Very Tech

2011-04-13T20:58:00.001-07:00

Mario Balotelli can't dress himself - soccer video

2011-03-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

Startup guest post - Netfirms: Hosting: The Start Up's Hand Up

2010-08-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hosting: The Start Up's Hand Up

Why Hosting Works

The field of technology is updated so rapidly that it can be hard to keep up with the latest editions, newest gadgets, and best protection. Couple that with beginning your first technology start-up and the task can go from difficult, to overwhelming, as quickly as it takes the latest story of Lindsay Lohan to circulate. Despite the daunting loom that this may seem to impart, there is help in the form of a hosting company.

What is the worst case scenario you could be faced with? Server down-time. Down-time communicates negatively with your clients as it causes frustration and instils doubt in your ability to provide prompt, quality service. Other issues you are potentially facing are viruses, bugs, system crashes, etc. As a small business, you may not have the time or man-power to deal with these complications thoroughly. That is where a hosting company comes to your rescue.

A Good Host

There are a various assortment of hosting companies available, some of them are the big names everyone has heard of, some are less known names. Google, Microsoft, HP, and Amazon are ones people have heard of due to their pivotal technological places. In the following paragraphs Rackspace and Equinix will be discussed. Before that though, let's look at what you should expect from a hosting company:

Is the company financially stable?
Are they expanding their resources?
What kind of tech-support do they offer?
Do they provide the services they promise?
Who else uses them?

Now to explore the some of companies mentioned.

Equinix

Equinix has been around since 1998, providing service for over three-thousand customers in eleven different countries over five-hundred different networks. They provide service for customers of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Equinix has a twenty-four hour, seven day a week support system available to its customers that provides help with installation, troubleshooting, and other issues. Pricing is flexible and competitive, set-up to be customized based on what the client is seeking. Some of the drawbacks to Equinix for US users are the monitoring services and valuable asset protection in the event of IT downtime are available only for customers in Asia and Europe.

Rackspace
Rackspace has also been in business since 1998. They provide service for over eighty-thousand customers. Their overseas expansion is on a smaller-scale, with two centers in the UK and one in Hong Kong. Rackspace boasts a high-security capability, including key-card and twenty-four hour monitoring features. A different aspect to Rackspace is there billing protocol, which is based on individual customer usage of bandwidth. Rackspace only bills clients for the bandwidth they have used (versus the popular 95% billing), based on outbound bandwidth; that means not being charged for regular maintenance. Cloud hosting is a specialty for Rackspace. This is where websites are hosted on various servers that are connected; in short, that means you pay less.

There are multiple options available for tech start up companies looking to use hosting. The benefits are well weighed in your favour.

Bio
Netfirms, Inc. is the premier provider of web hosting, domain name search and registration, e-commerce web site hosting, e-mail hosting, e-marketing services and technology solutions. Our customers include families, small home offices, established businesses, and large corporations who need reliable domain name registration and web hosting services.

So funny - 30 Rock Seasone Finale

2010-05-23T01:44:00.001-07:00

ipad review

2010-04-03T00:42:00.001-07:00

Laptops versus Netbooks. What I think of the two.

2009-12-05T00:06:00.000-08:00

If consumers can't decide between a netbook and a low-priced laptop this holiday season, manufacturers certainly aren't helping matters.

When I see the season's top netbook, the 12-inch Acer Aspire Timeline, has dimensions, memory (3 gigabytes) and pricing (around $600) that's similar to a 14-inch Toshiba Satellite dual-core laptop, it's little wonder that buyers are having an increasingly difficult time telling the two apart. In fact, according to a NPD Group report issued earlier this year, almost 60% of consumers who bought a netbook instead of a notebook thought they would have the same capabilities. Roughly the same percentage was satisfied with its netbooks, compared to 70% of those who planned on buying a netbook all along.

The notion of the netbook was that it was small, cheap and light, but because of profit margins, they started to creep into the 12-inch category without beefing up the internal components I say

I agree Netbooks were once featherweight, Linux-equipped toys with puny Atom processors and sub-$300 price tags. Even as bigger manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics entered the market and Microsoft's Windows operating systems became prevalent, netbooks still remained small, affordable and long on battery life.

Samsung's N120, for example, has Windows XP, but it's only 10 inches wide, costs as little as $320 and maintains a charge for six hours. Toshiba's Satellite U505 is small and only has 1 gigabyte of memory, but its $400 price tag nets consumers Windows 7 and 9.5 hours of battery time. Though the battery on Acer's Timeline holds a charge for 10 hours, and its Pentium processor offers 3 gigabytes of memory, its size and $550 price tag delete its benefits.

"You want a small netbook that's a little underpowered, which is the tradeoff for price and size and weight," Fox says. "If you're getting up around $500, there's little value in getting an oversized netbook if you're losing the advantages of a netbook. It's the worst of both worlds."

Pasta myths--debunked

2009-12-05T00:03:00.000-08:00

I'm blown away that people don't know this. It doesn't get any better than a bowl of pasta, right? But too often cooks ruin a great dish by following one (or more) of these myths. Avoid them, and you'll be licking your plate clean in no time.

Myth: Breaking long pasta into shorter pieces makes it easier to eat.
If spaghetti were better short, it would have been made that way! Plus, broken strands are hard to eat since they’re not long enough to twirl onto a fork.
More: 12 pasta shapes and their best sauce matches »

Myth: Add olive oil to the cooking water to keep the pasta from sticking.
Pasta shouldn’t stick when properly cooked. If it’s cooked with olive oil, it will actually coat the noodles and prevent sauce from sticking.
More: 3 golden rules for cooking pasta »
Myth: Throw the pasta against the wall—if it sticks, it’s done.
The only way to know if it’s done is to taste it! It should be al dente, or firm to the bite. The more pasta cooks, the gummier it gets, so if it sticks to the wall it’s probably overdone.
More: 4 tricks to time it just right, from Marcella Hazan »

Myth: Rinse pasta after cooking and draining.
This will make the pasta cold and rinse away the starch that helps bind the sauce to it.
More: 15 easy sauce-shape pairings and recipes »

Myth: It’s all about the sauce.
Italians will tell you it’s pasta with sauce—not sauce with pasta! Too much sauce buries the flavor of the pasta and overwhelms it.
More: 5 every day pasta sauce recipes »

Vator Splash Event

2009-12-01T21:37:00.000-08:00

On the evening of February 4, 2010, 10 seed- to early-stage companies selected by their peers, and vetted by judges will have the opportunity to present onstage to a high-profile group of entrepreneurs, investors and media.

