parkes

CARBONDALE, Ill.--It has been many years since I have worn armor, grabbed a battle axe, stormed a castle, and watched my hit points drain away. My childhood came rushing back as I stood just inside the gates of the Jeremy "Boo" Rochman Memorial Park in Carbondale, Ill. I strapped on my breast plate, loosed my broadsword from its hilt, and let out a mighty battle cry... in my mind.

I'm on a detour from the Geek's Guide to Route 66. I veered off the path somewhere around St. Louis and wandered into the welcome arms of Carbondale, where weathered farmers surreptitiously check their iPhones at the local bar. That's my kind of town.

This park on the outskirts along Giant City Road is one of those places you hear called a best-kept secret. It wasn't secret to the dozen kids climbing over the head of a dragon and romping through the castle walls. Wizards battle on green grass, Pegasus rears up from the brush, and gargoyles guard the ramparts. This is Dungeons & Dragons come to life.

There is a sad story behind the magical kingdom, though. Local investment mogul Barrett Rochman built the park as a memorial to his teenage son. Jeremy "Boo" Rochman, an avid Dungeons & Dragons fan, died more than a decade ago in a car accident nearby. According to an article in the Southern Illinoisan, some of the statues in the park are based on painted figures found among Boo's possessions.… Read more

There are dozens of products and apps that can route you from one place to another by car. Many of these apps will even take real-time traffic into account and adapt directions to avoid congestion. What none of them can do is tell you where you're most likely to actually find a parking place once you're at your destination. That's what Parking In Motion is for.

This mobile app, in its early stages now, is mostly a directory of parking lots and garages. Like GasBag, a database of gas stations and the prices they charge, Parking In Motion shows you how much you're going to pay for parking at various lots. Users can update the data if it's inaccurate. Great feature: the app has arrows to show where garage entrances are.

Ultimately, the app will do much more, according to co-founder Sam Friedman. First of all, it will show which lots or garages are full. This information can't come from users--it'd be too late to be useful. Parking In Motion is instead working with garage operators to collect this data on a broader scale. But first it might have to help operators actually get that data themselves.

Tighter integration with parking structure operators will eventually allow drivers to reserve spots and to pre-pay for them--possibly with a discount. This is where Parking In Motion will make its money, taking a percentage of those transactions.

The app will also, eventually, offer advice on street parking. It won't be able to direct you to a specific spot, unfortunately. Even though many cities are installing smart parking meters, the data collection is too slow to direct drivers to open spaces. Rather, Parking In Motion will collect data from users and meters and tell them which streets or areas are most likely to have open spots, and how long it will likely take to find them.

Down the line even further, Friedman has this vision: "Five years from now, you'll be able to get in your car, find parking on the street, and pay for it from within your car. And then if you're in a meeting and it's running over, you'll be able to re-up your meter from the conference table."

The company's flagship cities are Philadelphia and Santa Monica, Calif., where it has reservations and street parking data coming online. But it has garage data in about 300 cities, and the iPhone app is free and available in the App Store today.

It's a relationship business Building the consumer-facing services are almost trivial for this company. The real challenge is getting good data. To get information from parking lots and garages, Parking In Motion will need to establish relationships with owners--and possibly help them upgrade their IT so they can report open spot numbers in real time. To get street parking information, Parking In Motion will have to either get the parking meter companies (there are a half-dozen of them) to provide data after winning approval from cities, or it will have to file Freedom Of Information requests to get the public-owned data. And it will have to do this hundreds of times. … Read more

Are viciously negative Yelp reviews putting an unfair stigma on small businesses? Today's two-part episode of The 404 Podcast weighs the effect of crowd-sourced review sites like Yelp and Zagat on independently owned establishments, and asks the question: will future generations understand topical shows like "The Simpsons" and "30 Rock?"

Part one: this insightful article in The Atlantic magazine questions the legitimacy of online reviews and the misplaced responsibility that Yelp bestows on citizen journalists with little or no training in voicing their opinions.

The piece calls out six distinct types of crowd-sourced reviewers who make us all look bad. Our least favorite is the "Hater's Ball," but we prefer to call them trolls--people who make scathing, borderline vindictive criticisms online about the most minor offenses at restaurants that they would never voice in person.

How many negative Yelpers do you think actually call the manager over after a meal to politely voice concerns? Most of the time, Yelpers don't think about how a single bad review can springboard a series of negative press that could potentially shut down an independent business, so make sure your complaints are legit before you post!

Don't forget that there are always real people behind the keyboard...and sometimes they have access to weapons.

Part two: This Salon.com article raises an interesting question about future generations understanding the pop culture references in topical television shows like "The Simpsons" and "Glee."… Read more

A few lucky members of the international automotive press in January got a chance to test-drive the MP4-12C supercar. The folks at McLaren Automotive just posted this video on YouTube.

The Surrey, U.K.-based automaker chose Algarve Motor Park in Portugal to give members of the media a chance to evaluate the car for themselves.

