Nov 05
In 2012 I bought an apartment specifically to rent out on airbnb. I’ve been managing it remotely for the past year. This post includes everything I learned as well as some revenue numbers.
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Aug 01
A few days ago Mercer, the global human resources consulting firm, published its current list of the most expensive cities in the world. According to their survey, the most expensive place to station an employee isn’t New York or Tokyo. It’s Luanda, Angola.
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Jul 13
If you love the idea of playing classic arcade games, but don’t want to be tied down to just a single machine, you could always build a MAME cabinet. But that doesn’t give you the exact controls and screen of the original machine. If you’re an arcade purist, you need to play on the actual machines.
But if you’re like me, you don’t have the money or space to dedicate to dozens of arcade machines in your home. Well, assuming this new service takes off, you may soon be able to play different arcade machines all the time, using a model similar to Netflix or GameFly.
With All You Can Arcade, you can keep arcade machines in your house for a rental fee of $75 a month each, or you can trade them in whenever you feel like it for another machine. Renters can select to keep 1, 2 or 3 games at a time. The site provides not only geotargeted listings of available machines, but tools for arcade machine owners to manage their rentals and deliveries.
The site charges no delivery or pickup fees to renters. Arcade machine owners keep 75% of all rental fees to cover the cost of the machines and their costs. While I’m not certain there’s a ton of money to be made, there’s definitely an opportunity for arcade machine owners to earn a little extra money from their machines – as long as they can handle the local pick-ups and deliveries without too much expense.
At this point, the service is launching with a number of games available for delivery and pick-up in the San Francisco and Sacramento, California areas, but hopes to expand to other areas in the future.
Jun 21
How much would a Leaf owner pay to banish range anxiety? If your answer was “$100 a month,” then Nissan’s got a proposition for you. The car maker is gearing up to launch a domestic battery replacement program for its EV in 2014 that’ll set you back that aforementioned sum. Similar to Nissan’s setup in Europe, if your battery can only hold nine out of 12 bars worth of charge, it’ll replace the unit with a new or reconditioned unit. The company insists that very few will ever actually need to replace the battery, but hey, squeezing $1,200 a year out of its existing customers is a sure-fire way to inspire loyalty.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Autoblog.green
Jun 18
Feb 16
We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is from Sarah, who would like a tablet, but only for one week a year. If you’re looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
“One week every summer, I go out of town for a convention that I work with. I don’t get a lot of downtime, but when I do, I want to stay connected. A laptop’s too bulky and a smartphone just won’t have the battery life, so is there a way I could rent a tablet with a 3/4G connection for a week at a time? Thanks”
Sarah, you’ve posed your humble narrator a real head-scratcher here. We’ve hunted around online, and found some web-based services that at least promise to do what you need. One that we are familiar with is Xcom Global, who will loan you a tablet if you select one of its MiFi plans, but it’s a service designed more for international travel than a short hop like yours. We found a few places, including RentOurTablets, RentAComputer and RentFusion — but we’re not qualified to say if any of them are any good. As a consequence, it’s time to turn this question over to the Engadget community. If you’ve got any experience of services that you trust and have used before, chime in and spread a little knowledge this weekend.
Jan 18
Amazon quietly introduces Kindle rentals for US readers, bases prices on duration (updated)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Think you can finish a 168-page novel in a month? It might pay to opt for Amazon’s new Kindle rental feature, now available on an incredibly limited number of titles. A few options published by Princeton University Press appear to represent the site’s introductory offering. The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking isn’t exactly a bestseller — we weren’t able to locate any eligible books from that list — but it’s a popular enough title, with a current rank of 1,432 (if the rental option takes off, that position’s likely to change). You can buy it outright for $9.99, or you can instead opt for a 30-day rental. Prices there start at $5.50, increasing by pennies each day until you reach the buy price (in this case, that’ll happen at the end of June).
This new rental option certainly seems appealing, unless you’re the type who slowly makes your way through a text over the course of a year. The feature appears to be open to any US-based Kindle owners, though you’ll need to do quite a bit of digging before you locate any titles with the rental option affixed. In fact, if you wouldn’t mind, do us a favor and share your findings in the comments section after the break — we have quite a few bookworms on staff who wouldn’t mind saving a buck or two.
Update: It’s likely that the book rentals currently available have been internally categorized as textbooks, which is prompting such an offer to appear. We’ve reached out to Amazon and are awaiting confirmation.
Via: Zatz Not Funny
Source: Amazon
Nov 14
Xcom Global starts renting Nexus 7 and 10 tablets, lets us keep the laptop at home
Posted in: Today's Chili 
International data services give us the freedom to leave our carriers’ roaming plans at home, but that’s only so much consolation to travelers who have to lug a giant laptop or cater to a digitally savvy family. Xcom Global is gambling that some of us want more portable (or just additional) gear for our travels: it’s offering daily rentals of the WiFi Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 as a complement to its usual hotspot deals. Paying $2 or $3 per day for the respective slates will give a big-screen fix to those who can’t get by on smartphones alone. Although the Nexus 10 isn’t available yet — something to do with the tablet only just shipping — Xcom Global is currently discounting the tablet rental rates to $1 and $2 to lure us in. Any reasonable extra fees might be worthwhile if they let us pack light.
Continue reading Xcom Global starts renting Nexus 7 and 10 tablets, lets us keep the laptop at home
Filed under: Tablets, Networking, Google
Xcom Global starts renting Nexus 7 and 10 tablets, lets us keep the laptop at home originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Oct 29
As a profit-driven network, ITV has its work cut out in the online streaming world when the BBC’s iPlayer looms overhead. How do you compete with a cultural institution? Its solution these days is one of sheer choice: it’s launching a publicly available beta of its ITV Player refresh that offers TV show rentals. While viewers will have free, ad-backed viewing for the last month’s worth of programming, they’ll also have the choice of renting 30-day access to archived episodes at 49p (79 cents) each without the pesky commercials in between. Anyone who just can’t get enough Collision can spring for a 90-day rental of a whole series at a lower total price, and the broadcaster is even planning trials of streaming-first episode premieres — if only we were so forward-thinking in the US. We’d question the wisdom of anyone who really, truly needs an uninterrupted The Only Way is Essex, but at least those who want fodder for water cooler chats can blast through their pseudo-reality TV at a record pace.
Continue reading ITV Player revamp brings ad-free TV rentals, keeps the free catch-ups
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
ITV Player revamp brings ad-free TV rentals, keeps the free catch-ups originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Oct 25
Warner, Redbox agree to 28 day delay on disc rentals, UltraViolet support for Redbox Instant
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Redbox and Warner Bros. were at odds in January when Warner wanted to extend the window before discs hit kiosks to 56 days, but now the two have come to an agreement that keeps it at a 28 day delay. When their previous deal expired Redbox said it would find other ways to obtain discs and offer them day and date to its customers, although actually finding them in kiosks could be tough. The new two-year deal covers movies that debut after January 1st, 2013, and claims to improve economics for both Warner (which has apparently seen fit to eliminate the delay entirely for brick & mortar renters) and Redbox. Additionally, Redbox has joined with the DECE team and will support UltraViolet with its upcoming Redbox Instant service. With the new deal, it can offer UltraViolet digital access to Warner movies, and distribute movies through its subscription service. We’ll have to wait for Redbox Instant to launch to know more information about that, for now check out the details in the press release after the break.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Warner, Redbox agree to 28 day delay on disc rentals, UltraViolet support for Redbox Instant originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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