In addition, Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder of Zynga, will talk about how he built the hottest social gaming company in just a few years, and Jeff Smith, CEO and co-founder of Smule, will talk about how he built some of the most popular and highest-grossing iPhone apps. Both executives have founded and taken companies public in the past. We expect more than 300 attendees, including industry peers, investors and media. Investors from August Capital, Google Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Norwest Venture Partners have committed to attending.

Vator members only can reserve a 50% discounted ticket or a demo table: Click here and enter "splash50” as the discount code to buy your ticket for 50% off. Only a few discount tickets are available. Get the tickets now before the offer expires on Monday, December 7th. Submit or nominate an early-stage company to pitch and don't forget to cast your vote: Vator Splash Competition.

mark mahaney - skiti

2009-12-01T09:59:00.001-08:00

Top Ten Tips for 2009 Hurricane Season Planning from SunGard Availability Services

2009-06-03T07:38:00.001-07:00

Top Ten Tips for 2009 Hurricane Season Planning from SunGard Availability Services


Steps Outline How to Stay on Top of Disaster Recovery Plans WAYNE, Pa., June 3 /PRNewswire/ -- With the onset of the 2009 hurricane season, SunGard Availability Serviceshas outlined its top ten tips for disaster preparedness. By following these steps, organizations will be better prepared to keep their systems, processes and people up and running during and after a major storm. "Today, many organizations are focused on short-term pressures to reduce spending, and because of this, may not be properly testing their recovery plans," said Robert DiLossi, director of crisis management at SunGard Availability Services. "We have seen all too often organizations neglect key elements of their information availability programs only to realize the grave consequences when it's too late. As hurricane season approaches, it is imperative that companies reexamine and re-test existing plans, making sure they align with the current state of the business - from both IT and business process perspectives - in case a major storm should occur. For those organizations facing travel restrictions due to budget constraints, new modes of testing - such as remote or virtualized testing - provide cost-effective alternatives to more traditional methods." SunGard Availability Services recommends companies follow these proactive steps to help ensure readiness for the 2009 hurricane season: Regularly test your disaster recovery plan. Simply having a plan in place is not enough. Develop andregularly test your crisis communication plan so that the first time it is executed is not during an emergency. Remember to test under realistic conditions and make the plan robust enough to address extended recovery that may require utilization of new facilities, relocation of staff and involvement of outside personnel. Revisit and reassign responsibilities. Factor in changes to your organization caused by recent layoffs and restructurings. Assign new responsibilities to employees based on the current organizational structure and available resources. Test this updated plan to ensure all tools and protocols are in place to operate during a disaster, reaching out to all parts of the organization and employee family members as well as vendors, government agencies and emergency responders. Make sure your notification system is up-to-date. Critical during any potential interruption, notification should be an integral part of an organization's disaster recovery plan. Make sure all contact numbers are up-to-date, allowing the organization to get in touch with key personnel in the event of an emergency. This will also help prioritize methods of communication and track which employees have received messages. Put your people first. Employees are the heart of an organization; however, many human resources aspects are frequently overlooked in disaster recovery planning. Businesses must identify alternate locations where employees can go in the event a primary work location is unavailable and address the physical safety and psychological well-being of employees. Assign backup roles for the inevitable times when key players are not available or missing, and time-sensitive actions need to be taken. Employ cross training to have alternative contacts ready to go. Don't wait to relocate. If an organization has access to hot or cold back-up sites, a common mistake is to wait too long before declaring an emergency and relocating personnel. If an organization is located in an area for which a government evacuation order has been issued, it should declare and relocate immediately. Don't forget about your technology. Develop procedures for technical recovery scripts that will be deployed to help get your IT infrastructure up and running. Make the scripts comprehensive and easy to understand so people who are not familiar with them can easily follow along. Keep your vendor list current. Strictly enforce change management and control processes to help ensure vendor contacts are current so vital services will be quickly available when needed. Consider the impact outside of your organization. In the event of a disaster, will your vendors be able to perform their roles in supporting your critical technical infrastructure and business processes? Consider looking at secondary providers as a precaution. Take time to evaluate whether support or maintenance contracts need to be extended or have levels of support modified. Evaluate readiness and completeness of offsite data storage. Paper records and backup tapes may be totally lost, destroyed or unavailable. Develop contingencies in the event delivery of offsite-stored data is delayed. Investigate using electronic media - through disk to disk backup - to help safeguard and provide backup information. Take the guesswork out of server recovery. Should a disaster occur, re-building servers from the ground up consumes time and stretches internal IT resources. Consider working with a third-party provider that can simplify these processes by rebuilding your operating systems on its own servers - enabling a speedy and more cost-effective recovery. "Just because hurricane season has begun does not mean there isn't time to prepare," said Mr. DiLossi. "Organizations often get overwhelmed by disaster recovery planning but in the short-term they can take the first steps of updating notification systems, coordinating with outside vendors/agencies and testing current plans. It cannot be said enough times - test the way you recover, recover the way you test." SunGard Availability Services provides disaster recovery process expertise and automation combined with an enterprise-class IT infrastructure - a protocol-independent network, hardened facilities and redundant power systems. In addition, the company has a 100 percent success rate helping customers to recover in its 30-year history.

Very sexy pictures

2009-05-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

Very Tech Brings You Technology with and Edge - Sexy Pictures

2009-05-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

Japanese manga series "Death Note" has been acquired for an English language film adaptation. Warner Bros. is developing the series into a live-action movie.

One in 5 teenagers say they've electronically sent or posted online nude or semi-nude images of themselves, which may be fueling a more casual attitude toward sex, according to a "Sex and Tech" survey released this week by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com.

