Author: Serkadis

Dell just went official with the Inspiron Zino HD price and spces. There have been a few unboxing and previews popping up around the blogs the last few days and I’ve fallen in love with the little computer. It’s slightly larger than the Mac Mini, but I believe infinitely more versatile.

HTPC – It’s a given. The $229 Dell Zino HD would feel right at home on a A/V rack. The Athlon CPUs and optional ATI Radeon HD 4330 512MB GPU has more than enough juice to output 1080p to your HDTV. Check the box for the optional Blu-ray drive and TV tuner to create a bonafide HTPCIB – Home Theater PC In a Box, that is.

WHS – There are about a dozen and a half already built Windows Home Server options available. HP makes the media-centric MediaSmart line, Acer has the Atom-packing easyStore, Lenovo has options and the list goes on. They are competent boxes, but none of them have the processing power that the AMD options offer in the Zino HD, which is somewhat important if you want to turn the server into a torrent downloading monster. Choose the integrated graphics but select at least 2GB of RAM along with the option 1TB hard drive. The 2 eSATA ports ensure that you’ll never run out of storage capacity too.

Trendy office computer – It doesn’t take much to run Microsoft Office apps anymore. Why live with a boring gray tower these days when the playful Zino HD can get the job done too? Even the base model should be fine for most office tasks.

In-car computer – The Mac Mini might score you nerd points with the geeks posing in the car tuning crowd, but there are a lot of PC-only in-car apps, which makes the Zino HD a perfect solution. It has a small footprint and more than enough power to run GPS and music software. But most importantly is that the computer comes in enough color options that you should be able to find one to match your ride.

Old folks computer – What do old people do on a computer these days? Play on Facebook? That’s about it and the Zino HD, along with countless other options, has more than enough power to be a reliable computer for them. The Athlon cores should be able to handle at least five Internet Explorer toolbars and several spyware programs posing as card games. Try that with an Atom CPU.

The Zino HD product page is currently up, but you can’t customize or order one yet. That will probably change sometime today.

Press release,

ROUND ROCK, Texas, Nov. 12, 2009 – Dell today introduced the mini-sized Inspiron Zino HD, which is versatile enough to handle tasks from basic computing chores to driving a big-screen, High-Definition TV media center. With a choice of colors, the Inspiron Zino HD can be easily personalized to add flare to any room in the home.

The News:

Starting at $229, the Inspiron Zino HD includes standard HD-capable integrated graphics, HDMI output and built-in networking that make it smart for typical home and student computing activities such as word processing, e-mail, organizing photos and music, and surfing the Internet.

The economical Inspiron Zino HD with optional additional memory, hard drive storage, combo Blu-ray disc player, HDTV tuner, wireless remote control and Windows 7 Media Player and turns into a powerful home media center computer. In that capacity the Inspiron Zino HD can record and play your favorite TV shows, display high-definition content from the Internet, and store and deliver music, video and photos very well.

The Inspiron Zino HD is also ideal as an additional household PC that can fit in tight spaces and make home networking a cinch. It measures about 7.75 inches square and 3.5 inches tall. While small in size, the Inspiron Zino HD is a big performer with:

• Ultra-small form factor designed to fit almost anywhere.
• Easy personalization with nine color choices for Inspiron Zino HD.
• Choice of AMD processors or dual core Athlon Neo X2 6850e.
• Up to 8GB dual channel DDR 2 memory.
• Up to 1TB internal hard disk storage.
• Combo DVD/CD RW drive with optional Blu-ray Disc combo.
• Integrated 10/100/1000 networking with wireless option.
• Optional TV tuner, wireless keyboard and mouse.
• Built in 2.1 high-definition audio and 4-in-one media card reader.
• Integrated ATI graphics adapter with standard HDMI and VGA video connections, and optional 512MB discrete graphics adapter.
• Four USB ports (2 front/2 rear); two eSATA ports (rear).
• Energy-Star 5.0 compliant.

