Category: News

Gas.enCooche.com da solución a lo que muchas veces buscamos infructuosamente: una gasolinera que tenga la gasolina o el gasóleo un poco más económico y así poder llenar el depósito (¿cuántos de nuestros lectores aún lo llenan?) con sólo un poco más de diferencia con respecto a lo que gastábamos antes. El aumento del último año en los combustibles que se venden en España, ha llegado al 30% en las gasolinas y 20% en el gasóleo, en el 2009.

El nuevo sitio (similar a otros que ofrecen la misma información pero al nivel de municipios) te da una orientación sobre los precios de los combustibles en toda España. Es lógico que no recorrerás centenares de kilómetros sólo por buscar gasolina más barata, pero será una buena referencia por si buscas otras gasolineras en tu área de trabajo o cerca de casa.

Los costos de cargas gasolina se han disparado desde el último aumento; cada conductor se gasta 11 Euros más en llenar de gasolina un depósito medio de 40 litros y 6 Euros adicionales en uno diésel.

Si aún te quedan dudas de que podrás ahorrarte algo, un vistazo al sitio no estará de más. No te harás millonario con el ahorro, pero todo lo que sirva para combatir la crisis, será bienvenido.

Vía: Encooche.com

Foto | El Mundo

Following the Mini E trial lease program, BMW AG will launch a new program for its ActiveE electric-car. The 1-Series coupe based electric-car will be leased to a limited number of customers next year in preparation for launching a plug-in vehicle in about four years, says Klaus Draeger, the BMW board member who heads up R&D.

The BMW ActiveE will be leased to customers in the United States and Europe in 2011 on a trial basis, similar to the one conducted with the Mini E electric Cooper. BMW did not say how many units it will use in the program.

The Mini E trial, which involved 450 units in the U.S., was scheduled to end in early 2010 but was extended indefinitely with some lessees saying they would like to hold onto their electric-cars.

The BMW ActiveE, unveiled at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, is powered by a synchronous electric-motor making 170-hp and 184 lb-ft of torque. A full charge takes about 4.5 hours allowing a driving range of 100 miles.

2010 Detroit: BMW Concept ActiveE:

All Photos Copyright © 2009 Stephen Calogera – egmCarTech.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

“Pants On The Ground” Fever continues to sweep the nation! General Larry Platt created a musical movement when he debuted his catchy anti-saggin’ anthem during last week’s American Idol auditions in Atlanta — and now even NFL star Brett Favre is cashing in on the craze.

Watch Favre perform “Pants On The Ground” after the Vikings big win on Sunday:

March will be the month when Audi reveals the A1 at the Geneva Autoshow. With an answer to the great anticipation of the model, Audi has released this teaser video with A1 designer, Jürgen Löffler. Löffler expands on his design ideas for the A1, comparing the exterior to how a sprinter prepares for his run. There’s much emphasis on the shoulder and the model’s rounded roof. It shows how the overall shape of the car comes together line one molded sculpture.

Continue reading to see the video.

Source: WCF

Surprise! There I was, staring at my inbox, wondering when the invites to Apple’s may-or-may-not-be-happening tablet event would go out, when.. BAM! An invite appeared – but not from Apple.

Turns out, Nokia’s announcing something big — or at least big enough to hold a press event — this Thursday in San Francisco. The invite doesn’t offer much insight; it shows a couple of rocks lined up like some sort of trail, while the top reads “Join us to see what’s behind the bend”.

I think we just might, Nokia.. we just might.

Update: Nokia UK is also holding an event on the same day on the other side of the world, but they’re being pretty open about the topic of that one: Ovi. Will our announcement be a mirror of Nokia UK’s, or is this a whole different shindig? We’ll find out in just a few days.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

When people get married, they often have the highest hopes that the marriage will succeed and they will spend a long and fruitful life together. However, what most people fail to realize is that after the ‘honeymoon’ phase is over, marriage is much more difficult than they may have presumed it to be in the first place. In other words, marriage takes a lot of patience and a lot of work for many people in order for it to be healthy and last. Unfortunately, a growing number of people are realizing that marriage may not have been all that they once thought it should be. Therefore, the divorce rate has skyrocketed over the past few years.

