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Want Some Coffee with Your iPhone?
If mobile advertising is ever going to catch on, it just might look like a virtual cup of coffee. At least, that's what Starbucks hopes if the company's latest apps for the iPhone are any indication. If you're really addicted to your coffee and knowing everything about it, you'll love MyStarbucks. It lets you check out coffee bean varieties, build virtual drinks, get ingredient and calorie information for the coffee seller's drinks, and even find a nearby store (you knew that GPS in the iPhone was good for something, right?).
It's the second application that will let users put their money where their mouth is, though. Dubbed Starbucks Card Mobile, users can can check and refill the balance of Starbucks gift cards which also let you earn discounts, free refills, and two hours of free wifi. This app could even lead to the phasing out of the plastic gift cards entirely, replacing them with a bar code.
Some observers think this move by Starbucks, a major retailer, could lead to purchases made by smartphone finally catching on in the United States. Such payments are practically the norm in some Asian countries, but not in the US. And for those who are really looking forward to this new way to pay for their caffeine, you may have to be patient only 16 Starbucks stores, eight in Seattle and eight in Silicon Valley, accept payment via iPhone at this time. With one in seven Starbucks purchases involving a gift card, however, you can expect the company to expand the program as time goes on.
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Revolutionary New Tablet Due...from Microsoft
Lately we've expected to see advanced designs from Apple, but if the latest news leaking out of Microsoft can be believed, we may have been looking in the wrong direction. Courier, said to be in the late prototype stage of development, changes the traditional tablet form by hinging two seven-inch displays together. It's held open and used not like a laptop, but like a book.
Watching the demo video is an eye-opening experience. The multitouch screens respond to both fingers and styluses; users can write, move things around, flick images and pages to turn them over, attach files to the start menu, and so on. The back cover features a camera; battery life, wireless signal and other status signs can be found along the rim of one screen. The demo makes using Courier look as intuitive as using an old-fashioned paper notebook but on steroids, with all the enhancements you can get from a built-in camera, electronic cut-and-paste, and access to the Internet. Imagine being able to take notes on the back of digital photos, pull blog entries into a notebook for a project (again, with handwritten notes), and even giving collaborators access to your project journal.
So how long will it be before we get to see one in the stores? There's no telling; Gizmodo notes that it seems to be at a stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies. In short, no matter how wonderful it looks, don't hold your breath...and there's always the risk that it won't work as advertised. Still, it does seem to be building smoothly on ideas we've seen from Microsoft before, such as its Surface interface, so who knows? We'll just have to wait and see.
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The Future of Auto Racing is Electric
With more and more electric cars reaching the road these days, it's only a matter of time before they hit the tracks too. At least one car at the Frankfurt auto show seems to anticipate this. Designed and built by a German company, the E-Wolf e1 is a single-seat electric sports car that can kick out 150 horsepower.
Sadly, most of the green initiatives in auto racing focus on diesel and bio-diesel hybrids. So far, no one seems to have created an auto race specifically for electric vehicles, or even an all-electric racing car. Some people are thinking outside the box, but their ideas probably won't be accepted.
For example, can you imagine the cars in the Indianapolis 500 being limited to just 10 gallons of fuel? That's what Dave Despain, host of SpeedTV's WindTunnel, proposed recently. His hope is that this kind of limit on fuel will encourage development of more fuel-efficient race cars, and that such developments will trickle down to passenger vehicles. Who wouldn't want to see some Teslas and Volts and other electric cars roaring quietly, that is, since electric engines are all but silent around a track? It would certainly make more people aware of the technology.
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