A basic Inspiron Zino without High-Definition capability or upgrade options will be offered in some regions.

Humana’s CEO says he does not regret sending Medicare customers a letter warning that health care reform could hurt their benefits. The letters caused government officials to probe whether the insurer violated federal regulations in September. Reuters reports: “Humana Chief Executive Mike McCallister, speaking at the Reuters Health Summit in New York, said it was important to inform seniors about proposals that could affect Medicare and he had “no regrets” about sending the letter. Humana’s letter “told customers that bills from congressional Democrats could hurt ‘millions of seniors and disabled individuals (who) could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable,’ CMS said in a letter to Humana informing the company of the probe. … Lawmakers are weighing cuts to government Medicare Advantage payments to companies as part of an effort to help fund wider insurance coverage. Insurers say they will be forced to raise costs and reduce benefits for people in the plans” (Lisa Richwine, 11/11).

Google product listing ads have been spotted every now and then for a while now. The company has been testing them, but now the they have announced that US users will start seeing them more frequently on shopping related queries.

"Each day we see many users come to Google.com to research products and find where to buy them," says Google’s Dan Friedman. "To better serve these users, we’ve been testing a new feature of AdWords called Product Listing Ads. Product Listing Ads works with an advertiser’s Google Merchant Center account to serve highly targeted ads that include richer product information directly in the ad itself – including product image, price, and merchant name."

Friedman highlights the following features of Product Listing Ads:

– Pay only for results: Product Listing Ads are charged on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis, which means that you only pay when a user clicks on your ad and completes a purchase on your site. Because Product Listing Ads is charged on a CPA basis, it offers a risk-free way for you to reach a larger audience on Google.com.
 
– List your entire inventory: Product Listing Ads requires no keywords or additional ad text. Whenever a user enters a search query relevant to an item in your Google Merchant Center account, Google will automatically show the most relevant products along with the associated image, price and product name. Product Listing Ads makes it easy for you to promote your entire product inventory on Google.com.

These ads could go a long way for increasing interest in using Google’s Merchant Center. When they show up for any given product-related search, they are going to be highly coveted spots for anyone selling those products online.

Currently, the ads are still considered a beta feature, and are only available to a limited number of retail advertisers. In time, however, they will be opened up to more merchants, and the number of Google users who will see the ads will be increased.

Related Articles:

> Google Gives AdWords Advertisers New Comparison Option

> AdWords Opportunities Expanded to More Advertisers

> Google Splits Up Google Base

John Rother tries to dispel myths and quell fears that seniors may have about health care reform as a leader at the powerful lobby and senior group AARP. The Washington Post reports: “As the policy director for AARP, the world’s largest organization for people over 50, Rother has been on the front lines of the health-care-reform wars — often under siege by Republicans and by some of his group’s 40 million members. The attacks stepped up last week when AARP endorsed the House version of the reform bill” that includes a reduction in Medicare spending and cuts to Medicare Advantage, the private plans in the program. To dispel misinformation, the AARP has used a “blitz of e-mails, publications, ads and 150 tele-town hall meetings that have reached 6 million people, as well as another 135 live town hall meetings” (Romano, 11/12).

The Associated Press reports on hospice care. “Lillian Landry always said she wasn’t afraid to die. So when death came last week, the 99-year-old was lying peacefully in a hospice with no needles or tubes. Her final days saw her closest friend at her side and included occasional shots of her favorite whiskey, Canadian Mist. Landry is an exception. Unlike most Americans, she made her end-of-life decisions years ago: no heroic measures to save her … The health overhaul bill that narrowly passed the House on Saturday includes a provision to nudge more people to confront such choices: It would pay for end-of-life counseling for Medicare patients.”

Because Medicare beneficiaries account “for the vast majority of U.S. deaths” the treatment people receive “in the last year of life accounts for roughly a quarter of Medicare’s budget.” Dr. Joel Policzer, a medical director for a hospice, says that often “a dying elderly patient may have wanted less invasive care. But it doesn’t happen. ‘It doesn’t happen because people are never asked. If they were, people would tell you they want to die at home in bed, surrounded by their family, their friends and their pets,’ he said” (Sedensky, 11/11).

