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While we're on the subject of other web technologies that do things we're used to seeing from Flash, I thought I'd show you Harmony. It's a very neat little toy (or proof of concept, I guess) that is written in Javascript, and it uses a technique called "procedural drawing". It's a similar concept to that used on the Flame app (which I covered the other day), but here you get just a single color (black) and a whole bunch of really cool brushes.

You select a brush, start doodling with your mouse, and it gives you surprisingly realistic sketching effects, like "fur" or "shading". It's really fun to play with, and once you get the hang of it, it's actually controllable. It doesn't have undo functionality which makes it kind of similar to sketching with ink in real life. Still, I used it to draw that incredibly realistic ant-dog hybrid in the screenshot above, and I did it all by myself. Mommy would be so proud!

Google Maps just added one of its most-requested features ever: biking directions! Sure, you could get by on your bike with walking or driving directions, but those often include either freeways or streets with no bike lanes. The directions come with the ability to change routes by dragging and dropping the start and end points of your trip.

Since I'm familiar with the bike routes in my area, I put Google's biking directions to the test, and they worked well. The biking directions included the most bike-safe bridge in my area, as well as a route to downtown that's already well-known to area cyclists. Well done, Google! Because the directions are still in beta, Google is asking that you use caution when following them, and report any problems with the suggested routes.

Skype may warn you that their experimental versions are potentially unstable and even ugly, but they do have some exciting features that haven't come to the mainstream releases of the app yet. Skype's known for its voice and video chat capabilities, but the experimental version of Skype for Mac adds indexed search to Skype's underrated text chat feature.

You should back up your Skype user data, found in~/Library/Application Support/Skype/<username>, before you install the experimental version of Skype and start indexing your chats. Once the initial indexing process is over, you won't have to go through it again. Your chats will be added to the search index in real time. You'll be able to find them later by searching with whole or partial words and the boolean operators (like AND and NOT) that you're already familiar with from sites like Google.

Other features in Skype's experimental Mac app include sending your Skype "Mood Messages" to Twitter and enabling a new chat window using Command-N.

Twitter and Facebook both moved forward with their new location-based features today, with Twitter switching on geolocation features on Twitter.com, and Facebook announcing it will allow users to share their locations.

We already knew that Twitter's move was coming, because Twitter's location services have been part of the API and available in third-party apps for some time now. TechCrunch is reporting that geolocation was only on for Twitter.com temporarily, but that it should come back within the week, in time for SXSW. They've also got screenshots, in case you're a "believe-it-when-I-see-it" type.

Facebook's move is a bigger surprise. The New York Times broke the story, citing this new line in Facebook's privacy policy: "When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post." Facebook hasn't commented, but the NYT's sources say its location plans include both the website and developer APIs for Facebook apps.

All of this points to the idea that location-centric apps like Google Buzz and Foursquare aren't just a passing phase. Get used to location in social networks, because it looks like it's about to arrive in a big way.