Hasta La Gadget!

There’s a bit of a feeding frenzy going on in the mobile broadband sector right now with both Virgin Mobile and O2 pushing cheaper offerings to get you online, on the go.

Virgin Mobile has slashed the cost of its mobile offerings by offering ‘unlimited’ broadband from 30p a day, claiming it’s “up to 3 times cheaper than most other networks”. Starting from Dec 8th, it certainly is cheap, bringing the cost of a week’s surfing to just over £2 and £9.30 for a month. There are cheaper packages if you are willing to tie into a long contract.

Be aware though that the *unlimited* bit has a fair usage policy of just 25MB a day so don’t even bother trying for big downloads or you’ll be broke before the New Year with additional ‘per MB data’ charges.

Free vacuum cleaners! CoolBusinessIdeas.com is pleased to give out one KWIK vacuum cleaner from DirtDevil, to our readers everyday during “The 12 Days of Cleaning” promotional period. All you need to do is to follow the instructions here and stand a chance to win a KWIK vacuum cleaner!

What’s KWIK? It’s a small, lightweight vacuum with a USB charging system perfect for cleaning keyboards, small spaces and tiny crevices in the home, car or office.

More details below:

· Sweepstakes drawings will be held every day December 1-12
· Readers can submit one entry form per day to win a KWIK vacuum
· Winners will be randomly selected at 3 p.m. EST the day following the drawing from a database of eligible entry forms
· Prize winners will be notified via the e-mail address provided with entry submission
· The drawing is open to residents of the U.S. only

Click here now for the entry form.

We’ve covered plenty of wind turbines over the years, but most tend to be awfully conceptual or rather unsuited to consumer applications. Being eco-geeks at heart we’re happy to report on a new one that is both consumer-friendly and in production now. Mariah Power’s Windspire is a 9 meter tall vertical turbine intended for residential or commercial installation, capable of providing about a quarter of the power an “average” household needs (2000 kWh annually). It’s “bird-friendly” thanks to a relatively slow maximum blade speed (2.5 times that of the wind) and even includes WiFi so you can watch your carbon footprint shrink wirelessly. The company is accepting orders now, and while prices aren’t listed on the website (you’ll need to request a quote), we hear you can get yourself into a 2009 model with a 5 year unlimited rotation warranty for around $5,000 — plus customization if you want one in something other than “Soft Silver.” We’ll take ours in magenta, thanks.

[Via Digg]

Continue reading Windspire vertical turbine on sale now, aiming to capture the consumer wind power market

Filed under: Household

Windspire vertical turbine on sale now, aiming to capture the consumer wind power market originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After dismissing airport-destined full-body scanners as nonsense last month, the German government has decided to have another crack at the latest device in the game known as "security theater".

The T-Ray scanner, which sees through clothes to detect such hidden dangers as nail clippers and perhaps a ripe, potentially explosive Mozzarella di Bufala (yes, Naples airport — I’m still sore about that), has been nicknamed the "Naked Scanner" by Germans. The device renders a blurred picture of the body underneath the clothes, raising issues of privacy.

Now, remember — this scanner is likely to do nothing other than inconvenience passengers and add extra Euros to EU airports’ budgets. But attempting to discount the device on privacy grounds seems a little prudish. Here’s what the German Interior Ministry (irony noted) is doing about it:

 

Germany will begin laboratory tests in the next few weeks on full-body airport screening devices to see if they can produce images that do not show passengers naked. (emphasis added)

This is especially ridiculous when you consider the usual German attitude to nudity. I have spent many afternoons in German parks, and seen the rather scary sight of a big-bellied father, naked but for a pair of sandals, cooking sausages on a barbecue. That’s something the politicians should be looking into.

Germany plans lab tests for airport "naked scans" [Reuters]

See Also:

• Germany Says "Nein" to Full Body Scanners
• British Security Camera Can See Through Clothes

We’ve only just been getting excited about MSI’s U120 3G-packing netbook, but now it looks like MSI has even more interesting machines just around the corner. Apparently due sometime in January, the U110 and U115 will run Atom Z530 chips, drawing less power than the “typical” N270 netbook processor. And they’ll pack a hybrid drive system, with the OS on fast SSD and conventional HDD for user storage. Plus they’ll run the Poulsbo US15W chipset instead of the usual Intel 9456G. If that’s not interesting enough, there’ll also be Draft-N Wi-Fi, and up to 250GB HDD for the U110. The price is unknown, though a guess around $700 seems sensible, given the higher price of the Z520 Atom. [UMPCPortal]