Playboy Bunnies

2009-03-27T19:53:00.001-07:00

Sexy Images

2008-11-19T20:10:00.001-08:00

Seeking Alpha3X Leveraged ETFs

2008-11-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

Seeking Alpha3X Leveraged ETFs Immediately Popular with TradersMonday November 10, 11:25 am ET By Index Universe
IndexUniverse submits: By Matthew Hougan
Contrary to expectations (including mine), the Direxion 300% leveraged and inverse ETFs are rapidly gaining traction in the marketplace.
The company launched eight super-leveraged ETFS last week:
Fund
Ticker
Index
Large Cap Bull 3x Shares
BGU
Russell 1000 (300%)
Large Cap Bear 3x Shares
BGZ
Russell 1000 (-300%)
Small Call Bull 3x Shares
TNA
Russell 200 (300%)
Small Cap Bear 3x Shares
TZA
Russell 2000 (-300%)
Energy Bull 3x Shares
ERX
Russell 1000 Energy (300%)
Energy Bear 3x Shares
ERY
Russell 1000 Energy (-300%)
Financial Bull 3x Shares
FAS
Russell 1000 Financial Services (300%)
Financial Bear 3x Shares
FAZ
Russell 1000 Financial Services (-300%)
The funds are designed to deliver 300% and -300% of the daily return of their benchmark indexes, and follow in the success of the wildly successful ProShares ETFs, which provide 200% and -200% exposure to the market.
I must admit: I was very skeptical of these funds' prospects?at first. I worried that the funds were not appropriate for real "investors." 300% is a lot of leverage, particularly when volatility is as high as it is today. Investors could easily lose half their money in a single day.
Moreover, I was concerned about the issue of compounding. I have written extensively about how compounding causes the long-term returns of leveraged funds to deviate from their expected goals. These ETFs are designed to deliver 300% or -300% of the daily returns of their benchmarks. Over a week, month or year, however, they won't come close to that 300% return, because compounding (particularly in volatile markets) will have an enormous impact on the results.
I was also skeptical that these ETFs would attract much of a trading audience. The ProShares ETFs have enormous liquidity, which is one of the reasons they appeal to the trading community. I doubted that these ETFs could attract enough liquidity to convince the trading community to switch from the ProShares ETFs, despite the higher leverage rate offered by Direxion.
But since they launched on Wednesday, the Direxion ETFs have attracted significant trading volume and activity.
On its first day on the market, for instance, the Large Cap Bear 3x Shares (NYSEArca: BGZ) traded just 13,000 shares. On day 2, it traded 123,000 shares. Today, it traded 334,000 shares.
Its twin, the LargeCap Bull 3x Shares ETF (NYSEArca: BGU) has done even better, trading 19,000 shares, 361,000 shares and 581,500 shares, respectively.
That's certainly not anywhere near what the ProShares funds trade. The ProShares Ultra S&P 500 (NYSEArca: SSO) traded 80 million shares today.
But hitting half a million shares traded on just the third day on the market is pretty darn good for an ETF. A lot of funds that I consider fairly liquid trade less than 500,000 shares per day, such as the Rydex S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEArca: [[RSP]]) and the PowerShares Dynamic Market ETF (NYSEArca: [[PWC]]).
I still don't think the Direxion ETFs make sense for investors, but it looks like the trading community might well embrace them.
More on choosing the right ETF

2008-11-02T00:06:00.001-07:00

2008-10-26T10:58:00.001-07:00

The “Great Unwind” of 2008 continues, and it looks as though it is trampling
every sector in its path. Next week promises to be another high-stakes week
for stocks, especially with a Federal Reserve meeting and the release of the
much-anticipated GDP number, which could certainly come in a whole lot worse
than the 0.50% decline most economists are expecting. The gloom and doom is
pervasive, and we all know that it is that type of fear-laden atmosphere that
lays the groundwork of a new bull market. We all also know that the stock
market is NEVER that simple, and it has always had a tendency to barbeque
those that expect the conventional wisdom to occur!

One thing the bulls have going for them, though, is the fact that we have now
had WEEKS of fear, panic, and loathing! Markets might not have a gut-wrenching
crash-like bottom, but they do eventually become exhausted! The low we saw in
October of 2002 was followed by two subsequent bottoms, which ultimately
formed a loose-looking triple bottom. The subsequent rally lasted for FIVE
years; so again, remember that markets do eventually change! The current route
is as bad as any the Gorilla can remember, and he does clearly remember the
big dive in October of 1987! They were not nationalizing banks back then, so
chalk that one up as a big worry for this current selloff!

Credit Crunch Rocks Bain, as Funds Fall Up to 50%

2008-10-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

essica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981)[1] is an American television and film actress. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994). Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002).[2][3] Alba later appeared in various films including Honey (2003), Sin City (2005), Fantastic Four (2005), Into the Blue (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Good Luck Chuck both in 2007.
Alba appears on the "Hot 100" section of Maxim and was voted AskMen.com's number one on their list of "99 Most Desirable Women" in 2006, as well as "Sexiest Woman in the World" by FHM in 2007. The use of her image on the cover of the March 2006 Playboy sparked a lawsuit by her, which was later dropped. Alba has won various awards for her acting, including the Choice Actress Teen Choice Award and Saturn Award for Best Actress (TV) for her acting in the series Dark Angel, though her acting has also been criticized, as she has been nominated for numerous Razzie Awards as well.

Some high-profile Bain Capital credit-investment funds are choking on losses of as much as 50%, said people familiar with the matter, the latest revelation in a day of shake-ups across the hedge-fund business.

The private-equity firm's credit affiliate, Sankaty Advisors LLC, has lost between 40% and 50% across two funds that bought up highly secured corporate loans, these people said. The two vehicles had roughly $4 billion in assets just a few weeks ago, and used a relatively low amount of borrowed money to fund their investments.

Steep losses have also hit London hedge fund Centaurus Capital LP, which Wednesday offered its investors a chance to cut their fees. And, at Tudor Investment Corp., one of the oldest and best-regarded hedge funds, fund manager James Pallotta finalized a plan to run his own firm separate from longtime colleague Paul Tudor Jones.

The developments at Bain, meanwhile, are a blow to a group of top-tier institutions that long have been investors with the Boston-based firm. Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Notre Dame all have some money invested in Bain's loss-making credit funds. Two of the problem funds include Sankaty's Special Situations and Prospect Harbor.

As market conditions have deteriorated, Sankaty has had to seek new, but more expensive, financing for some of its key borrowing facilities. It recently obtained longer-dated terms to stave off margin calls, which typically kick in if asset values fall below a certain price. The funds have not seen significant redemptions, according to a spokesman.

The market for leveraged loans -- senior loans issued by banks largely to fund buyout deals -- has plummeted in the last month. A Standard & Poor's index of leveraged loans now trades at 70 cents on the dollar, down from 88 cents one month ago. Until last summer, these senior loans rarely traded below par, or 100 cents on the dollar. In recent weeks numerous "bid lists" have flooded the market, creating overwhelming supply and further damping prices.

Money managers such as Bain, Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group have piled into this business in recent months, hoping to scoop up low-priced credits of high-quality companies. In many ways, these credit investments were supposed to fill a hole created by the greatly diminished market for private-equity buyouts. Sankaty's Special Situations fund, for instance, was raised in August 2007.

To fund these new transactions, loan investors typically borrowed some money to amplify returns. Many used facilities called total return swaps, known on Wall Street as TRS. Under these facilities, if the value of a loan declines to a certain price, the bank can secure more collateral or unwind the contract.

The Sankaty funds averaged about a dollar of leverage, or borrowed money, for each dollar of capital that belonged to investors. That level of borrowing was relatively low compared with many other investors, but it shows how even seemingly low-risk bets have suffered as the credit markets have virtually frozen.

