TechCrunch has a post about the just-launched beta of TOPO! Explorer, a site which provides a Google Maps interface on top of real topo data and it lets you upload your GPS data as well as geotag videos and photos of the trail.

Now is a good time to introduce you to my latest pet/side project, trail.digitalbackcountry.com. When I first created (and Ciara came up with the name) DigitalBackcountry I was hoping to talk about the intersection of the outdoors and technology. I thought DigitalBackcountry captured that pretty well. Well, I ended up moving towards the technology end and didn’t focus much on the outdoors part. It worked out very well for me so I didn’t mind, but I always felt a nagging, especially now that GPSes and Geocoding have become popular.

So trail.digitalbackcountry.com will be where I’ll occasionally post things like trip reports, hardware/gear reviews, and stuff that I’m working on that involves the intersection of outdoors and technology like, for example my AS3 GPX library. Posting will probably be pretty light as it’s not my main gig and I won’t have a lot of time to spend. But if you’re interested, you can always subscribe to the feed. You’ll also get a more personal side of me…but that may be kind of scary.

Also, bear with me while I get to the very slow housekeeping.