Pink for Nano

The iPod Nano just got another colour added to the 8GB collection. It's PINK, just in time for Valentine's Day. Anyway, it's the same price and it's shipping now. Go to Apple Store to get it.

Heath Ledger Gone

Australia has lost one its great actor. Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment. The cause of death is still unknown at this stage but it is suspected that he overdosed.

This is a sad news for Australia and the world. Heath is to star as the Joker in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Brokeback Mountain.

Heath also had a daughter, Matilda with Michelle Williams his fiancee at the time. She was a co-star in Brokeback Mountain. The couple then split up in 2007.

Well Heath, good bye and may you rest in peace. We will all miss you.

picture from theage.com.au

Global Recession

Today is a bad day in the share market all around the world. Australian market lost 7% whilst other markets suffer about the same. US market is not open yet due to a holiday so it will be interesting to see what will happen there.

Anyway, Herald Sun has a good article about this crisis, somewhat a guide if you haven't been following the developments. Here is the article:

Market meltdown - what you need to know
By Kate Perry, NEWS.com.au money editor

BILLIONS of dollars have been wiped off global share markets since the beginning of the year as investors panic in the face of an economic slowdown.

The hectic selling has been prompted by fears of a US recession – with gurus from global finance powerhouse Goldman Sachs now increasingly confident in forecasting a US recession this year.

If the US does go into recession it will hurt global markets. The cliche about the whole world catching a cold when the US sneezes is grounded in history.

Goldman Sachs has downgraded its economic growth outlook for Australia on the back of its US recession fears. The bank now expects Australia’s economic growth to slow to 3 per cent this year, from earlier forecasts of 3.5 percent, before slowing further to 2.75 per cent next year.

A range of forces have combined to produce the new-year panic on the world markets, but it is chiefly driven by the problems in the US sub-prime market.

What is the sub-prime market?

The first step on the road to recession was the crisis to hit the US mortgage market –or the sub-prime crisis.

During a long property boom US banks and other lenders gave money to may people who had low income or no deposit for a home. They got their loans despite failing to meet ordinary credit criteria.

The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates four times starting in 2006. Over-stretched borrowers fell into arrears, forcing several major US banks to write-off billions of dollars in bad debt.

One American economist estimated that the total cost of the sub-prime crisis, including the write-down in bad debts, falling property prices, and money wiped off the share market could be as much as $US400 billion ($465 billion).

How does the sub-prime crisis affect Australia?

Australian banks and home loan providers borrow money from overseas, including the US. The cost of borrowing that money has gone up following the sub-prime crisis. Australia’s big banks have taken the unusual step of raising home loan rates independently of a move by the Reserve Bank.

The “R” words

Rates and recession are two words that strike fear into the hearts of property and equity investors.

Unemployment is rising, property prices are falling, and Wall Street is plunging. In an effort to stimulate spending George W. Bush is considering pumping up to $US150 billion into the economy.

The US Federal Reserve has also said it would consider dropping interest rates if necessary.

In contrast to the US Federal Reserve, the Australia central bank continues to talk up interest rates. The Reserve Bank last raised rates in November to 6.75 per cent. It next meets on February 5 and while it was recently thought another rate rise was likely, the board will have some serious reflection to do before deciding to inflict another hike on Australians.

One of the RBA’s key tasks is to keep inflation, or the rate of price rises, within a range of 2-3 per cent. Fresh inflation data is due out tomorrow and if the figure is high, a rate hike is more likely because of the handbrake effect that rate rises have on spending.

Yesterday the Rudd government announced a package aimed at getting inflation under control.

Global turmoil

Markets have plunged around the world, with European markets reporting their biggest falls since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The German DAX index fell 7.2pc overnight, while London’s FTSE was down 5.5 pc.

Wall St was closed yesterday due to the Martin Luther King holiday, but the futures market is pointing to another huge drop when trading resumes today. The Dow Jones futures market is down 4.5 per cent, and the S&P 500 futures market is down 4.7 per cent.: In-depth latest

Original article here.

HD DVD Player Price Drop

Toshiba will cut their HD-DVD players in Australia following a press release today. This will replace the current cashback offer and/or redemptions. The new prices for the players are:

• HD-E1: $299 with 4 free movies (box: 1 + redemption: 3)
• HD-EP10: $399 with 6 free movies (box: 1 + redemption: 5)
  
• HD-XE1: $599 with 11 free movies (box: 1 + redemption: 10)

Redemption titles is still unknown at this stage but expect to hear more in the next couple of days.

This is excellent news considering Australia rarely get any price cut. XE1 which is the top of the line player gets more than 50% price cut. It used to retail for $1399. Toshiba has cut the prices in the US as well a couple of weeks ago in the wake of Warner's decision to go Blu-Ray exclusive and a shift in marketing focus.

I was considering to get a dedicated player for HD-DVD but opted to wait cause of the prices in Australia. At one stage, I even wanted to import one from the US. But now, it seems that I can get a local one.

The press release can be read here.

No Caffeine for Mum-To-Be

A new research in the US has found the link between miscarriage and caffeine. Women who drink two or more glasses of coffee (200 mg of caffeine or more) during their pregnancy double their risk of miscarriage. So if you are pregnant that's one more thing to add on the 'no drinking' list.

So you think I'm not just making it up, Herald Sun covers the story here and the researcher is Dr De-Kun Li of Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. This study will be published in American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Hamish and Andy Back for 2008

Hamish and Andy are back for 2008. They started their first show yesterday and will continue on their normal time slot 4-6pm.

