New models hit the pocket size projectors or microprojectors market.

Since last year, a wave of microprojectors also known as pico projectors, have the market place. They are pocket size gadgets that can play a video on an iPhone or some handful other smartphones and transform almost any surface to a 60-inch screen.
The first one to hit the market was the Optoma Pico PK 101 by a company called Optoma USA.
One year after its introduction, the Optoma now retails at most places for $229 except at Best Buy who has it listed at $299.
After all the buzz garnered following its introduction, now there are two new entrants in this niche market.
One of them is the Cinemin Swivel by WowWee Technologies and the other is the 3MPro1020 by 3M.
Both these two new devices are a significant improvement from the Optoma Pico and they are both hitting the market this month and strikingly enough, they both retail for $350.

For more, see NYTimes.com

Solution for moving an e-mail account when switching Internet provider.

With all the competition among Internet service providers and Online based e-mail services, the hardest part may not be the switch but to be convinced that there is an easy way to move all your e-mail files band contacts from your old account to the new one. Most people dreaded that prospect and until recently, just the thought of it, may have made them think twice before making the move.
But nowadays, thanks to the offerings of e-mail switching services like TrueSwitch.com, moving all your files from old e-mail accounts, has become a lot easier. TrueSwitch e-mail switching services is so proven that it is used by most of the major e-mail service providers included Google's Gmail. So lets say you want to move some digital files in an old e-mail account from AOL to Google's Gmail, the process could not have been easier.
Simply, sign up and create a Gmail account and go to your new mailbox. Once there, click the Settings link at the top of the Gmail window and next click on the Accounts and Import tab and then click on the “Import mail and contacts” button. A new window opens, asking you to type in the e-mail address you want to bring into your new Gmail account. Once you type in your AOL e-mail address and password, you are presented with check boxes you can mark off to import the contacts and old mail from AOL.
And according to the New York Times, "you can also have Gmail import new incoming mail from the old AOL account for 30 days — and even slap a label on the messages from the old address so you can keep them separate from mail coming directly to the Gmail address. Click on the Start Import button to kick things off. It may take anywhere from a few minutes to two days to move everything."
For more tips and information on from what other services can you make the switch, you can link to the the Gmail blog at gmail blog.blogpost.com .

How to unscribe from unwanted e-newsletters in Gmail.

With its popularity growing, Google's free online based e-mail service Gmail is attracting also another kind of crowd: e-marketers. While how your e-mail address winded up in the hands of those companies can be the subject of another debate, one thing is clear, it is never a pleasant experience to be on the receiving end of those unsolicited emails or e-newsletters.
Now, Google seems to have recognized the magnitude of the problem and is doing something about it by introducing a new Gmail feature that let you automatically unsubscribe from unwanted mailings with the help of one click. As of now, it is not effective in stopping every source of unwanted e-newsletters, but Google is working its way to get more companies known to be in the business of sending those pieces of unwanted mails, to, get on board with the program.
To use the feature, simply log into your Gmail account and select a newsletter or mailing-list message and click the Report Spam link. For companies that support the feature, a box should pop up asking if you want to unsubscribe from the newsletter. If you choose to unsubscribe, Google sends a request asking the sender to take you off its mailing list.
For more information, the Gmail blog has more details on how auto-unsubscribe works and what kinds of messages it works with at gmailblog.blogpost.com.

Simple and easy to create parental control over the Internet.

Nowadays, parents with under age children can feel more and more hopeless when faced with the omnipresence of the Internet in the lives of their young ones. Cyberspace can be a wonderful place for youngsters to learn and be entertained. But it can be a very frightening and dangerous place too. For that matter, all you can surf menu is certainly not an option. Parents need to set boundaries and limits on when and where kids may go online. But in most situations, that may be easier said than done, for the obvious reasons that parents may not have the time or be tech-savvy enough to work around the problem.
Thankfully, parents using a wireless home -network do not have to look very far than their network router. Many of the newest models like the ones from Neatgear , Cisco or Linksys include parental control features in the router's settings. Simply check with the router manual for its different features and instructions on how to change the settings.
From there, you can set up limits on how much surfing is allowed, but when and where to surf. With the settings, not only can you block the obvious adult-oriented Web sites, but also any given social networking or video sites.

