Small Business Trends: The Death of Distance – “Telecommuters and remote workers are closing in. Recent improvements to enterprise voice-over-IP (VoIP) are promising to make the concept of location irrelevant.” The article points out that users of enterprise VoIP are finding out the cool things that can be done with it, not just the cost savings. Those cool things — […]
Top Technology Trends for 2005
My Home is a Hotel!
Frommers.com: My wife and I didn’t want to leave our bed at the Hotel Delamar in Greenwich, CT. Sure, we were having a romantic weekend, but more than just love was preventing us from getting up — the quilt and pillows made us feel like we were floating on clouds. A good hotel room is full of delicious stuff — […]
The Business of Renting Out Christmas Trees
USA Today: For years, Pat de Garmo’s Christmas tree was her aging yucca plant. She doesn’t like the idea of killing trees, and the size of her yard prevents her from getting a potted one. So year after year she strung lights and ornaments on the indoor plant, hanging toy drums and colored orbs from its stiff branches. For environmentally […]
China, The Toy-buying Country
VOA News: China is the toy-making capital of the world, sending $10 billion worth of toys around the world each year. Now, China is also becoming a toy-buying country. Christmas is coming and children are begging their parents for the season’s hottest toys. In Hong Kong, two little Chinese boys, both six years old, are very excited as their mothers […]
Vodafone To Encourage Customers To Shift To 3G Handsets
JapanToday: Vodafone KK President Shiro Tsuda said Wednesday the Japanese unit of British cell phone service company Vodafone Group PLC will encourage its customers to shift to third-generation handsets for faster data communications. “Vodafone will offer its last 2G handset next year and no more 2G later,” Tsuda said. Vodafone has lagged rivals NTT DoCoMo Inc and KDDI Corp in […]
M&Ms, With Your Name On Them
Business2Blog: The folks at Mars have now made it possible to print (nearly) anything on your M&Ms. Go to their site, pick a color, and type out a message. Yes, it has a censor, and the kids at BoingBoing have already had their dirty fun. Gift boxes (2oz.) for $4.25 and a less impressive 8-oz. sack for 9.49. So that’s, […]
Multisensory Relief With Snoezelen
Iconoculture: From autism to Alzheimer’s, patients are finding some multisensory relief in Rompa’s Snoezelen (SNOO-ze-len). It’s a cozy, therapeutic room filled with multiple colors and lights, soft music, pleasing fragrances, plush pillows, and other sensory stimuli that turns agitation into calm and confusion into comfort. A contraction of the Dutch words for “sniff” and “doze,” this European import excites the […]
MP3 Player for Swimmers
DailyCandy.com: Does anyone exercise without an assistant anymore? We’re not referring to that overpriced trainer. We mean the MP3 player. Ubiquitous wherever people are sweating. Except the pool. Too bad, because you love the payoff of a good swim: toned muscles, non-stressed joints, smooth skin. You just hate the tedium. (If only Zero 7 and DJ Vadim performed poolside …) […]
Knomo Bags
Tech Digest: The fact that Knomo won Shiny Shiny’s Accessory award at our awards evening the other week (yes, we know we promised to stop banging on about them, but we lied) will give you a clue that we’re great fans of the bags. We’ve not actually covered them on Tech Digest yet, and since the company is promising to […]
Why Which? is wrong about 3G
Mobile Digest: If you’re looking to buy a 3G phone this Christmas, Which? would advise you otherwise. The company has pronounced 3G not suitable for human consumption since there are too many problems with network coverage. The bulkiness of 3G handsets was also given as a reason to ignore 3G and stick to smaller, more reliable 2G handsets. Thing is, […]