Google has launched a new personalized touch to its online maps tool that allows users to create customized maps with specific locations and pictures.

Intel has added two ultra low voltage versions of its Core 2 Duo processor with Merom core to its product portfolio.

Police departments frequently catch criminals with cars, motorcycles and yes even Segways, but some departments, like the Los Angeles Police Department, are now trying out an electric trike made by Irvine Calfornia-based T3 Motion, with spectacular results.

AMD today released new performance benchmark results for its fastest Opteron processors and reclaims the performance crown in the 2P dual-core arena. While these specific numbers are on AMD’s side, it really depends on your view, which company has the fastest 2P processor: Intel points to its quad-core CPU and says nothing has changed in the performance arena.

Anaheim (CA) - Anyone with a few hundred bucks and basic mechanic skills can convert their cars into flexible fuel vehicles in about 20 minutes.  This is according to representatives of Full Flex International which sells drop-in conversion kits that let cars run on both ethanol and gasoline.  The kits piggyback on top of the fuel injector computers.

This past Saturday, over 30 contestants warmed up their thumbs to compete in LG Mobile’s National Texting Competition – the first ever text messaging competition.

Anaheim (CA) - An ethanol-powered police car could be the next one that pulls you over for speeding.  For 2008, Ford has introduced a flex-fuel Crown Victoria Police Interceptor car that takes ethanol and gasoline.  The car can use E85 which is a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline or regular gasoline in the same tank.  Police departments can also blend the E85 and gasoline in the tank.

Cupertino (CA) – When four cores are not enough, then there is now the option to equip Apple’s Mac Pro dual-socket desktop system with two limited production quad-core processors. Of course, the privilege of owning an eight-core Apple, especially with a processor that isn’t part of Intel’s volume product portfolio yet, doesn’t come cheap.

Samsung Electronics has announced its new SpinPoint S166 series of silent and high-speed hard disk drives (HDDs).

Philips Lumileds recently announced the immediate availability of its Luxeon Rebel power LED, which is 3×4.5mm with a foot print area 75% smaller than other surface mount power LEDs.

Spansion has unveiled its MirrorBit Eclipse architecture that combines MirrorBit NOR, ORNAND and Quad flash memory on a single die.

Intel this morning announced the “Centrino Pro” brand for its professional business platform of notebook components. Centrino Pro extends the vPro label into the mobile space and will be used starting with higher-end business notebooks based on the upcoming Santa Rosa platform.

Sunnyvale (CA) – Performance memory maker today announced an upgraded version of its “Reaper” memory, which comes with an attached heatpipe cooling system. The new PC-9200 modules increase the clock speed of the previously announced PC-8500 memory from 1066 to 1150 MHz. The external, fin-array heatspreader that is connected to the memory module via a heatpipe remains unchanged. The same goes for timings, which are 5-5-5.

More than two years after the launch of what was perceived as its main competitor, Flipstart today launched its first ultra-compact PC. Compared to the OQO model 02, the Flipstart is slightly larger, comes with a complete feature set and offers some innovative approaches for data input, but has less horsepower and a high price.

SanDisk has announced a new line of compact flash cards designed for the extreme photographer.

Mexico City’s new mayor has promised city-wide wireless Internet by 2008.

Taipei (Taiwan) – Transcend is jumping on flash hard drive bandwagon and today announced a 16 GB version of its Express Card series that now carries a ‘solid state disk’ label.

According to the current product planning of vendors, if all goes as scheduled, Intel's next generation notebook platform, Santa Rosa, is set to hit product shelves in the first half of May, according to DRAMeXchange, which noted that from the timetable, both the shipments of full system and barebone notebooks will be a major focus of PC ODMs at the end of April.

Art Lebedev, the Russian design studio behind the Optimus OLED keyboard, said that it likely will not ship its first keyboards before December of this year.