Choosing the best phone when traveling to Europe.

For most Americans traveling to Europe, being able to make phone calls using a cell phone can be very challenging and frustrating. There are many reasons behind that fact, starting with the compatibility factor between the cell phones' technologies used in the U.S. and the one used in Europe. With the exception of AT&T and T-Mobile, the technology used by most U.S. major phone carriers is not compatible with the one used in Europe. So, if you are traveling to Europe, your best bet would be to pick a phone from one of those two companies that can operate on all the frequencies in usage in both sides of the Atlantic. Usually, those phones are referred to as "quad band" or "world phones." Once such phone is picked, the next step will be to find a plan with minimum roaming fees which can be very steep.
Another way to deal with the issue, is to look for what is called an "unlocked" phone which can accept different SIM cards. The advantage of such possibility is that you will be able to use a different SIM card for whatever country you are in, and have your phone calls treated as local.

Bigwords is a free iPhone app that helps find deals on texbooks.

On the eve of a new school year, college students everywhere are gearing up to face a dreadful ritual: where to find and how to pay for those ever costly textbooks. With college textbooks averaging $100 a piece, it is no secret that they represent one of the biggest expenses for college students who spend between $700 and $1,100 a year in that category. This is not new considered the fact that a 2004 federal study found that Textbooks prices nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004, rising an average of 6 percent a year or twice the inflation rate. With that in mind, it was just a matter of time before the ubiquitous iPhone and the ever growing Apple's apps store appears in the picture with a solution. It comes in the form of a free app called Bigwords from a company by the same name.
The the app works by taking the burden of searching for availability and price comparisons off the shoulders of users. Whether you are looking to buy a new, used, digital books or just renting, all you have to do is enter the books' titles, authors or ISBN codes into the app vast database and hit the price-comparison button.
From there, the app goes to work searching about 30 different sources like Amazon.com, CourseSmart.com, textbooks.com and figures out the best deal by taking in consideration, factors like shipping costs and any discounts you may be entitled to.
Searches can be customized so to look for books by their condition, exclude books from third-party sellers like the ones on eBay, or from specific stores.
To complete your transaction, you have the choice to stay within the app and do it right there or you can have your "shopping bag" transferred to a PC via e-mail for finalization at your convenience.
To make its point, Bigwords claims that the average saving is 66% for new books and more than 35% over online purchases made without using it.


For more, see NYTimes.com

DriveSharp software can train older drivers improve their skills.

As we get older, our brain ability to process visual information declin, which can translate to less capability to quickly analyse and act on what the eyes see. In our daily lives, one of the activities mostly affected by aging, is driving, which requires the tracking of multitude moving objects and not all of them located in our vision periferic.To help those older drivers deal with that fact of life, one of the ideas advanced today is to train the brain to think and react faster on the road by putting a user through brief, repetitive exercises aimed at bolstering his or her visual -processing abilities.A new software program called DriveSharp by a company named Posit Science, aims to do just that.
According to the Wall Street Journal, DriveSharp "is a pair of simple-looking visual memory games accompanied with some assessments tests." The company claims that its techniques have been deemed effective by researchers at improving visual processing.
Convinced of the effectiveness of its product, Posit Science claims that people who follow the program's instructions and use it for twenty minutes, at least three times a week , can cut their "crash-risk" by a whooping 50% and be able to stop their cars at least 22 feet sooner while going 55 miles per hour.
Maybe the fact that the AAA's Foundation for Traffic Safety has endorsed the product is a telling sign that there has to be some true to the claims.
Anyway, the Wall Street Journal which has tested the product, said that it is easy to use, work for both PC and MAC and is reasonably priced at $139 from the company Web site and offered at a discount at $99 by participating AAA clubs.

For more, see WSJ.com