2008-10-05T14:02:00.001-07:00

2008-09-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

Emails From David Moffett and Dick Syron to Freddie Mac Employees

2008-09-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

"From: Employee Communications
Sent: 09/07/2008 08:57 PM EDT
Subject: E-Mails from Freddie Mac CEO David Moffett and Dick Syron

Good evening, I am David Moffett - the new CEO of Freddie Mac. Attached below is a letter from former CEO and Chairman Dick Syron, whose contributions to this company over the past four years are deeply appreciated. I’ll be communicating with you a lot in the coming days and weeks, so there’s no need to go into great detail here. For now, I just want to say a few key things.

I appreciate the long hours that Freddie Mac’s employees have been putting in to strengthen the company and serve the GSE mission in this difficult environment. I can only imagine the pressure you have been under, and the frustrations you must have felt in recent weeks. This has been a difficult and draining period for all of you. I want to thank you for your extraordinary service during an extraordinary time.

I’m going to work very hard as CEO to provide the leadership Freddie Mac needs. I sincerely believe the company has a great opportunity to improve and strengthen itself during this period with the government’s support. And I look forward to making the decisions that will help this company move forward. I would not have taken this job if I was not deeply supportive of the company’s mission and its essential role in helping our nation through the toughest housing market in decades.

On Tuesday, we will conduct an All-Employee Town Hall that I would like you to attend. In the meantime, please stay focused and continue to conduct the company’s business in the ordinary course.

Treasury Secretary Paulson said in today’s announcement, “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are critical to turning the corner on housing.” I couldn’t agree more. The expertise and commitment of Freddie Mac’s employees is a major asset to the company - as well as the country - and I look forward to meeting you in the coming days.

David Moffett
Message From Dick Syron

To the Employees of Freddie Mac:

As you have probably heard, the Treasury Department announced today that it has placed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae under the conservatorship of our regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Under conservatorship, FHFA will assume direct control of both companies. FHFA has appointed David Moffett, former Vice Chairman and CFO of U.S. Bancorp, to succeed me as CEO. He will be joined by an equally strong non-executive Chairman, John Koskinen. I will retire and have offered to assist in the transition.

With the turmoil in the housing and mortgage markets over the past year, the role Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae play in providing affordable mortgages to homeowners and reliable liquidity to lenders is more important than ever. The conservatorship process is designed to ensure that the GSEs continue to fulfill that critical role, despite the significant increase in credit losses and erosion in capital we have experienced.

Under the conservatorship process, Treasury will backstop the GSEs, providing additional capital if future credit losses cause our capital base to be depleted. This will ensure that we can continue to operate and fulfill our housing mission.

Treasury Secretary Paulson today said, “I attribute the need for today’s action primarily to the inherent conflict and flawed business model embedded in the GSE structure, and to the ongoing housing correction. GSE managements and their Boards are responsible for neither.”

We have been through a lot together. Earlier this year we completed a multi-year accounting restatement, a massive and complex project. More recently, we have had to manage significant increases in delinquencies, foreclosures and loan modifications as a result of the sharp decline in house prices. I am deeply grateful for your commitment and hard work through all of this, and proud of what we have accomplished together amid the worst housing market in our lifetimes.

I accepted the CEO position at Freddie Mac at the end of 2003 because I believed in the company’s housing mission. Given the current turmoil in the housing market, I believe that mission is even more important today.

As the conservatorship process plays out, I ask you to stay focused on performing your job responsibilities and give your full support to Mr. Moffett so that Freddie Mac can continue to fulfill its housing mission. The vast majority of our employees will see no changes in their day-to-day activities as a result of the conservatorship process.

It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with all of you.

Sincerely,

Dick

2008-08-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

Cisco is putting up $215 million for PostPath so it can include the company's e-mail and calendaring software in Cisco's upcoming collaboration service, WebEx Connect. But the software could also become a component in a unified communications bundle that businesses buy outright, industry observers say.

2008-07-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

MBA toughens ride

2008-07-17T05:36:00.000-07:00

Credit crunch hits MBA financingFinancial Times, UK - Jul 14, 2008In today’s Business Education section of the FT: a story by Della Bradshaw showing how the crisis in the credit markets is making it more expensive ...

The need for understanding social media and Web 2.0Merinews, India - Jul 16, 2008WHILE MANAGEMENT education, online or face-to-face, is on the rise with a spurt of Master of Business Administration (MBA) and other ancillary institutions

Warning: Google is becoming Microsoft's evil twin

EMC replaces the chief and co-founder of VMware, silencing talk of a spinoff - International Herald Tribune

2008-07-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

"For the last month, several reports from Wall Street analysts have debated whether EMC, the big computer storage company, would sell off its 85 percent stake in its crown jewel, VMware, a fast-growing software star.
EMC seems to have given its answer with a dramatic gesture on Tuesday. It fired VMware's chief executive and co-founder, Diane Greene. She is being replaced by Paul Maritz, a former senior executive at Microsoft who joined EMC this year when it bought his Web start-up.
Greene was fired after she refused to resign or take another position at VMware, according to a VMware manager who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The point of conflict, the person said, was that Greene had been pushing hard for VMware to be spun off early next year. After five years of ownership, a subsidiary can be sold off in an essentially tax-free transaction. EMC bought VMware for $635 million in cash in December 2003."

What Does Microsoft Have in Store for Photography? - Seeking Alpha

2008-07-07T00:56:00.000-07:00

"My pal Robert Scoble has a blog post up entitled, 'Is Microsoft (MSFT) Trying to Capture the Photography Market?' Robert's post is in part a reaction to Microsoft's invite-only Pro Photo Summit which is taking place this week on Wednesday and Thursday at Microsoft's campus in Redmond. Scoble is going to be attending as am I.

This is the third year that Microsoft has held a Pro Photo Summit, so I'm not entirely sure that this event is predictive of any change in Microsoft strategy towards photography per se. This is the first year that I'm going, though, and I'm excited to check out what Microsoft has in store to share with us.

The agenda for this year's events includes a keynote talk by Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch and a photographer keynote by photographer Frans Lanting. Additionally, summit topics include microstock photography (Lise Gagne, Artistic Director of iStockPhoto will be there), an update on the orphan works act, Eric Chan from Adobe (ADBE) on camera profiling, a talk about photographing the Presidential campaign from the Washington Post's Melina Mara and a number of presentations from folks doing interesting things with photography from the Microsoft Research groups."

