By MarketWatch Last update: 11:04 p.m. EDT Aug. 3, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Tropical Storm Edouard has formed off the Louisiana coast and is strengthening as it moves on a path toward the heart of U.S. oil and natural-gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center reported Sunday night. At 11 p.m. Eastern, Edouard […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net
Archive for August 5th, 2008 On Monday, Chris Beard, vice president and general manager of Mozilla Labs, posted a rather vague, yet optimistic, blog entry about opening up Mozilla Labs projects to the Web community at massive. The move comes just a week after the company lost Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla VP of engineering, to Facebook. Beard has coined it a “concept series” and included three videos of products and services currently at a the conceptual level and not yet ready for public consumption. Of the three embedded in Beard’s post, the most buzz-worthy was the mobile version of Firefox, which surfaced two months ago. The other two are a little more out there, with a bookmarks visualizer and what is seemingly the most complicated-looking interface demo ever done by the folks at Adaptive Path for a project called “Aurora” which was unveiled last night. To get involved, Beard is asking users to keep their ideas structured into one of three buckets:
Mozilla is also using tags on popular Web services to let people post up their mockups, the first of which have already shown up on Flickr. I’ve embedded all three concept videos below. The aurora one is in HD only if you watch it on Vimeo, so click here to see it in it’s full-resolution glory.
Bookmarking and History Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo. Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo. Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo. Updated at 7:24 a.m. PT on Tuesday with comment from Richard Kimber.  Brush off your Monty Python and the Holy Grail references: even though long forgotten by social-media junkies in the United Says, Friendster isn’t dead yet. The pioneering social network announced on Tuesday that it has raked …  Social.fm, a music site that was known as Mercora until last year, has officially folded. “We regret to inform you and apologize for this inconvenience, but Social.fm will be shutting down the system on July 31st, 2008,” a message on the site read. The shutdown was first reported by GigaOM. …
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GreenUmbrella: If you must purchase an extended warranty, purchase this onePosted by: admin in General News There’s a new self-serve extended warranty program for consumer goods launching Saturday night: GreenUmbrella. Unlike the typical extended warranties you might get when you buy products, this is an umbrella plan: $9.95 a month covers almost everything you own. It’s a good deal when compared with other extended warranties, although that’s not saying much. The cool thing with GreenUmbrella is that if you are on the plan, you can just state, “No, thanks” when the drone at Best Purchase tries to push the extended warranty on you. The GreenUmbrella program covers repairs to your personal, game consoles, cameras, refrigerators, TVs, air conditioners, etc. Anything less than $5,000 is eligible, and is covered for three years from buy date. To get a new purchase into the system, all you’ve to do is go on the web and enter the info about it. You don’t need your receipts to register a product, but you will when you file a claim. Repairs are handled by The Warranty Group, which maintains a network of certified repair shops for consumer goods. When you call in with a claim, ultimately you’ll be routed to one of their providers for the repair or replacement of your item.
You can put a product on your warranty plan after you've bought it. (Credit: GreenUmbrella)
There are limitations, however. The service does not cover accidental breakage, doesn’t cover your mobile phone, and doesn’t cover products more than 3 years old. Also, keep in mind that all new products come with their own warranties. If you’ve a device that fails during the period of the warranty that comes with the product, GreenUmbrella might help a bit by offering a smoother experience through its service bureau, or by covering, perhaps, consumable parts (like a projector bulb) on a repair for a product whose native warranty only covers malfunctions. But for the most part, the GreenUmbrella plan only covers products during their most healthy period–the two-plus years that fall between the product’s in-warranty infancy (when it is most prone to fail), and its slip into creaky senescence when it’s more apt to suffer wear-related problems or become obsolete. It’s when you are most prone to need the plan that your products will not be eligible for its services. GreenUmbrella GM Mike Balducci admits that “you do have a stigma associated with the extended warranty,” although he believes it’s due to the typical, pushy retail sales process. He has a point. Consumers are vulnerable during the extended warranty “sales minute” that comes during checkout, and they resent the hard sell, even if they later end up saving a bundle because they’ve a plan. It is precisely these sales minutes, though, that GreenUmbrella will be battling. Expect retailers to come up with reasons for consumers to purchase their extended warranties anyway. Balducci also points out that about one-third of products that break and that are under extended warranties don’t get the coverage they deserve since the consumer has lost the paperwork or forgotten that a product is covered. With GreenUmbrella, the single plan should increase the redemption rate–and hopefully improve customer satisfaction. In the service’s favor–and this is a huge deal–GreenUmbrella is a predictable and reasonable service if you ever expect any of your devices to break down during their first years. The plan, at $120 a year, could easily pay for itself if a major appliance like a refrigerator or laptop fails during its term. Clearly, extended warranties are a gamble, and the odds are on the provider’s side, not yours. That’s why they’re pushed so hard at retail (though not, we should note, at Costco): they’re almost pure profit for the seller. But if you spend a few thousand a year on electronics or appliances, this plan will provide peace of mind for a reasonable, and for a very small premium over your cash outlay. By PETER L. BERNSTEIN Published: August 3, 2008 ONE of the spookiest features of the current economic crisis is the way everything seemed to go wrong at the same time. In 2007, as if some kind of secret signal went out among them, housing prices accelerated their decline while the prices of oil and food rocketed higher. […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, who left the Yahoo-acquired company in June, has a new gig. She posted on her blog on Wednesday that she’ll be joining a stealthy New York-based start-up, Hunch, as “Chief Product Officer, board member, and resident Facebook app skeptic.”  So what’s Hunch? That’s …
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In on the internet ad space, blank-faced hipsters in panties prove powerfulPosted by: admin in Social Media and Tech
A sample piece of American Apparel ad inventory. It’s no surprise to anyone who reads blogs about celebrity gossip, nightlife, indie music, or pretty much any other niche of pop culture: American Apparel, the Los Angeles-based retailer infamous for bringing back the ’80s aerobics look, has been named by …
According to Miguel Sebastian, minister of industry, business and tourism, “Electric vehicles are the future and the driver of the industrial revolution.” I think he might have the Industrial Revolution confused with the green movement – but, we’ll let that slide… Electric cars are certainly part of the future, but so is effective mass transit and a mind shift away from owning three automobiles per family. This is a great eco-friendly and economically-friendly move, but what’s often more exciting are cool transit ideas various cities are implementing that have nothing to do with personal automobiles. Still, perhaps a few three wheelers will find homes here. While the plan will cost some $381 million, it is expected to save about 6 million tons of oil over three years, an important, nearly $8 billion savings for a country that has spent, according to Sebastian, nearly $26.5 billion on oil in the past year alone. Via Gas2, Stuff; pic via f-r-a-n-k |
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