All around the United States, divorce is running rampant. Whether you are seeking out a divorce attorney in Raleigh, NC or elsewhere, you are not alone. Why, if you look at the statistics for the Raleigh area, you might be surprised to see that the divorce rate has probably gone up; and with the rising number of people getting divorced, you will also find more individuals seeking out their own divorce lawyer in Raleigh. Divorce has, unfortunately, become a common theme among those who are married for days as well as years. Divorces can be messy and emotionally draining, which is all the more reason why it is important to find the right attorney to represent you during this difficult time.

Tags: Divorce Lawyer Raleigh, Divorce Attoney Raleigh, Divorce, Law Firm, experienced Attorney

For some reason, Toyko-based USB accessory maker Thanko is selling a wide range of “spy gadgets”, with a button camera and an HD video pen as the latest additions to the line-up. Today Thanko gives us a wrist watch [JP], which may look rather unassuming from the outside but actually sports a micro spy camera.

The so-called Video Camera Analog Watch is the updated version of a spy watch that Thanko started selling in late 2008. This new model has 4GB of internal memory, which is enough to store two to three hours of video in 640×480 resolution and at 30fps.

If you have a Windows machine (XP, Vista and 7 are supported), you can transfer the material via USB as AVI files to your computer. The micro camera is placed between 1 and 2 o’clock on the dial.

The watch (weight: 115g) is already available in Thanko’s Japanese online store and costs $85. If you’re interested in getting one but live outside Japan, I suggest to contact import/export specialist (and Thanko partner) Geek Stuff 4 U.

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

Read Original Article

While the computer industry waits for Apple to release an expected color tablet computer later this month, ASUS is already there. According to news reports, the company is releasing a six-inch OLED color touchscreen tablet e-reader called the DR-570 that includes Adobe Flash, either 3G or Wi-Fi — and a capacity of 122 hours on a single battery charge.

With the addition of color and additional computing power, the emerging categories of e-readers and tablet computers may begin to merge. The DR-570 is expected to be released by the end of this year.

‘Moving at a Fast Rate’

The Taiwan-based ASUS is a leader in netbooks, the subcompact laptops that have been one of the bright spots in computer sales for the last year. In addition to the color DR-570, ASUS will reportedly release 5.7-inch and nine-inch black-and-white e-readers.

The e-reader category, led by the Kindle from Amazon, several devices from Sony, the nook from Barnes & Noble, and other products, saw new entries at the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A dual-screen e-reader from MSI, for instance, is based on the Intel Atom chip used in many netbooks and will have enough power to compete with most netbooks. Samsung showed six- and 10-inch touchscreen devices, each offering text to speech and, since they use Digital Living Network Alliance standards, could be viewed on compatible TVs.

Plastic Logic showed the Que, a lightweight e-reader that is the first commercial device based on plastic transistors. In addition to less weight, this means physical flexibility. Hearst’s Skiff Reader offered the first product with a display that uses a flexible sheet of stainless steel, providing a resolution of 1200×1600.

The categories of e-readers and tablet computers are “definitely moving at a fast rate,” said Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret Research. But…

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

Read Original Article

Filed under: iPhone

The Konami code refers to a cheat code sequence for Nintendo devices invented by Kazuhisa Hashimoto in the mid 1980s. The code was intended to help during testing, allowing debugging of advanced game play without having to spend the time or effort actually getting to those levels. Normally, a player has to earn abilities over time. The cheat code Easter egg lets you jump from n00b-skillz directly into mad hax0r3d power. Over time, the Konami code gained traction and has been used and re-used in many games and websites since.

If you’re a fan of Konami-code accessible websites and an iPhone user, you’ll be pleased to learn that the Konami Code Sites homepage, which provides a list of enabled sites, is now iPhone compatible. Konami is “standard” for accessing built-in Easter Eggs in video games and web sites. You can now enter your コナミコマンド cheat code via gestures.

Make this happen by mirroring the standard Konami sequence (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right) using swipes instead of touching command keys. When you get to the BA sequence, a controller will appear on-screen to let you tap the B-button and then the A-button.

As for the Konami-compatible websites listed, they are not as forgiving, I’m afraid. The iPhone compatibility does not extend to any of the listed pages that I tested. Given that we have fully entered the age of iPhone OS (and soon, the tablet), I think you can expect touchKonami to start expanding to ever new sites and applications. For example, Polish Demon’s Emojinabler app (currently in App Store review) uses the sequence to unlock Emoji text access on non-Japanese iPhones.

Know of a touchKonami-enabled website or App Store app? Let us know in the comments.