2008-07-07T00:24:00.000-07:00

"Technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
By the mid 20th century, humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology "

lolzzz linds

2008-05-22T00:39:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Sets Deadline for Yahoo to Make Deal - New York Times

2008-04-05T22:11:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Sets Deadline for Yahoo to Make Deal - New York Times: "Microsoft warned the board of Yahoo on Saturday that if a merger agreement was not completed in the next three weeks, Microsoft would make its offer directly to Yahoo shareholders, probably at a lower price."

more babes

2008-03-12T22:58:00.000-07:00

paris

2008-03-03T22:27:00.000-08:00

2008-02-24T21:03:00.001-08:00

Outdoor Gear & Apparel Deals and Coupons | TheCheapOutdoors.com

2008-01-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

Welcome to TheCheapOutdoors.com. Our goal is to scour the web and share the best online deals for outdoor gear, equipment, and apparel. Updated frequently, these deals are hand-picked and tediously browsed for by real people who enjoy being active and outdoors. After many years of searching high and low for the best bargains, we realized that it would be great to share our findings and hard work so everyone could benefit.
Whether you are into camping, hiking, trail running, skiing, triathlons, or really any active outdoor activity, we hope that our site becomes an invaluable resource for you.
We’ve had a lot of fun building the site and if you like what we do, we would love your support by using our links and telling a friend or two about the site.
If you would like to be a sponsor of TheCheapOutdoors.com, please contact us at Info@TheCheapOutdoors.com.
If you find a great deal you would like to see posted, please shoot an email our way at Deals@TheCheapOutdoors.com.
We at TheCheapOutdoors.com thank you for stopping by. Cheers and Stay Active!

2007-12-31T17:17:00.001-08:00

Pick your next best stock

2007-12-30T20:20:00.000-08:00

"Fund managers: Mutual fund managers, on the whole, produce lousy returns. And they're getting worse. The average actively managed mutual fund lagged the broad market by 1.7 percentage points a year during the two decades ended 1965 and by 2.7 percentage points during the two decades ended 2003, according to a 2005 Journal of Finance study.
Your mutual fund manager might seem different. You might have been convinced to buy shares of the fund only after reading that it had soundly beaten the market over the past one, three and five years. But I've got news for you, and you're not going to like it.
Imagine you call 800 people. You tell half of them the stock market will rise tomorrow, and half that it will fall. Come tomorrow, you'll have given great advice to 400 people. You call them and repeat the process. You keep going until you've been right four times in a row with 50 people. Then you offer these amazed folks and the next day's forecast for a fee. Sounds shady, I know. But the mutual fund industry was all but founded on that practice. Fund companies "incubate" far more funds than they need, placing different investments in each. Some win, some lose. Winners get marketed. Losers are quietly closed.
We can hardly blame fund managers for their poor performance. They face obstacles that you and I don't have to deal with. Diversification requirements force them to buy 100 or more stocks they're only ho-hum on, whereas we can buy just the eight or 10 we love. Fund managers have to pretty-up their portfolios with popular stocks each quarter before shareholder reports go out, whereas we can hold ugly stocks when doing so seems wise. And of course, fund managers have to make up for those big fees.
Analysts: Forget Wall Street analysts, too. According to an exhaustive 2004 study of more than 50,000 recommendations made over 13 years, the predictive ability of a "buy" recommendation is statistically insignificant. Often, these recommendations are based on guesswork disguised as math, called discounted cash flow analysis. If you know what a company's sales and margins will look like over the next 10 years, and you can somehow quantify exactly how risky that company is and will become, you can calculate to the penny how much it's worth today. But you can't know any of that stuff without guessing. (And are the analysts who project 2017 revenues the same ones who can't get this quarter's earnings forecasts right?)
Brokers and advisors: Stockbrokers are rarely worth the money. The ones who are still permitted by their firms to recommend individual stocks are usually restricted to ones that analysts at those firms have saddled with "buy" recommendations -- no thanks. Many investment brokers aren't allowed to recommend stocks at all. They are usually called something like "financial advisors." They stress a consultative approach and plenty of long-term planning, but nearly always suggest high-fee mutual funds. Invest $100,000 with these advisors, and you might pay as much as $5,000 up front, or $1,500 annually. Ouch.
Other stock pickers. What about pundits like, well, me? Some are better at talking or writing about today's popular stocks than selecting tomorrow's winners. Some pundits really know their stuff, but are then called on to produce dozens of stock picks a week, which dilutes their ability. And as for stock tips from friends, coworkers and relatives, they can usually be traced back to pundits, analysts and brokers.
You should pick your own stocks. The best way to do that involves a process called screening. Tomorrow's great stocks are leaving clues today. Decades of research have shown which clues work the best. One company's clue might be that its managers are buying shares in a particularly promising pattern. Another company might have recently spent plenty on research, suggesting that its profits are poised to balloon. You can search the entire market in seconds for a handful of companies producing these clues and many others. My job as a columnist at SmartMoney is to write about the most reliable and profitable stock screen strategies I can find. I don't create the strategies. I steal them from people who are much smarter than me, but who aren't nearly as willing to yammer on about their work in columns and on television. I've collected the best stock screen strategies I've found (stolen) into a new book called Your Next Great Stock. "

Hi Jim Cram

2007-10-14T02:31:00.000-07:00

Blodget: Time to Update Facebook Revenue Estimates

2007-08-01T00:28:00.000-07:00

"Henry Blodget submits: That Facebook rate card Valleywag published Tuesday? It was from February. And, yes, February was eons ago, but who would have suspected that Facebook would have doubled its sponsorship rates in the meantime?
Well, it seems it has. Valleywag's Owen Thomas reveals the June rate card.
Let's see, 150 group sponsorships times $300,000 per sponsorship for three months ($1.2 million per year), and you're at $180 million in revenue. And that's before the homepage sponsorships. And the $200 million three-year display deal with Microsoft (MSFT). Etc."

STUFFITI.com - Cool Stuff. Hot Deals.

2007-07-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

STUFFITI.com - Cool Stuff. Hot Deals.: "List Price: $387.00
Deal Price: $99.99
You Save: $287.01 (74%)
(Yesterday’s Price: $179.99) Milwaukee invented the reciprocating saw, so we have high expectations for every model they put out. This one does them proud. At its heart is a 13-amp motor that does not hesitate no matter what you’re cutting. "

Hi Poppy

2007-06-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

2007-06-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

Go Booby

2007-06-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

Daddy

2007-06-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

Go Daddy go

2007-06-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

Internet Bubs

2007-06-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

The Gift of a Fat Wallet

2007-06-16T21:02:00.001-07:00

"Early this year, a number of recently minted Credit Suisse Group managing directors on Wall Street got a letter from the firm soliciting donations to its political-action committee. The recipients were familiar with the pitch, which arrives every winter during bonus season.
But this time around, there was a twist: The suggested contribution had risen exponentially to $2,500 from the $500 requested in prior years."