When we first heard of Microsoft’s Project Natal, our immediate thoughts were about public availability. Sadly, it looks like this hot new hardware is going to marinate for another year before it becomes available to the public in November 2010. Microsoft’s plan is to release the camera unit, which registers body movement so that you are the controller, along with 14 games ready to go. The camera is rumored to cost somewhere between $50 to $80 (and it might actually include those 14 games for that price), which isn’t bad for what Microsoft is trying to accomplish — impulse buys. Why is it going to take so long to release a product that has already been demoed at E3? Well, the 14 compatible games are still being developed and Microsoft is trying to crank out 5 million camera units for launch. And just like refreshing gadgets with new color options, additional hardware and new ways to interface with games will keep the Xbox 360 from becoming outdated any time soon. Hit the jump for a demo ad.

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Last week Vice President Biden hosted a panel of experts to highlight the unique challenges facing the middle class in our 21st century global economy. One thing we heard over and over again is that work-family balance is a real challenge for most middle class Americans.

For the millions of American workers who lack paid sick leave, personal leave or family leave, being able to take time off is a matter of economic security. This is especially true for the 3.7 million working adults with children under 14 and no other adult or older child to share child care responsibilities.

The stakes are even higher when the worker or a family member is coping with a contagious illness – like 2009 H1N1 – given that the consequences of an employee’s decision to go to work when ill or to send a sick child to school can adversely affect many others.

Unfortunately, current law does not protect the economic security of workers in these situations. Full economic security requires two assurances.  First, workers who take leave because they or their children become sick must not lose their jobs or risk some other form of disciplinary action by their employers.  Second, workers must have a source of income while they are temporarily on leave.

The Department of  Labor testified on Capitol Hill Tuesday in support of the Healthy Families Act, which would provide the security that workers need, allowing millions more working Americans to earn up to 56 hours per year of paid sick time to care for themselves or their families. It assures them job security when they take leave and provides short-term continuation of workers’ incomes while they recuperate from illness or provide needed care to a family member. 

At the Department of Labor, we are striving for good jobs for everyone. And one of the key components of a good job is having the flexibility to meet caregiving as well as workplace responsibilities.  We believe that work-life balance includes policies such as paid leave, flexible work schedules and telework options, employee assistance programs, and access to child care and elder care support.  

Thanks to the leadership of Vice President Biden we are proud to work with our colleagues in the Cabinet and the Middle Class Task Force to improve work-life policies, and efforts are underway to see how we can better meet the needs of modern working families. The Department’s testimony in support of the Healthy Families Act pointed to one important step in that direction.

Hilda Solis is the Secretary of Labor

Maneki neko means “lucky cat” in Japanese, and any cat who who gets one of these beds sure is lucky. Introducing Neko Habitat, a brand new company from Portland, Oregon, making ultra-modern designer acrylic pet beds.

There are three styles to choose from, the Cradle, the Wave, and the Pan. Each is made from 1/4 inch acrylic. The Cradle and Pan designs have sleek stainless steel legs. The beds come in a variety of translucent acrylic colors which you can mix-and-match with several reversible cushion designs in modern fabrics.

Beds range from $230 to $250 US and are available directly from Neko Habitat.

The new DSi LL may have a few features that previous models don’t, but about the only feature that really sticks out is that it’s larger. We’ve seen p…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is threatening to halt federal funding for the Washington D.C.’s AIDS programs after a Washington Post investigation found many delivered faulty services and failed to account for their work. “Assistant Secretary Mercedes M. Marquez said HUD will send a letter to the city this week stipulating that no new AIDS housing money will be awarded unless the D.C. Department of Health’s HIV/AIDS Administration improves its tracking of services and spending.”