TUAWKonami website now iPhone-accessible originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

Read Original Article

With the growing number of online services, it’s becoming more economical for small business to rely on web-based tools rather than expensive enterprise software. Not too long ago we brought you 5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized, and now the website Business Pundit has released their top 10 list of online collaboration tools for small businesses.

Call it Web 2.0, or Enterprise 2.0; the fact of the matter is that online services just make more sense for businesses on a budget. Because these software platforms are web-based, users can use any computer to access them at work, at home or even on the road. They eliminate the need for expensive software and fewer IT employees are required for setup, updates and patches to systems.

Sponsor

Considering these benefits of online tools, Business Pundit’s list of collaborative services is an excellent resource for startups and small businesses looking to save some cash while still getting things done as efficiently as possible.

Topping their list is OfficeMedium, a service we profiled last fall which provides a wide variety of collaborative features wrapped up in an elegantly designed interface. With live chat, user profiles, polls and calendars, OfficeMedium is a social collaboration network for your company.

While the service is relatively inexpensive with monthly costs of just $6 per person and $1 per gigabyte of storage, you may be disappointed by a lack of mobile application and developer API if your company is constantly on-the-go.

Coming in just behind OfficeMedium is Basecamp, a service that we use daily here at ReadWriteWeb and which made our top 5 list of organization apps for startups. While the two services are more or less functionally comparable, Business Pundit puts Basecamp in second place due to its less-than-thrilling (though customizable) interface design and a few functionality gripes. For the mobile business, Basecamp’s API has allowed for over a dozen mobile applications, which could be a feature that makes it the #1 choice.

Rounding out the rest of the top 5 are CubeTree, WizeHive and SocialText – three powerful web applications which were deprived of the top spot by a few lacking features, design problems and ease-of-use issues. The remainder of the top 10 includes CentralDesktop, Onehub, PBWorks, Zoho Projects and Socialcast.

What do you think? Is there a better business collaboration tool out there that was left off of Business Pundit’s list? Or would you rank one of these apps higher than another? Let us know your thoughts below in the comments.

Photo by Flickr user wonderferret.

Discuss

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

Read Original Article

Italian screen legend Sophia Loren looked as stunning — as always — in a black gown with sheer sleeves and sparkly shoulders at last night’s 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards. Loren, 75, completely stole the show and managed to look as gorgeous as ever when she appeared on stage to present the award in the Best Foreign Language Film Category, which went to German film White Ribbon.

Did you know that the Globes wasn’t the first public appearance for Ms. Loren’s sazzy little number? Committing what most actress would consider the cardinal sin of all fashion faux pases, the Nine actress also wore the design at the 2010 Pirelli Calendar launch party in November. After more than 50 years in the biz, we say this lady’s earned the right to wear anything she chooses to.

Filed under: Other Events

All the big guys have been receiving their golden tickets this morning. So what can little sites like TUAW do to play along? Why, Zapruder the heck out of the invite of course. Zaprudering, as the SciFicast explains, “is a neologism derived from the Zapruder film, the amateur 8mm film that is the only known visual record of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It’s used here to indicate painstaking analysis of the trailer.” Zaprudering refers to a detailed extraction of evidence from a limited set of image data.

As you can see in the image at the top of this post, several features stood out to our TUAW team. Mike Rose was first to notice that the art used spray paint rather than finger paint, as you might expect for a tablet event invite. “Could this be a hint of MacPaint Pro?” asked Steve Sande. “That would harken back to the original Mac (MacPaint) and be very cool.”

Dave Caolo noticed that the Apple logo front-and-center, along with the thin (tablet-shaped?) border pointed to a Macbook-like presentation. It would be awesome if the tablet really could mimic and/or replace many laptop features, although all early Humint rumors point to an iPhoneOS-only system.

So what does the art-styled presentation hint at? To most of the team, this seemed a vote for augmented reality interaction a la Excelitech’s Virtual Graffiti app [iTunes link]. Maybe we’ll be able to interact in new ways with maps and images through a touch-based interface.

Will the target audience differ from the anticipated Kindle crowd? Maybe this touch-based creation will be aimed more at tangible creative media than at simple video and book display? Maybe the rumors about gestures gone wild with a high-powered CPU we’ve been reading about give a better sense of who Apple is aiming their “latest creation” at.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Update: Commenters point out that the colors used almost perfectly match the current nano line.