Ask Engadget: How do you shop for a HDTV? - Engadget

2007-05-19T23:34:00.001-07:00

"The week of Ask Engadget is still going strong. We're committing a whole seven days to taking your questions -- which you can hit up ask at engadget dawt com with -- and putting the best ones up here for discussing by your fellow readers in the comments. Saturday we got specific with 'No Trab' in an audio recording quest, now we're going to open up a whole can of worms with a question from Dan, who's looking for a TV:

'With the enormous variety of HDTVs out there - the various technologies (LCD, Plasma, DLP, Laser, OLED), the various specifications (HD formats, native resolution, contrast ratio), various inputs (HDMI, DVI, VGA, Component), and various tuners (NTSC, ATSC, QAM, Cable Card) - how does one go about choosing 'the best' HDTV? Are there any tips / tricks that go into shopping for an HDTV? What are the absolute do's / don'ts in shopping, purchasing, and using an HDTV?'"

Ask Engadget: How do you shop for a HDTV? - Engadget

2007-05-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

The 10 Best Wines of 2005: Weekend - Yahoo! Finance

2005-12-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/bestwine_1.html

Should You Outsource VoIP Or Manage It In-House?

2005-06-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

CommWeb | Should You Outsource VoIP Or Manage It In-House?: Going to VoIP is a given. But how can you decide whether to do it yourself or go with a provider? The pros tell you how to make the best decision.

Steering Wheel Checks Alcohol Consumption - Yahoo! News

2005-05-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

Steering Wheel Checks Alcohol Consumption - Yahoo! News: "If the car doesn't start, you are too drunk to drive. That is the premise behind a $600 sensor that can be installed in a steering wheel or in gloves and will test a driver's skin to determine alcohol consumption. "

eHomeUpgrade | Sony PSP Browser Hack Explained

2005-03-28T19:02:00.000-08:00

eHomeUpgrade | Sony PSP Browser Hack Explained: "Sony PSP Browser Hack Explained"

Flickr: Photos tagged with transparent

2005-03-24T16:39:00.000-08:00

Very cool. Thanks Kewlio

Flickr: Photos tagged with transparent

Colin Powell on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2005-03-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

Colin Powell on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

HOW-TO: Use your Gmail account as a personal file server

2005-03-06T17:46:00.000-08:00

HOW-TO: Use your Gmail account as a personal file server - Engadget - www.engadget.com

This is a fairly simple and useful trick to score yourself a gigabyte’s worth of free online file storage. If you already have a Gmail account, you can use it as a central file server that is accessible from anywhere you can access Gmail. If you don’t have a Gmail account… read on. We’re going to install a shell extension that will allow you to mount your Gmail account as a virtual drive on your desktop, so you can perform basic file manipulation operations without having to go through the web-based interface. Drag and drop, batch copy, create folders and delete files as you normally would in Windows Explorer, and be able to access your virtual drive from virtually anywhere.

Motorola unveils new ultra-thin RAZR models

2005-02-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

U.S.-based Motorola unveiled a range of new handsets on Monday that will be built around its popular RAZR model, and showed a long-awaited music phone with Apple's iTunes music player software.

PlayStation 3 Cell chip aims high | Tech News on ZDNet

2005-02-10T16:19:00.000-08:00

PlayStation 3 Cell chip aims high | Tech News on ZDNet

"Engineers from Sony, IBM and Toshiba are set to provide fresh details on the Cell processor that will power the next version of Sony's PlayStation video game machine, but at least one analyst already has a pretty clear idea of what's coming. "

Pentax Optio SV

2005-02-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

Pentax Optio SV

Pentax has pretty much reinvented itself over the past few years. There’s no doubt that the company has invested a huge amount of time and resource into the design of its latest camera range, and you’d be hard pushed to find compact digital cameras that look more appealing than the latest Optios. I suspect that it’s no coincidence that the Optio SV in my hand reminds me of the Canon Digital Ixus 500 that I reviewed last year, and if you place the two cameras next to each other, you’ll see that they sport almost identical dimensions.

PlayStation Portable delayedin Europe

2005-02-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

Notice how Europe gets shafted on regular basis when it comes to new video game consoles? Apart from occasionally geting a minor platform like the Gizmondo first, the continent is consistently a lower priority for giants like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft than the US and Japan markets (which makes sense on a business level—these are the two biggest markets for video games). The Nintendo DS still isn’t slated to debut in Europe until March 11th (and honestly, doesn’t it seem like the DS has already been out here for ages?), but the latest bad news is that the PlayStation Portable, which Sony had been promising would be released before the end of March just like here in the States, now won’t come out there until sometime in the second quarter of this year because of “chip shortages”. Sony spokesperson Kenichi Fukunaga conceded in an interview that the company simply doesn’t have the manufacturing capacity to make enough PlayStation Portables for all three markets.

[Engadget]

Sprint cancels Samsung i550 Palmphone

2005-02-05T21:03:00.000-08:00

We’d already given up on this oft-delayed cellphone a loooooong time ago, but SprintPCSInfo says that Sprint has finally decided that they’re never going to carry the SPH-i550, Samsung’s Palm-powered clamshell with an OLED external display, 32MB of RAM, an SDIO expansion card slot, and a built-in one megapixel digital camera. The reason? Sprint wanted to focus its resources on selling another Palm-powered smartphone—the Treo 650.

[Engadget]

Sony to Release PlayStation Portable

2005-02-04T00:38:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News - Sony to Release PlayStation Portable

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites). said Thursday it will release the PlayStation Portable in North America on March 24 and have 1 million units ready for sale in the first week.

The PSP machine, a challenger to Nintendo (news - web sites) Co.'s long-standing grip on the handheld video gaming market, will be sold as a "value pack" for $250 in the United States and for $300 Canadian dollars. It will include numerous accessories and — for the first million sold — a copy of the "Spider-Man 2" movie on the new Universal Media Disc format that Sony designed for the PSP.

I want one.

HP says it develops technology to replace transistor - Feb. 1, 2005

2005-02-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

HP says it develops technology to replace transistor - Feb. 1, 2005

"Hewlett-Packard Co. said Tuesday that its researchers have proven that a technology they invented could eventually replace the transistor, a fundamental building block of computers. "

Web Edition - NewsGator Online

2005-01-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

"iTunes and Pepsi are teaming up again to give away free iTunes downloads, as well as free iPod mini. Chances are good, too, with 1 in 3 a winner (hopefully we can still do the tip up trick). Even better, the codes will appear across a great portion of the Pepsi line, including Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist. I made out pretty well last year when all my friends gave me their codes (too bad I can't play any of those songs anymore since I broke them with Hymn!)"

[Gizmodo]

Fun Google hack with Google Images - The Digital Photography Weblog - digitalphotography.weblogsinc.com

2005-01-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

Fun Google hack with Google Images - The Digital Photography Weblog - digitalphotography.weblogsinc.com

Fun Google hack with Google Images

Posted Sep 30, 2004, 2:43 PM ET by Amit Malhotra

Phillip Torrone continues to amaze us with his photo hacking skills. If you have not already checked out engadget .... here is his latest..