“HUD officials said this is the first time in the AIDS housing program’s 18-year history that money would be withheld from a city based on poor performance. … Since at least 2003, HUD’s monitoring reports have repeatedly found that the city, which has the highest rate of AIDS cases in the country, has failed to keep tabs on nonprofit groups that promised to provide housing for the sick. In some cases, the District did not provide financial records and other documents from HUD monitors” (Cenziper, 11/12).

The Washington Post reports that Hispanic lawmakers and groups are “scrambling to develop a strategy to counter what they see as efforts to shortchange immigrants in health bills on Capitol Hill.”

While some Hispanic leaders have tried to keep health care reform and illegal immigration separate, concerned they said “that immigration would distract from health care. But other lawmakers and activists have inserted the immigration issue into the middle of the health-care debate, causing a collision between what Hispanic leaders call their two top policy priorities.” The insistence of some on considering both in the context of the health reform bills has forced Hispanics’ hands. “Many of them believe that a health-care overhaul is vital to their community, which is disproportionately uninsured and suffers from a host of chronic illnesses.”

In the House, illegal immigrants would be allowed to buy insurance with their own money — without government assistance — in insurance exchanges. In the expected Senate bill, they would not. “In both the Senate and House, all legal immigrants are eligible for government subsidies to buy insurance on the exchange, but immigrants who have been in the country for less than five years would remain barred by existing law from enrolling in Medicaid and Medicare” (Thompson, 11/12).

The New York Times reports that illegal immigration may turn into a rift issue among lawmakers as Congress “seeks to construct a compromise health care bill capable of passing both houses. … Those who oppose allowing illegal immigrants in the exchange acknowledge that their position is largely symbolic. They doubt that significant numbers of uninsured immigrants would be able to afford the exchange’s premiums without subsidies” (Sack, 11/11).

Congratulations to Amy, creator of the Kitty Treehouse doodled Caboodle! It was a close race and everyone did such an amazing job! Thanks to all the creative people to entered the contest. We have a little gift for all of you from Puutty Power, so check your email.

And thanks to Caboodle and Puutty Power for sponsoring this awesome contest!

I’m pleased to have been invited to be one of a dozen or so regular contributors to the blog ‘Risk Matters,’ because, well, risk matters. It’s a key part of the reason why anyone or any group would look to the future… which of course also conditions how we look, what we look for, and what we find or miss.

So this stimulates me to put down a few thoughts about risk assessment and its relationship with industry and strategic foresight as a whole. This is a big topic of course, but seeing as the categories are confused a lot, it’s worth tackling even if just in summary terms.

When I reach the topic of Risk Assessment in my ‘Industry Foresight and Business Future Strategy’ MBA elective, I use the ‘Adidas-Salomon: Incorporating Risk into Corporate Strategy’ mini-case [Ref: ICFAI 304-141-1; sourced via Cranfield’s Case Clearing house.]

The case is a useful baseline in risk assessment because it describes the various risks a multinational company typically faces: marketing risks (market change, brand image); operations risks (quality; reliability of processes and suppliers); social & environmental risks (workforce & natural resources compliance); legal (liability, regulation, patent); information technology (compromise or disruption); and financial risks (currency, interest rate, credit).

Business disruptors
In sum these are the things that could damage or disrupt the business. Isolating such factors, keeping vigilance over them, and having thought through or enacted counter-measures in advance, allows the organization to better control or reduce the impact should risk become reality.

All risks are future events, so a risk assessment is undoubtedly a future study, but assuming a company looks diligently across all these categories for potential and emerging hazards, how prepared is it for a changing world? What kind of industry foresight does this give managers? Is a risk assessment a futures assessment?

The obvious first answer is that a risk assessment is only half the equation. It’s oriented to the downside potential of changes not the upside; looking for threats not opportunities. Obviously that means that opportunities are less likely to be identified.

