Source: Car Tech

Are you, like me, freaked out about the potential for car accidents now that everyone's attention is divided "between the road and what seems like an ever-increasing number of gadgets and other in-car distractions?" Burlington-based Nuance is looking to solve that problem with automotive voice-activation technology. They are testing "text-to-speech technology in select new Ford models in Europe" that will allow you to do things like change the radio by saying the frequency number or speak destinations into navigation systems. Anything to stop people from doing data entry while they drive is a good thing.

Source: Guy Kawasaki's blog

Want to do something meaningful for the holidays? Change someone's life. Kiva allows you to "make micro loans to entrepreneurs around the world" and in so doing, they have upended the idea of philanthropy. Go to Kiva, read the profiles, choose one and make a small loan ($25 - $500). Your money goes to that person and that person repays you with no interest. Done. How does Kiva sustain itself? They charge "a minimum $2.50 voluntary fee that lenders pay when checking out their shopping cart." As Guy Kawasaki remarks, "lenders receive no interest and pay a voluntary fee to Kiva in order to loan money. And you thought Google had a great business model." They sell gift certificates too.

Related:
Do it yourself microfinancing

Source: Boomtown

Have doubts about Facebook's "$15 billion valuation following a $240 million investment from Microsoft last month?" Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing doesn’t. He's the ninth richest man in the world (according to Forbes) and he just invested $60 million in Facebook, with the option to put in another $60 million. Facebook has tough terms - neither Microsoft nor Ka-shing will get board seats on the startup in exchange for their cash. But (kaching!) if you think there's a lot of traffic on Facebook now, what will it be if China comes on board?

Source: Wired

Want a Nintendo Wii under the tree? Don't get your hopes up. The Wii's "broad appeal - and a maxed-out supply chain that can't be ramped up to meet holiday demands - is making it almost impossible to snag a Wii at normal retail outlets." You can’t really blame Nintendo. Who could have anticipated the huge demand? And the game console business is typically seasonal, so manufacturers normally stockpile units coming off the production line during the summer to be ready for holiday sales. But the Wii is so popular that as soon as the units hit stores, they're snapped up. So even though they're making 1.8 million units per month, it will be a trick to find them anywhere by eBay…at $400-600 a pop.

Source: Trendwatching.com

Today our world is so dominated by physical abundance, saturation, experiences, virtual worlds, individualism, and participation that we actually have "feelings of guilt and concern about the side effects of unbridled consumption." So what's a "mature consumer society" to do? Trendwatchers say we are less likely to collect luxury goods to gain recognition. Instead we tend to our "status spheres," which can be transient (experiences and stories), online (avatar, links, gadgets), eco (going green), giving (philanthropy - not just for billionaires), or participative (DIY and status skills). Which spheres do you tend?

Source: TechCrunch

Google has plenty of experience running energy-efficient data centers. And they've decided to apply it by entering the green energy biz and investing "tens of millions of R&D dollars through its philanthropic arm, Google.org." Their goal? "To develop clean energy technologies that are cheaper than coal." Solar thermal and wind energy are two of their favored technologies. While "this has little to do with search or organizing the world’s information," if anything "good comes out of this effort, it will be well worth it."

Source: InformationWeek

To explain "how your creepy ex-coworkers will kill Facebook," Cory Doctorow suggests a new law roughly based on Brooks's Law which states, "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." (So, so true!) So Doctorow cites what he calls Boyd's Law (named after Danah Boyd a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society and an expert on social networks). Namely, "Adding more users to a social network increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance."

Surely this has or will happen to you. For "every long-lost chum who reaches out to [you] on Facebook," there's another person who you don't want to be around asking to be your buddy. So Doctorow isn't worried that Facebook will take over the net. He says the more people that join Facebook, the greater the chance that Boyd's Law will strike. And "when that happens, poof, away you go - and Facebook joins SixDegrees, Friendster and their pals on the scrapheap of net.history."

Source: Techno//Marketer

Fram is short for friend-spam and, unlike spam, it comes from someone you know. "On Facebook (et.al.) every time you do something, it tells people about it. You join a group, you can tell your friends. Add an application? Why not invite your friends to enjoy it with you? Each one of those interactions sends an email." Mulitply that by a bunch of friends, and bam! You've got fram. Matt Dickman blogs the top 5 ways to prevent fram. My favorite? "If you join a cause or group, don't invite me." Instead let me see it on my feed and decide if I want to join on my own.

Source: Wired Epicenter

A few Piper Jaffray analysts recently camped out in front of a mall-based Apple Store and found that "about 27 percent of people who came within 25 feet of the store" ended up getting sucked inside. While this gravitational force "did not compel them to buy anything, the analysts believe "the mere fact shoppers were drawn inside may be indicative of future purchase decisions," meaning they would eventually switch from PCs to Macs. Has Apple created an iBeam that lulls you into a brand trance? Nah. Apple just gets that good design drives a strong emotional response.