Starbucks coffee launches my Starbucks App for more convenience.

As if its stores were not ubiquitos enough, Starbucks wants to put a store right in the palms of your hands, for iPhone phones owners at least, in the form of an app. That was made possible with the introduction last month of two Starbucks apps respectively called myStarbucks App and TheStarbucks Card, available at Apple's store. While the myStarbucks App has been released to the general public already, The Starbucks Card is still in the testing phase, mainly in the West coast with yet no release date to the general public. In the other hand, myStarbucks app is available for download free from the iTunes store.
According to the NYTimes," the myStarbucks App, which is usable anywhere, lets you store the recipe for your favorite coffee concoction and to share it with other people." If you need some help with your selection, the myStarbucks App has a flavor selector that will let choose a coffee made with your favorite flavors like earthy or nutty. It also gives you a peak onto the nutritional information relevant to your selection.
And as you would have suspected, the myStarbucks App has a store locator built into it with multiple possibilities like search for the closest store or by the kind of amenities offered ( diapers changing station anyone?)
The Sarbucks card being tested in selected cities in the West Coast, is more intriguing in the sense that it will let people pay for their coffee via a bar code embedded on the phone's screen.Quoting the New York Times, TheStarbucks Card "works just like a regular Starbucks card, in that you buy credit then use it against your orders. When you want to buy a drink, turn on the app, and your screen will show a barcode. The store will scan the barcode and the dollar value of the drink will be subtracted from your purchased credit."


For more, see NYTimes.com

Using WI-FI as an alternative to cellular networks congestion.

With the popularity of samart phones these days, come a drawback in the form of clogged cellular network connections who more often than not, got more than they can handle.
So to help remedie the situation, some of the nation biggest wireless carriers are offering a temporary relief in the form of WI-FI connection from hot spots. With WI-FI, customers can bypass the carriers wireless networks and make or receive phone calls and deliver or access fast data in areas where they normally wouldn't.
In that regard, AT&T, the carrier with the most isssues with network coongestion, is leading the way with close eely to 20,000 company's accessible hot spots. Those hot spots are freely accessible as part of their monthly data plan to AT&T customers with Windows Mobile phones as well as AT&T customers owners of an iPhone or a Blackberry even though, many of them are not aware of that option.
To find those free hot spots, iPhone owners can download WI-FI locator apps like the free hot spots finder, WI-FI Finder from JiWire which will offer users a list of nearby hot spots based on their locations. Blackberry or Windows Mobile phones owners on the AT&T network, don't have access to such free applications, but for a certain fee, can download apps from either the Blackberry's App World or the Android Market.
T.Mobile, another big wireless carrier, also offers free WI-FI connections to its subscribers as part of their monthly data plan but for only about 10,000 hot spots locations.
But for an additional $10 a month, T.Mobile customers are able to place unlimited calls from any hot spot without exceding their plan limits. Unfortonatly, among T.Mobile 30 WI-FI capable phones, only 18 of them can make such calls and to make it even more restrictive, the Android powered phones are not among them.
Another big wireless carrier, Sprint does not offer WI-FI connections but instead is taking another route in the form of WiMax technology, in conjonction with its partner, Clearwire Communications.
With that technology, Sprint is trying to cover entire cities in an Internet cloud and not just some hot spots. That's why the project is slow going and is rolled out in only a few cities (Baltimore, Las Vegas, Boise Idaho, Bellingham Washington and Portland Oregon) with a few more on the work.
In cities where its WiMax is present, Sprint's actual subscribers would have to pay an additional fee to acces the network and they have the option to pay a $ 60 monthly fee for unlimited connection, or pay by the day to the tune of $10 for a full 24 hours.
Verizon Wireless, the nation biggest wireless carrier doesn't offer a WI-FI cellphone connection even though it is promoting a device commonly called MI-FI that for $100 a month, will enable up to five devices to connect to the Internet. But the catch there is , you have to be near a cellular covered area for the device to work.



For more, see NYTimes.com

Verbatim InSight is a stylish external hard-drive with high capacity storage solution.

Back in August, Verbatim, the world's leader in media storage technology introduced a new portable high capacity USB Hard Drive called InSight.
Beside the technical specs that we will visit further, the most striking thing about the InSight, is its sleek design that sets it apart from most other storage devices with more conservative looks.
In the functionality category, it is worthwhile to notice a very neat feature called the Always On display which is a blue digital display that automatically calculates and continuously displays the drive's name -which by the way can be customized to the user choosing- and the available free space, even when the drive is disconnected from the computer.
Taking about space, the palm sized Verbatim InSight comes in two models, a 320-gigabyte one, and a 500-gigabyte one priced respectively at $130 and $160.
Either model comes with a complete data protection solution from Nero BackItUp Essentials allowing full automatic system backup and restore functions. The backup software set up is easy to use, offering the user, the option to choose the backup frequencies, and features data encryption with password.

