Technology Madness

Dell Mini 9 for $199, only today

Happy Friday to all deal hunters. I got this deal in my e-mail. Do you have an extra $199? You can purchase DELL Mini 9 laptop (netbook) for just $199, only for today (Feb 27, 2009)

Today is the day to get your grubby little hands on one. Dell is offering a one-day only deal for the base model of their highly-rated Inspiron Mini 9 netbook computer for just $199 bucks! May be a good start for your 4th or 5th grader kid.

The Mini 9 runs on…

• Ubuntu Linux and
• features a crisp 1024 x 600 resolution
• 8.9″ color LCD screen, wireless connectivity,
• Intel Atom N270 processor (1.6GHz)
• and a 4GB solid state drive
• 4-cell battery

The special deal is good from 12:00am to 11:59pm Central Time, today, Feb 27, 2009.

Do you know that NBC’s so called live Olympic opening ceremony is NOT LIVE?

I was kind of surprise when they announce to do ‘so called live coverage’ of opening ceremony in the evening of 8th Aug as per EST (USA) time instead of Beijing time. (see current Beijing time, they are ahead of US time) It’s all money game of NBC. What happen to their claim of 3600 hours of live coverage? Oh yeah, it’s live from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, rather than China, when the Games begin Aug. 8. I hope they don’t broadcast the recording on the name of live coverage for rest of Olympic coverage. America will be watching on delay, at least an opening ceremony. This is very depressing! Shame on you NBC, Shame on you!

Anyway, you can view few picture of Olympic opening ceremony- here

Don’t Miss:

• How To Watch The Beijing Olympics LIVE On The Web — Even If NBC Doesn’t Want You To
• Some Opening Ceremony fireworks were faked

Via [machable.com and www.chicagotribune.com and live blogging of olympic]

Microsoft lost competition against Craigslist- shuts down Live Expo classified ads site

Two years ago, bearing in mind the success of Craigslist, Microsoft developed Windows Live Expo. They were expecting their classified site to be a “Craigslist Killer”. But dint work that way. Today Microsoft is shutting down live expo classified site. According to a message on its homepage, users can no longer create a new account, post or extend listings, or upgrade listings to “premium.” However, all current listings will remain on expo.live.com until they expire. (Who cares?)

Online classified is continue to be dominated by Craigslist since I have heard about “online classified” ads. There are dozens of place in the market waiting to be die in front of solid competition of Craigslist. Ebay has Kijiji. Village Voice media has Backpage, Oodle, Vast, LiveDeal, and literally dozen more but craigstlist is having majority of market share and will probably continue to reign supreme in near future.

Anyway, it’s another website failure by Microsoft. They develop and try to re-invent the (wheel!) stuff (sometimes it’s okay) but because of its size of the company, may be not easy (or don’t want to) to give full attention to small part of their big regime. So, which area of business is next? What do you think?

Travel between Los Angelis and Seattle in one tank of Compressed AIR

Could the Air Car be the next generation motor vehicle? Could this charming (but looks very retro) car be the starting of ‘death’ count-down for the oil-petroleum guzzler automotive industry in coming days?

Air Car is running exclusively on compressed air, it emits only air - zero pollution. The air car claims to be able to drive 106 miles per gallon which is 170 kilometer per gallon. Now lets say if car has 10 gallon tank, it means you can drive 1060 Miles in one tank of Gas (opppss, sorry, please read AIR, not gas) that is approximately distance between Los Angelis and Seattle. Wow, now this is amazing fuel economy.

It’s NOT a dream or a project on paper but ZPM (http://zeropollutionmotors.us) will begin taking reservations in mid-2009 for US deliveries of our compressed air vehicle in 2010. It is estimated to have a retail price of $17,800USD. A six-seater model is the first Air Car scheduled to enter the US. On top of all cool specs, this car has no keys - just an access card which can be read directly from your pocket. Also, Refilling the car tank will cost $2 (…that is unless the price of air goes up… he he)

Check it out. Watch this you tube video:

Via [popularmechanics.com and blog.sabasearch.com]

Tax-free Internet shopping coming to an end

Don’t know how many of you are aware of his, but there was a law recently passed in New York State requiring amazon.com and all other internet vendors to collect Newyork state sales tax on behalf of the NY state. For the longest time, only those companies who had a physical presence in the state had to collect tax, but this law put an interesting twist on this by also including, any/all small in-state (here , NY state) vendors, affiliates, associates who sell their goods or promote amazon.com business via referral links or website, in the new law characterization. In other words, if an online vendor has even one affiliate in New York State, it must collect sales tax on everything sold in the state, even if the goods aren’t bought from New York affiliate. (That’s why some of the major internet retailer store, like Overstock.com, cancelled affiliation memberships for those are from troubled (Tax hungry) state, like NY State)

Amazon.com is doing a counter attack in different ways: Amazon filed a suit challenging this new law in a court. (If you are interested in reading court document, find it here ) One thing is clear; the days of tax-free online shopping are coming to an end. Amazon.com already declared that even while they are fighting this law in court, they are going to start collecting sales tax of everything shipped to New York starting June 1st.

Via [Nytimes.com technology blog and cnet.com news blog ]

Reduce the global warming with few clicks.

On this World Environment day, if you don’t want to go out and plant a tree (yard work) but at least you can promote tree planting using unique search engine www.ecocho.us which promises to plan a tree for every 1000 searches made. This will help to offset tons of greenhouse gases. Ecocho.us is using yahoo search technology for search engine.

