meantime, several independent companies have been researching and developing fly/drive vehicles you might see flying — someday — toward a driveway near you.

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