Formula One driver Jenson Button also gave journalists a thrill by lapping the track at speeds of more than 200 mph.

The MP4-12C sports a carbon fiber chassis and runs on a twin-turbo 3.8-liter V-8 generating 592 horsepower. McLaren plans a limited number … Read more

MENLO PARK, Calif.--Mark Zuckerberg is moving into Scott McNealy's old digs.

Later this year Facebook will move into the nearly vacant office complex formerly home to Sun Microsystems near the foot of the Dumbarton Bridge, Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman announced today at Menlo Park City Hall. The first groups will make the short trek from downtown Palo Alto to Menlo Park starting in June or July, the company said in a press release, confirming what was already fairly common knowledge.

After Oracle acquired Sun, it laid off thousands of employees and started moving others farther north up … Read more

Facebook has sent out an invitation for a Tuesday press conference at an address in Menlo Park, Calif., which houses the city's municipal buildings. The company has confirmed CNET's guess that it would be to formally announce new headquarters within the Silicon Valley city.

"The press event on Tuesday at Menlo Park City Hall is regarding a campus that will fit our long-term business needs," a Facebook representative said via e-mail. "We'll be sharing more information at that time."

Facebook said late last year that it was searching for locations for a long-term … Read more

You're in a dense urban neighborhood, and you're looking for parking. You could circle for half an hour, swearing at the guy who stole the space you totally saw first, or you could rely on technology developed to explore Venus to nab a spot.

While parking might not sound like the concern of space agencies, France is literally using space-age technology to solve a mundane Earth-bound problem. The tech was originally developed to help balloons communicate with each other, as they floated through the clouds of Venus. The host balloons would have sensors that detect changes in the electromagnetic environment around them and send data to other balloons to help map the atmosphere.

The project was grounded due to budget cuts, though, so the tech was recycled into the pavement of France's fourth largest city, Toulouse, where the sensors are connected to one another under the pavement via coaxial cables.

The parking system is the work of a local start-up called Lyberta and the Centre Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France's counterpart to NASA, which is also based in Toulouse. There are about 3,000 of the sensors, spaced about 9 inches apart beneath the pavement, and each can detect a parking spot within a little fewer than 1,000 feet. Together, they can pinpoint areas that have available parking. The data is then shared in real time via a free smartphone app that displays a green icon to indicate a free parking spot. … Read more

While city drivers may see parallel parking as just another urban sport, for many people it's a "highly avoided and stress-inducing" situation that raises the heart rate.

That's according to a nine-month study of driver habits recently completed by Ford Motor, the New England University Transportation Center (NEUTC), and the Center for Transportation and Logistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Not surprisingly, results released Thursday found that parallel parking while using a park-assist system (instead of having to guess your bumper distance based on your limited view) greatly reduces the stress of parallel parking in … Read more

Professional skateboarder and entrepreneur Tony Hawk is back on CNET's The 404 Podcast to show off his newest video game Tony Hawk: Shred, a biography written with his sister, the Tony Hawk Foundation Stand Up for Skateparks events, and much more!

It's been almost a year since Tony Hawk first came on The 404 . Obviously a lot has happened since then, and Tony updates us with a legendary story about the aftermath of the pelvic injury he suffered earlier this summer while headlining the Action Sports Weekend at Disneyland.

Getting up after falling off the skateboard has always been an important lesson to Tony, and he talks about that central theme a lot in his new book, "How Did I Get Here: The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO." Written with his sister, Pat Hawk, the book details his rise to success in the skate industry, and Tony is certainly a pioneer in terms of bringing skateboarding to new media.

The original success of the Tony Hawk: Pro Skater brand obviously paved the way for skate gaming, and Tony's back again with a new game called Tony Hawk: Shred. Shred takes a new angle on the franchise and aims for the younger market.

It features similar motion-sensing board control as Ride but transformes the experience with impossible skate and snowboarding tricks, building jumps, and cameos from pros like Louie Vito, Geoff Rowley, Corey Duffel, and more. And like all the Tony Hawk video games, the soundtrack features a variety of genres and artists, including Rival Schools, Jimmy Eat World, OK Go, and more. Tony Hawk: Shred comes out next Tuesday, October 26, for Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3.

After the break, Tony describes the importance of giving back to the skating community and his two charity events called Stand Up for Skateparks. The huge parties galvanize BMX riders, skaters, celebrities, and fans alike in an effort to raise money for high-quality public skateparks in low-income areas throughout the country.

Tony stresses the importance of not only making sure kids are safe in the parks, but also that the parks maintain a level of Tony Hawk quality. The next party is happening in Las Vegas on November 6 and will feature a performance by DJ Z-Trip--tickets are still available here!

There's plenty more to talk about with Tony, including some of his favorite skate videos, tips for future skate entrepreneurs, and the truth behind his involvement in the original "Back to the Future" movie!