Update: TUAW’s Megan Lavey adds “I think Apple is announcing the release of its interactive paintball set. It uses the built-in iSight camera. You mad at someone? Click a button on iChat and the paint color of your choice blasts that person in the eye.” *hee*

TUAWZaprudering the invite: Obsessive fun with TUAW originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

Read Original Article

After years of trying to convince technologically inept relatives to stop using Internet Explorer, computer geeks worldwide may finally have something new to back up their words: the advice of the German and French governments.

The French government joined Germany today in recommending that its citizens switch to another browser in light of last week’s admission by Microsoft that Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 all contained the same security vulnerability, in which “Internet Explorer can be caused to allow remote code execution.”

Sponsor

Microsoft declared in a blog post on Sunday that the security exploit was only seen in Internet Explorer 6, yet both Germany and France have recommended moving away from the browser regardless of version.

As we reported on Friday, Internet security company McAfee pointed out this security vulnerability in Internet Explorer, which allowed hackers in China to attack Google, Adobe and a large number of other companies, including Yahoo and Northrop Grumman.

We contacted Microsoft’s PR firm, but due to the holiday in the U.S. today, we weren’t able to reach anyone inside the company. An article in The Telegraph, however, paraphrased Microsoft as having said “that the German government had over-reacted about the threat posed by the vulnerability, and that general users were not at risk.”

Joe Wilcox of Beta News was not so timid, his suggestion that “it’s time to stop using any version of Microsoft’s browser — IE6, IE7, IE8 and forget someday releasing IE9.”

According to StatCounter, Internet Explorer still accounts for 45% of browser use in Europe, as opposed to 53% in North America and just over 55% worldwide.

While Microsoft is working on a fix for the problem, we have yet to hear of any resolution to the issue. We’ll have to keep an eye on this one and see if the recommendations do anything to lessen Internet Explorer’s complete and total dominance in the browser markets.

Discuss

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

Read Original Article

Los Angeles, California | Unique Collections

LA has long been home to mystics, far-out spirituals, and occult practices.

The city boasts an Alchemy Lab and a “Magickal Marketplace.” The Philosophical Research Society has been at the center of the occult in LA since its inception in 1934. Founded by Manly P. Hall, the PRS explores “wisdom traditions” ranging from religion to science to more esoteric philosophies. Even for those of us who aren’t trying to tap into the spirit world, the library of the Philosophical Research Society provides a wealth of information on obscure, rare religions and philosophies.

The library has some very notable titles: a book on divination once owned by Napoleon from 1801, a rare book about theosophy, and a book on mesmerism from 1852. According to lore, the books about Satan are kept under a Buddha statue, to balance the energies. They even, according to some, have books about black magic. These books are not open to the public with the rest of their collection; one must obtain special permission from the librarians to explore them.

Of course, the library is non-circulating, as it is solely a research facility.

In its heyday, ICQ was one of the most popular instant messaging networks. Today, you will probably have a hard time finding your friends on ICQ. Nevertheless, almost two year after the release of ICQ 6, ICQ just released a new version of its IM client. ICQ 7 now integrates updates from Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Flickr and YouTube. ICQ plans to add support for more social networks in the near future.

ICQ 7 is only available for Windows. Mac users can rest assured that they are not missing out on much.

Sponsor

Social Networks on ICQ: Haphazard Integration

Sadly, ICQ doesn’t excel at integrating any of these social networks. Facebook users, for example, can comment on status updates from their friends but there is no button to “like” an item. Interestingly, you can “like” your own updates but not those of your friends.

The Twitter client can display updates from all your friends on the service, but you filter this feed to just see @replies or direct messages, making ICQ 7 mostly useless as a Twitter client.

ICQ’s PR material stresses that “users no longer need to open a browser and log into each and every network they’re members in.” For any meaningful interaction on these social networks, you still need to open up your browser, however.

One of the few positive aspects of ICQ’s social network integration is that it allows you to post an update to all of these networks simultaneously.

One highly annoying aspect if ICQ 7’s installation procedure is that – by default – the application wants to change your default search engine to ICQ Search and install the ICQ toolbar. While ICQ Search is an inoffensive retooling of Google Search, we would prefer the company be a bit more open about these changes. Currently, they are tucked away in the install dialog where users are likely to just click “next” instead of doing a close reading of the dialog’s text.

Stay Away, Even If You are Feeling Nostalgic

Besides nostalgia, there aren’t a lot of good reasons to install ICQ 7 at this point. The social networking integration is haphazard at best. As an instant messaging network, ICQ has clearly seen better days. In an age where good multi-network IM clients like Digsby, Pidgin, Meebo or Adium can easily connect you to all your friends on every network, there really isn’t a need to install a single-purpose IM client anymore.