For more, see Gizmodo.com

Cake Financial is an easy to use automated financial service.

If there was a better time for someone to pay closer attention to their own finances, that time is now. But the recession and the financial crisis that have preceded it, can make it harder for a lot of people to afford, or even to just trust another human being with advices on how to handle their investments. That's where comes in Cake Financial, a San Francisco based small company which is offering an automated financial service written in plain English and with the aim to provide users, a custom design mutual-fund portfolio.
Priced at $99 a year, "the service, is designed to be simple, clear, relatively quick using easy to understand graphics and a step by step approach", according to the Wall Street Journal.
Cake Premium, which is the name of the service , works by automatically importing users retirement investment and 401(k) account information from a pool of 65 major investments companies, analyzes and categorizes his or her holdings, and then proposes how best to reallocate them.
It is important to note that Cake Financial is not a licensed adviser or broker and doesn't conduct any transaction on your behalf. It provides the practical advices and if you want to follow through with them, you'll have to go somewhere else to conduct the actual transaction.
For people interested in testing the service, Cake Financial is offering a free 30-day trial at Cake Financial.com.

For more, see WSJ.com

Femtocell devices extend and enhance cellphones coverage.

Most cellphone users have one time or another experienced with spotty coverage or simply dropped calls regardless of which carrier they get their service from. Over the years, there have been a number of devices intended to help with the problems by extending or enhancing cellphone service. In the past year, some of the biggest wireless carriers in the U.S. have begun offering new devices called femtocells that are small boxes that act like miniature cellular towers to improve the network's coverage. While Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel sell femtocells, AT&T does not. But here is a catch:the wireless carriers who do sell femtocells, do not market these devices as doing so would give a hint to a sensitive subject they rather do not want to talk about, coverage problem. So the catch is that if a subscriber really feel like he or she needs one, he or she will have to expressly demand for it. And usually carriers use the option to offer it as a last resort to retain subscribers who threaten to switch carriers.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "femtocells don't require special cellphones as they use the same radio spectrum as carrier's cellular towers to extend their cellular coverage by taping into a landline connection and routing calls over the Internet."
One femtocell can handle up to three simultaneous calls, covers up to 5,000 square feet and the owner can grant access to other cellphone owners that use the same carrier.
Sprint femtocell device called Airave is offered at $100 plus a monthly fee of $5, while Verizon unit called a Network Extender, goes for $250.
AT&T is said to be testing it's version of femtocell in three different cities without any mention of possible roll over date.

For more, see WSJ.com

Avis offers free-rental days.

Through December 13, 2010, Avis Rent A Car is offering what is called a future free-rental day when travelers book a car for five consecutive days. The way the program works, after the five-day rental is complete, a voucher for a "Rental health Day" to be used before June 13 rd, 2010, would be e-mailed to customers by Avis . One of the conditions is that customers have to be members of Avis loyalty program called Avis Wizard and register for the promotion at www.avis.com/rentalhealthday.
The program only allow the earning of up to three free -rental days generated by three separate five day-paid-rental periods.

Fanbase.com plans to be the web's largest almanac of pro and college athletes, built by fans.

Sports fans who can not get enough of their favotite team or players, or who follow some not very popular sports, like high school hockey, have a new avenue to satisfy their devotion, thanks to a new Web site called Fanbase.com. The site goals' is to be a sort of a almanac of sports of all sorts, be it a team sport or an individual one, professional or amateur. Fanbase will work kind of like a Wiki where pages devoted to former or current players or athlets or teams will be created and fans as well as the players themselves would be encouraged to review and update.
According to the New York Times, Fanbase.com "hopes that current and former athletes and fans will visit the site and upload commentary and correct inaccuracies, just as enthusiasts provide much of the information in Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database. "
To make the site more engaging, Fanbase holds various trivias and contests and is trying to fill it with as much videos as possible from some of the most popular video sharing sites like YouTube and with users generated content, be it video, written or pictures. The site organize various contests and trivia
Fanbase also is making it easier for its users to stay connected with their friends on other popular social networks sites like Facebook.com
Still according to the New York Times, "Fanbase plans to expand over the next few months to include individual sports like golf, skiing and tennis. After that, it wants to get really obscure, adding pages for high school teams and athletes."

For more, see NYTimes.com