Here’s a fun thing to play around with, if you’re bored at 3am. Most Sony digital cameras start saving photos with the following name “DSC00001.JPG” and a lot of people take these photos and upload them to the web, where the all-knowing, all-seeing Google later catalogs all of them. So by clicking this link you can see the first photo taken by someone with their new camera, this is what it looks like when thousands of Sony cameras lose their photo-virginity.

Update: Bonus fun, IMG_0001.JPG is the equivalent for Canon cameras. So, that will work too. Here’s CASIO, Pentax and Nikon. And one of our readers points out “Using DSC as a search string in P2P programs also works great for turning up things on peoples hard drives they they didnt know they were sharing”.

Where it gets even more interesting is, if you turn off moderate search setting (NSFW) and enter the most generic terms , common names and of course, any potential file name even IMG_0034.JPG.

SAMSUNG Introduces World’s First “3-dimensional Movement Recognition” Phone

2005-01-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

SAMSUNG Introduces World’s First “3-dimensional Movement Recognition” Phone

Samsung Electronics unveiled the world's first “3D movement recognition” mobile phone (model: SCH-S310). ‘Accelerometer' is built in to accurately calculate and ascertain movement in three dimensional space and then carry out commands according to those calculations.

Midget iPod, budget iMac? The guessing game is on / At Macworld, Apple must sketch out shape of things to come

2005-01-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

Midget iPod, budget iMac? The guessing game is on / At Macworld, Apple must sketch out shape of things to come

Midget iPod, budget iMac? The guessing game is on

Sony DSC-T33

2005-01-08T17:04:00.000-08:00

Sony has confirmed that the DSC-T33 (which besides being on the slender side and the latter successor to T-1 and T-3 versions, also has a 3x optical zoom lens and a 2.5-inch LCD screen) will actually go on sale here in March with a retail price of around $450.

The T-1 is a very poor performing camera.

New Version of Wi-Fi

2005-01-06T15:36:00.000-08:00

WSJ.com - Personal Technology

MIMO -- which stands for Multiple Input, Multiple Output -- is likely to be the basis for the next major flavor of Wi-Fi, now under development, which goes by the technical name 802.11n. It's intended to replace the most common flavors used in homes today, which engineers call 802.11b and 802.11g. But MIMO is so good that makers are rushing it into the market even before the new standard is complete.

CNN.com - Microsoft offers free security program - Jan 6, 2005

2005-01-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - Microsoft offers free security program - Jan 6, 2005

Microsoft Corp., whose popular Windows software is a frequent target for Internet viruses, is offering a free security program to remove the most dangerous infections from computers.

Barely legal? Strip poker hits Cingular phones | CNET News.com

2005-01-06T13:28:00.000-08:00

Barely legal? Strip poker hits Cingular phones | CNET News.com

A tepid version of strip poker for cell phones is set to debut in the United States, and while there's no nudity--on the screen, at least--the game's distributor is preparing for complaints that it stretches the boundaries of good taste."

'Alchemy' Au1200

2005-01-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

Product Brief

AMD has announced a new chip called the 'Alchemy' Au1200, designed to power portable video devices of all sizes. The hot heat about the Alchemy is two-fold: first, it can resize almost any major format video into different resolutions on the fly (upscale and downscale, it seems), meaning that devices that use the chipset won't have to have video transcoded to its native resolution before copying it over; also, the chip will power portable video players that will be compatible with the just launched TiVoToGo service that will allow you to copy recorded content from Series2 TiVos to portable devices, such as the newly announced GoVideo and FIC's video players. (Thanks, Dimitri!)

Alchemy Product Page [AMD]

Techdirt:Vonage Goes VoWiFi -- How Big Is The Market?

2005-01-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

Techdirt:Vonage Goes VoWiFi -- How Big Is The Market?

Vonage is about to pick up quite a bit of press coverage for their unveiling of "plans" to offer a WiFi phone that will work with their service. It wasn't a secret that they were working on such a plan, and it sounds like this isn't so much a launch as it is a confirmation that they plan to launch it at some point (giving them an extra chance at getting some publicity).

Yahoo! News - Motorola to Build Cell Phones Into Ski Jackets

2005-01-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News - Motorola to Build Cell Phones Into Ski Jackets

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT - news) said it will unveil plans this week for a line of outerwear that uses interactive cell phone and portable music technology in snowboarding jackets, in a bid to win over twentysomethings.

PlayStation Portable from Sony

2004-12-27T22:39:00.000-08:00

SouthBendTribune.com: PlayStation Portable from Sony

Even if you don't particularly like video games, you'd best resign yourself to what appears certain to anyone who's spent a little time with Sony's new PlayStation Portable:

This is a gadget that's likely to eventually become a worldwide household hit. That holds true especially if your household includes, as mine does, a young man who grew up with the original PlayStation.

Full length films - coming to a handset near you

2004-12-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Full length films - coming to a handset near you

Mobile phone owners are being targeted by a company that has developed technology allowing them to watch full-length films and TV shows on their handsets.

From next month, tiny chips will allow most people with recent models to turn their phones into mini DVD players.

Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z55 review by PC Magazine

2004-12-26T17:19:00.000-08:00

[PC Mag]

The Z55 has the sharpest images we've seen in a camera this size, a big LCD, Casio's great menus and features, and reasonable speed. But the images produced by this camera don't quite measure up to those of of the Canon Powershot SD300.

Impressed by BitTorrent? Third-gen "Swarming" Technique Moves Faster:

2004-12-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

"If you're impressed by BitTorrent, you're going to be absolutely blown away by SwarmStream," promises Justin Chapweske, inventor of Swarmcast, the first swarming technology. It's a line he uses on his blob and in his presentation at JavaLobby. Here's how Chapweske explains it:
"The technology improves swarming by ensuring that the bytes that the user wants next are scheduled to be received next. So if they're playing back a video file, the bytes from the front of the file will be received first. If the user (or application) skips forward to the middle of the file, the bytes at the middle of the file will be prioritized. Thus, unlike first generation swarming systems like Swarmcast or Bittorrent, you don't have to wait for the entire file to download to do something useful with it!."
" It also provides Self-Healing Downloads, implements a full-blown, scalable, Web Proxy Cache, and actively works to ensure that the video playback never studders or buffers by constantly monitoring and adapting to changing network conditions." That's just the tip of the product. [Paidcontent.org]

SD Card Doubles as USB Flash Drive - Everything USB

2004-12-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

"Taiwanese-manufacturer Digimaster has released the first SD card that doubles as a USB flash drive, or vice versa. One end of the card has the connectors of a regular USB 2.0 interface while the other end has the same interface of a regular Secure Digital, making it compatible with many digital cameras and PDAs. The Double Card is touted as the perfect storage for eliminating the need to bring along a SD card reader. Initially, 128MB version will retail for $880 (Taiwan New Dollars) and 256MB for $1280."

mpack Product

2004-12-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

Yet another mini entertainment center. When will people start migrating to these devices vs. iPods? Probably not anytime soon unless price points drop precipitously or marketing on these products get better.