Discuss

Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

Read Original Article

AS A contributor to the free side of a venerable publication which has charged for its content for over a century, I can understand that tough situation in which the New York Times finds itself. Its website is one of the top online news sites, visited by millions of readers, and its news stories are among the most cited source materials on the web. To maintain that preeminent position, open and free access to stories would seem crucial. And yet, the bills must be paid. The hope is to try and find a pay model consistent with the maintenance of the dominant web position, but it’s not clear that that sweet spot is manageable.

The Times will give a pay-wall another go, it seems. New York Magazine writes that the paper is ready to use a system not unlike that at the Financial Times, where readers can access a certain number of pieces each month for free, after which they must pay. Kevin Drum has good comments here. Felix Salmon muses on what an ideal system might look like here:

The NYT system should instead simply measure how much you used the site last month, and then bill you; my guess is that Apple, when it releases its new tablet later this month, will also unveil a system which makes it very easy to link your nytimes.com account to your iTunes account so that your NYT bill will simply get added on to your iTunes bill along with your apps and TV shows and music and ringtones. The NYT itself won’t even need to collect your credit-card information. Once you reach a certain maximum billing level for the year, the NYT and Apple will just stop billing you.

The comparison with iTunes is interesting. For a while, it seemed as though free access to all music was an inevitable development, but pay music sites seem to have found a workable model, for the time being at least. Perhaps that model can be extended to include news.

The problem there is that the valuable good—the song—is a copyright-able piece of information. It was possible to make consumers feel bad about getting something legally protected for free, and it was possible to prosecute violators. Once a simple and affordable pay system arrived, the music theft penalities and stigma helped it become a sustainable system.

But news can’t be protected by copyright. Once the New York Times reports a story, there is nothing to stop a paying subscriber from distilling the key information into an easily digestible blog post, which can be made available for free. Indeed, if the New York Times takes itself out of the free online news business, that just increases the incentive for other start-up firms to collect, aggregate, and publish the key details faster and more effectively. Since such businesses would have very low overhead, they’d only need to capture a small share of the Times‘ readership to make a profit, and to drain the Times of potential customers.

To make its model work, the Times needs to produce work over which it can assert a property right, and news discovery doesn’t count. That’s why I tend to think that the news sites that will survive will be those that develop a specialty in protectable content—the actual writing, for instance, or a networking experience. And ultimately, reporting will not survive as a for-profit business.

That, at least, is what the economics would seem to suggest. But perhaps one news organisation or another will prove me wrong.

Alameda County, California | Unique Collections

Once called Bagatelle, pinball descended from billiards and other table games of the mid-1700s. But pinball was first patented in 1871 by Montague Redgrave who added the spring-loaded plunger to start the game.

During the Depression, pinball popularity boomed. A coin-operated version sold for $17.50, so saloons and drugstores quickly made back their investment on this table-top game.

However, because of its association with gambling, pinball machines were banned in many large American cities, like New York and Los Angeles, in the 1940s. By the mid-70s the laws were overturned when a pinball-defender proved that pinball was a game of skill, not a game of luck.

The Pacific Pinball Museum outside of Oakland offers over 90 “playable, historic pinball machines” with the signature lights, bells and whistles of the greatest models. Like most museums, the PPM owns a much larger collection – over 400 machines! – but only some are available for the public to see.

From Oct. 1 – 3, 2010, the Pacific Pinball Museum will host the Pacific Pinball Exposition in collaboration with the Pinball Revival Company.

Remember the $1000 “I Am Rich” iPhone application? Well, here is another $1000 app that actually does something. If you are an aspiring lawyer, it might actually be a bargain.

How could a $1000 iPhone app be a bargain you ask? Well, BarMax CA was designed by Harvard lawyers, and it’s designed to help law students pass the bar exam—so you know the information comes from a credible source . Plus, BarBri, a company that is well known in the industry for offering in-class test prep combined with a free iPhone app, typically charges between $3000 and $4000 for enrollment (they have also been involved in multiple class action lawsuits regarding monopolistic business practices).

The app is huge at 1GB—offering audio lectures, practice tests, flash cards and more—in short, everything you would need from a 2-month course. Obviously, the current offering is meant for the California bar, but there are plans to roll out versions for New York and five other popular states by the end of the year. There will also be a $500 version that features only multiple choice preparation. [iTunes and Barmax via TechCrunch]