The second thing is that a standard risk assessment operates in the realm of known risks, in known categories, that may cause disruption and damage in a known way. It doesn’t have the mechanism to expand conceptions of what could go wrong, or how it could go wrong, or what the full knock-on effects will be. The types of mental-model-expanding techniques that fuller foresight offers are not built into a typical risk assessment.

Strategy questions
Third, risk assessments never really broach the question: is the business idea or business model good and will it keep on being good? That is, what products or services will be appropriate going forward, or how will models of supply or manufacture or marketing or fulfillment need to change, due to technology change or shifting consumer preferences.

In other words, risk assessment doesn’t ask strategic questions of managers. It is part of the day-to-day management vigilance necessary with reference to the future – the hygiene factors in running an organization. It is about keeping the business going as is, not about changing it for a changing word.

There’s nothing wrong with this. The point is, it’s just ‘first base’ in building a quality view of the future, and therein a robust point-of-view about what to do next. Although no doubt companies such as Google or Apple or Virgin, etc., assess and mitigate their risks, they didn’t become successful in their future by doing risk assessment and saying ‘That’s it, were done. We’re ready for the future.”

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Pelfast loves giving us great free updates, and they’re following up on that again big time. A free update for the tower defense creepfest is now avai…

Japan-based electronics maker Greenhouse has announced the GHV-DV30HDLXW/P [JP] today, a video camera specifically designed for women. The device is available in two colors, white and (the inevitable) pink. Buyers will also get a cute pouch that fits the color of the camera.

Greenhouse has partnered up with fashion brand GAUDI (who I never heard of before) to design the camera. It features a 3-inch TFT LCD screen, 128MB of internal memory, SD/SDHC memory card support (up to 32MB), a miniHDMI port and a USB interface. The device can record video in 1,280×720/720p resolution and at 30fps in (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264(MOV)).

The video camera will go on sale in Japan only for $190 (including the pouch) from the end of this month. If you live outside Japan and want to look cute while shooting video, contact import specialists Japan Trend Shop or Geek Stuff 4 U.

The Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen have agreed that the international community should continue to show resolve in Afghanistan.

Gordon Brown welcomed the Secretary General to Downing Street this morning and congratulated him on establishing himself quickly in his new role.

Their conversation focused on Afghanistan and recent political developments in the country. Both leaders were clear that President Karzai needs to use his second term in office to concentrate on issues such as governance and corruption.

The PM and the Mr Rasmussen also agreed that work needs to be done to establish a gradual handover of security responsibility to the Afghans in certain districts, starting from next year.

Last month, we thought it was quite excessive that states’ attorneys in Illinois were asking for all sorts of information on the students who were involved in the Medill Innocence Project — a journalism school investigative reporting effort that has helped free wrongly convicted individuals. The prosecutors were asking for information on the students’ grades and private notes, which seemed to go beyond what seemed reasonable. However, now the prosecutors are claiming that the students may have paid witnesses for their interviews, which could raise questions about their authenticity (found via Romenesko). Of course, reading the details, it’s not so clear cut. The students admit that they paid for the guy’s cab fare, but it sounds like there was money left over from the cash they gave the cabbie, and he gave it to the interview subject (who then used it to buy drugs). That certainly makes it a little more clear as to why prosecutors were looking for more info, but it still seems like the overall request went beyond what was reasonable. It certainly looks more like an intimidation tactic than any attempt to get to the bottom of the case.

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In case you haven’t heard, the other day Samsung announced Bada, a new open source platform it hopes will enable its handsets to better compete with the likes of the iPhone and the entire Android line-up. Set to arrive in Q1 2010, not much is known about Bada other than that it features an intuitive touchscreen-based UI and will, for the most part, take the place of all Symbian S60 handsets offered by the Korean company. The handsets that will debut running Bada are also a mystery, but our Dutch friends over at Mobile Phone Helpdesk Europe were sent in a tip, and the handset you see rendered above could be amongst the very first. The fact anyone with the slightest Photoshop skills could whip this up aside, let’s assume for a minute what we’re looking at is real. Are you feeling it or not?

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