Simarly, Ecoogler, the ecological search engine, has created quite a bit of buzz with the same theme. They promise to help reforesting trees and safeguard water resources in the Amazon region, which constitute today one fourth of the fresh water reserves of our planet. Ecoogler is using Yahoo technology. However, it’s worth noting that some people believe that Ecoogler is a fake, as you can read on Digg. Ecoogler says that you get same results (as Yahoo) and help the non-profit association Aquaverde founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2002. Ecoogler promises to grow a tree pre 10,000 searches.

One of the reader on treehugger.com is not so happy about this standards.

1 tree for 10,000 searches doesn’t seem that generous to me. A comparable search engine that uses google, offers 1 penny to a non-profit of your choosing. Even if I did a 100 searches a day, which seems somewhat high, it would take 100 days to plant a single tree. I know there are other programs which will plant many more trees for an equivalent effort.

Obviously I like the idea but I think Ecoogler missed the mark. Also switching to the yahoo engine is not a plus for me, if they had kept using the google engine I could switch my habit much more easily. As it stands now I think there are much better alternatives.
- Eniryt Manaen

Via [TreeHugger.com and ecoogle.com and ecocho blog]

Starbucks offers free wifi: Bye-bye T-Mobile, Hello AT&T

At Starbucks, T-Mobile is out and AT&T is in, at least when it comes to WiFi. The company has begun a program where it will be offering free access to the AT&T WiFi in its stores for 2 hours a day. However here is the catch: anyone who uses a Starbucks Card (a prepaid gift card, like one you would give to a friend) will be able to get up to two hours of free WiFi service per day at any Starbucks location with WiFi service. (This is something where many people are already doing (buying a latte or any coffee) when they visit Starbucks) To get 2 hour free internet you simply need to purchase an item with your Starbuck card. Better yet, if you’re an AT&T broadband or U-verse subscriber, you’ll be able to use unlimited WiFi at Starbucks for free. For everyone else, paid service will begin at $3.99/two-hour session, and monthly membership will go for $19.99/month.

I am sure this will generate more traffic to store. Most Starbucks locations a totally right to go grab a drink, sit down and browse the Internet or do some work for a couple of hours. This experience is very popular in college students and school teens. I am sure many people will start pre-loading small amount every time they visit starbucks and use the card immediately so that they can get two hours free per day instead of paying $3.99 cash for it.

However, in many cities, like Seattle, LA, NYC, Washington DC, local coffee shops are offering free wifi without any limit. Panera and Caribou Coffee across the street offer free wifi as well.

Anyway, good marketing idea for more revenue. Enjoy the coffee and free internet (at least for 2 hours)

Via [computerworld, starbucks free wifi, arstechnica.com, Geek.com and t-mobile.com]

Garmin announced the new Map Update 2009 for North America

Garmin announced the new Map Update 2009 for North America. for portable Garmin GPS unit. This $69.99 update offers full coverage for the U.S, Canada and Puerto Rico.

The update includes:

• Over 8 million miles of road coverage
• Updated, fully routable, detailed maps for the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico
  Nearly 6 million points of interest
• Postal code support for Canada

Get your map updates here. You may need unit serial number for map updates.

Walmart.com offering free classified ads

Craigslist is known for free classified ads for everything that can be found around your day-today life, like you will find everything in Wal-mart store near you. Well, now Wal-Mart is looking to be in the field of classified “Wal-Mart of classifieds.” Walmart.com is beta testing a classifieds service, powered by Oodle that allows the site’s shoppers to post free classifieds on all kinds of stuff: cars, RVs, apartments, etc. I am not sure how serious threat to Craigslist but hey what’s wrong in trying new ideas. Specially, not every town in America is covered by Craigslist, Wal-Mart classifieds could be nice and solid alternative.

“Our new classifieds beta at Walmart.com provides an expanded offering of products and services, the majority of which are not traditionally available from Wal-Mart,” Walmart.com spokesman Ravi Jariwala said in an emailed statement.

The service is being powered by Oodle, which runs an online classified advertising web site and collects classified ad listings from the web.

Via [Reuters and ]

Yahoo beats Google in providing real time stock quote

Yesterday, Yahoo Finance declared to provide real time stock quote on their finance portal. They announce the availability of free US real-time ECN (ECN stands for electronic communication network, and serves as alternative trading place to the various exchanges) quotes on Yahoo! Finance. Yahoo has partnered with a company called BATS Trading for such service.

As a matter of fact, Yahoo introduced such real time data back in August 2006 but later due to change in pricing structure, it’s been removed from Yahoo! Finance. But now, it’s back.

Google is still behind in the race of providing real time stock quote. (However, they (Google finance) do provide major Indices data in real time, but not any individual stock price - reference: here)

Check it out on http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GS and watch your favorite stock in real-time.

Here’s a screen shot from the normal quote page: (After the market closed, it stopped saying “real time” and started saying “After hours”):

Update: [June 3, 2008] Google just announced that they’ll be providing stock prices in real time on the Google Finance website. However, NYSE and Dow quotes remain delayed

Who else join the gang in providing live-real time quote: CNBC, Google, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Xignite.

“This is an important, and in many ways, overdue development in the U.S. securities markets,” stated Adena Friedman, Executive Vice President, NASDAQ OMX. “With universal access to the Internet and the real-time nature of the web, investors need real time data, and now they don’t have to pay for it, thanks to CNBC, Google, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Xignite.”

Via [Yahoo Finance Blog and Google blog and BATS trading press release, Nasdaq] lifehacker.com