Anyone who’s journeyed on foot through a strange city can confirm that there’s a lot maps don’t show. For instance, whether it would be a really bad idea to wander through certain neighborhoods with an expensive camera around your neck. Or whether there’s a low-lying neighborhood that will be about 3 degrees cooler than it is everywhere else. Those kinds of things.

Though you won’t find that variety of information on Google Maps’ walking directions, you might soon see it on Bing Maps. Microsoft has just received a patent on a method for incorporating information like violent crime statistics into walking directions, so users could choose a specific rate of crime that they are personally comfortable with when planning a route (bike gangs, OK, murders, no). Other layers of information, like temperature measurements or falling-apart sidewalks, could also make appearances.

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The next generation of video game control is upon us with the release of Microsoft’s Kinect–which allows users to control special XBOX 360 games with their entire body.

Hackers have been eagerly digging into the device, especially since Microsoft’s Shannon Loftis told Science Friday’s Ira Flatow that no hackers would get in trouble for finding alternate uses for the Kinect:

“I’m very excited to see that people are so inspired that it was less than a week after the Kinect came out before they had started creating and thinking about what they could do.”

Here’s a list of some of our favorite, jaw-dropping hacks: Invisibility without the cloak, 3D video, Minority Report-style computing, real-life Star Wars, and the best shadow puppets you’ve ever seen.

5. Makes the best shadow puppets EVER:

Built in a day by Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille, this little hack replaces your hand and arm with a movable bird puppet. You can control the bird, and even make it squawk.

Video: Vimeo/Theo Watson

4. Real-time light-saber action:

YouTube user yankayan hacked his Kinect to transform a normal wooden stick into a light-saber in real-time, with real light-saber whooshing sounds!

Video: YouTube/yahkeyan

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Microsoft researchers in Beijing are trying to best Google maps by culling knowledge from a mythical beast known as the taxi driver.

The Microsoft folks are trying to improve their online maps using the cabbies’ deep knowledge of Beijing. The problem with typical maps and the directions they offer is that the shortest route isn’t always the fastest route. In big cities, cabbies know which side streets offer shortcuts, and what areas of the city to avoid at which times.

The researchers are trying to rake that data out of the cabbies’ habits by analyzing the GPS data from over 33,000 taxis in Beijing. The group at Microsoft Research Asia, led by Yu Zheng, developed an approach (called T-drive) to analyze and merge this cabbie data with satellite maps to improve the mapping experience and offer faster directions–even if the driver doesn’t engage in the lane swerving, honking, and pedestrian slaloming that give cabbies an edge. As Technology Review reports:

According to the Microsoft researchers, the routes suggested by T-Drive are faster than 60 percent of the routes suggested by Google and Bing maps (which provide essentially the same driving time estimates as each other). Overall, T-Drive can shave about 16 percent off the time of a trip, the researchers say, which translates into about 5 minutes for every 30 minutes of driving.

This approach could work just as well in other dense, cabbie-infested cities. The team is also working on projects that will incorporate real-time accident and traffic data into these “smart” maps.

Technology Review reports that other companies trying to improve maps and directions are taking data from driver’s cell phones in California and Boston, while a person-to-person route sharing application called WAZE allows you to share tips with your social network.

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Image: Flicrk/Boris van Hoytema

Ford CEO Alan Mulally recently wrapped up today’s keynote speech, an argument that the company is not only working hard to incorporate technology into its cars but also into its corporate DNA; “we are a car company but we are learning to think and act like an electronics company,” said vice president of product development Derrick Kuzak during speech time borrowed from Mulally. Emulating the successful tech industry could be an important move for the company, especially at a time when two-thirds of the Big Three require massive government intervention to stay afloat–a fact that was never mentioned outright but gave the talk a special relevance.

Whether Ford succeeds in its goal of creating a technology-oriented “new Ford Motor Company” depends on how good those technologies are. Mulally and other Ford officials mentioned 5 main information technologies that they said were making the company the hands-down leader in in-car information, entertainment, and connectivity:

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At last night’s keynote kickoff to CES, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer took on the role of everyone’s kindly uncle, reassuring us that while things might be a bit tough right now, we should buck up, because the world will always need innovative new stuff. Which is fair enough, but I think what really cheered the audience up was a performance by Australian troop Tripod, who sang a song with a tale of Xbox-widowhood that was all too familiar, (“Oh get ready get ready/Ready for loving tonight Baby/Before we get down to love/Before we get down/I just gotta finish this level…”).

More substantively, Ballmer announced that the next version of Windows, Windows 7, would be available for beta downloads starting this Friday. The new interface looked slick enough in the demos, but as always the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so I’m looking forward to seeing user reports following Friday’s release.