World's smallest miniDV Cam

2004-12-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

Sony Announces World's Smallest miniDV Camcorder

Only to be outdone in another week by a Chinese knockoff.

Fujifilm FinePix F440 review by PC Magazine

2004-12-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

The Fujifilm FinePix F440 is stylish, fun to use, and great for showing off at parties. But its square shape can make for awkward shooting, and the pictures you get are only adequate.

I've never really liked the Fuji cameras. Poor picture quality and hard to aim...

Giant robots in the backyard | CNET News.com

2004-12-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

[Cnet]

In the back of Carlos Owens' southern Alaska yard, an 18-foot-tall steel robot is taking shape in the dim light of the winter afternoons.

The 26-year-old Owens is an Anchorage-area steelworker by day. In his own time, he's hoping to become the creator of a true "mecha"--not a robot, exactly, but a gigantic exoskeleton that can transform its wearer's motions into eight-foot strides and the devastating sweep of a steel fist.

Yahoo! News - Wal-Mart Offers $498 Linux Laptop

2004-12-21T21:15:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News - Wal-Mart Offers $498 Linux Laptop
Retail giant Wal-Mart has taken the wraps off a bare-bones, US$498 Linux (news - web sites) notebook that, while not exactly a stocking-stuffer, provides basic computing at a price that is tough to beat.

MisticRiver :: For iRiver Enthusiasts - iRiver H10 - First Look

2004-12-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

"The first review of the iRiver H10 has popped up at Club iRiver. Many nice photos to view. Our very own 1121 has pulled some of the more important items from the review and listed them below. This is part one of the review so stay tuned for the rest."

Pentax Optio S5i Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

2004-12-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

Pentax Optio S5i Review

Announced in August 2004, the Pentax Optio S5i is an upgrade of the popular S4i with an extra million pixels, some minor styling changes and a couple of new features. The S5i is almost unfeasibly small — thanks in part to the innovative sliding lens first seen at the start of 2003 in the Optio S (and since in several Pentax and Casio models) — yet is more feature-packed than most other ultra-compacts.

Good description of Bit Torrent

2004-12-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

Susan Mernit's Blog: "BitTorrent is a computer protocol (a language computers use when communicating with each other) which allows computers to freely and efficiently share information with one another."

Hot Deal: Amazon.com palmOne Treo 650 (Sprint)

2004-12-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com: Cell Phones: PCS Phone palmOne Treo 650 (Sprint)

Price After Special Offers: $369.99

Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 2 weeks"

Forbes.com: Get Ready To Call ITunes

2004-12-18T13:25:00.000-08:00

Forbes.com: Get Ready To Call ITunes

Apple Computer and Motorola could soon show us the mobile phone they are developing to play music purchased from Apple's iTunes online music store.

MicroMedia Paper

2004-12-17T19:45:00.000-08:00

(from Mobile PC)

MicroMedia Paper
This snapshot-sized display can play music, movies, and more
Price: $50 for a 10-pack
Designer: Lunar Design
Executive Summary: Wafer-thin display and storage finally brings digital media to the familiar format of paper
Tech Barriers: Flexible, disposable displays; radical new GUI; millimeter-thick batteries
Target Market: Photo-sharing families, 35 and up, plus execs wanting fancy business cards
Projected release: 2015

iBod - Portable Player Nude Photos

2004-12-17T08:10:00.000-08:00

iBod - Portable Player Nude Photos

Playboy iPod.

Bandai releasing “Ultraman Edition” of Casio’s Exilim Zoom EX-Z55

2004-12-17T08:07:00.000-08:00

Bandai is now accepting pre-orders for the “Ultraman Edition” of the Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z55 digital camera, released to coincide with the new Ultraman movie in Japan. So what exactly makes this the “Ultraman Edition”? Not a whole lot, they’ve just slapped an “Ultraman” logo on there and made some noise about this being a limited edition run. Although we are digging the red Ultraman case that comes with it.
(from Engadget)

NTT DoCoMo reports speeds of 1Gbps over wireless networks

2004-12-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

"The experiment is part of a laboratory testo on using fourth-generation (4G) mobile communication radio access equipments. The achievement was registered on 20 August but information was only now released.
"

Yahoo maps show live traffic conditions in the U.S. - Dec. 16, 2004

2004-12-16T15:54:00.000-08:00

Yahoo maps show live traffic conditions in the U.S. - Dec. 16, 2004: "Yahoo! shows live traffic conditions

Company's maps show local traffic conditions in the U.S., the first site to do so nationally.
December 16, 2004: 7:15 AM EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo! Inc. is set to offer an online service that lets users view live U.S. local traffic conditions on custom-created maps, the first site to do so nationally. "

Yahoo! Video Search - Beta

2004-12-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

Try typing in "porn"

Forbes.com: Extreme Blogging

2004-12-15T13:47:00.000-08:00

Forbes.com: Extreme Blogging

PSP Nearly Sells Out at Japan Launch; U.S. Release Moved Up?

2004-12-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

U.S. launch moving up?
As it stands now, Sony still expects to have shipped 3 million PSPs worldwide by March 31, 2005, the end of the company's fiscal year. The PSP is scheduled to launch in North America in March 2005, but some analysts are beginning to think that a U.S. launch could happen even sooner to prevent Nintendo from jumping too far ahead with its Nintendo DS, which has done phenomenally well already both in Japan and the U.S.

Philips 755 pictures

2004-12-14T23:12:00.000-08:00

From Philips:

The 755 is designed to fit into your life. With a camera, notepad, sound studio and interactive games and applications all packed into a smooth, sleek, minimalist exterior, there’s always a reason for the 755 to be with you.

Siemens Xelibri 6 pictures

2004-12-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

Another cool Siemens next gen phone..

Sony Ericsson V800 pictures

2004-12-14T23:05:00.000-08:00

The first truly Japaneese superphone to be sold worldwide - evolution of the Z1010 version

Hot Sony Ericsson Phone

2004-12-14T22:51:00.000-08:00

GSMArena.com - GSM reviews, opinions, votes, manuals, ringtones and more...

2004-12-14T22:48:00.000-08:00

GSMArena.com - GSM reviews, opinions, votes, manuals, ringtones and more...

Cool site