I've got to say these guys are pretty hilarious. In 2007, they did quite some amazing stuff. They lived together as a conjoined twins for a week, they went to a nudist colony, Hamish did a marathon to beat Katie Holmes, Hamish had to wear a helmet for a week (cause he lost in the celebrity GP), Andy hooked up with Megan Gale, they all went in a caravan of courage all over Australia and the list goes on.

In 2008, they promised more to come. Their first show in 2008 was really a cracker. Hamish got to the bottom of Andy's alleged proposal to Megan. They also chatted with a paparazzi. They even had a recap of 2008, what a year it has been. But the best bit that I love was the song that they made for Corey, the infamous party boy.

In my opinion, it's nice listening to them not because of their 'silly stunts' but because they are two best mates that just want to have fun. They sure made me laugh. Anyway, you can podcast their show if you miss anything from their website or straight from iTunes.

Their regular show is 4-6pm weekdays on Fox FM in Melbourne (other state it's on the Austereo radio network so I think it's 2day for Sydney etc). Make sure you don't miss these boys.

picture from fox.com.au

Coincidently, this is also my 200th post. Yay.

No More Boost Discount

From the 1st of February you can throw your Boost VIBE card cause it'll be worthless. There will be no more discount from February.

If you don't already know, VIBE is loyalty card from Boost Juice Bars that can be used to get 10% off their products. To get the VIBE card, you have to collect 10 stamps from buying a juice/smoothie at Boost.

Janine Allis sent an email about this earlier in the week, here is what she has to say.

Dear Very Important Boost Enthusiasts,

Over the last few years we have been fortunate enough to give our VIBE club members a 10% discount on our range of juices and smoothies.

Unfortunately due to the drought in Australia, the cost of making you the freshest juices and smoothies has gone up substantially, especially in the last 12 months; so much so that we have had to make a tough decision... either put our prices up, or keep them at the existing price and remove the 10% discount for VIBE members. We have chosen to remove the 10% VIBE discount, effective 1st February 2008. You can, however, still enjoy the benefits of the Boost loyalty stamp card (buy 10 and get the 11th free)

Our VIBE club remains with great monthly specials and exclusive offers to members, such as the VIBE Challenge and your free Birthday Boost. Should the drought break and the cost of our ingredients come back down, we will review the 10% discount again.

Thanks again for your loyalty to Boost, and for any feedback you would like to make regarding this please feel free to email me at janine@boostjuicebars.com

Janine Allis

Founder

Well Janine, we are devastated. But that's OK, at least you could still buy 10 get 1 free. Back to collecting stamps then.

BMW Hydrogen 7

I guess by now everybody should know that our world is in dire need to be saved. Being 'green' is the talk of the town (world even) because the issue of global warming is here now and if we don't do anything, we will be in danger.

Cars are one of the main contributor to global warming but this might change in the future. Innovations are coming from all the car companies to build a better car and one example of this is BMW.

BMW Hydrogen 7, that's the new name for the car that emits water instead of carbon dioxide, monoxide, etc. And if you're in Melbourne, you're in luck. You can see this machine in flesh at Federation Square starting from the 21st of January until the 28th of January. Admission is free and it's open 11am to 3pm daily. It is also open during the Australia Day weekend.

If you want to see the BMW Hydrogen 7 website, click here.

Apple Has Done it Again

Well, 2008 and another Macworld just went underway. As always, Apple uses the event to launch its exciting new products. Well this year there are 4 things.

1. Time Capsule
It's basically a wireless network router which is equipped with a hard disk for back-up purposes. This product complements Time Machine, a feature available on the current Mac OS X, Leopard. It comes in two sizes, 500GB and 1TB, which should plenty (for now).

2. Software Upgrade
More apps (applications) for the iPhone (which sadly is irrelevant to us in Australia) and iPod Touch. Several apps are added to both hardware. iPhone users get free upgrade whereas iPod Touch users must pay US$20 (don't know the Aussie equivalent yet) for the upgrade.

The cool thing is the Maps app. Why ? Because it can pinpoint your location with a new technology. It does not use GPS because none of the hardware has a GPS receiver. On the iPhone, it uses cell-tower triangulation and Wi-Fi triangulation whereas the iPod Touch only uses the latter.

Cell tower triangulation is pretty obvious, it finds several cell towers, triangulate it and find your position (Apple is working with Google on this one). Wi-Fi triangulation uses Wi-Fi hotspots to determine your location. So basically there's this company that has the list of hotspots locations and they have them in the database. To determine your location, the device will see your nearest Wi-Fi spots, triangulate it and cross reference with the database so that you can be found.

This is cool and could see the end of GPS (well maybe not) but I believe, the application will be further implemented to other mobile phones and GPS receiver will no longer be needed to get the "where are you now" functionality. As long as you have a Wi-Fi, you can basically know where you are. Obviously this will not work in rural areas or mountains, etc, GPS still wins here. But it's a really exciting new technology. Thumbs up for Apple.

3. Movies
Movie rentals from iTunes. Hopefully this will come to Australia. Our only exciting content in iTunes is just music.

To support all this, Apple is relaunching Apple TV with new features. It is now possible to use the Apple TV on its own without a computer (you used to need a computer to download content to Apple TV). I think it's great now. If the movies are coming here, I'll definitely get one of this.

4. Macbook Air

This one is the revolutionary one. A super thin Macbook, dubbed the Macbook Air. Just have a look at some shots below.

Just watch the ad if you don't believe me, it can fit into an envelope. If you're wandering what song is played on the ad, it is "New Soul" by Yael Naim. You can get them in iTunes.

It's super thin, lightweight with full keyboard (back lit), full display (back lit) and very very cool trackpad (mouse thingy). It is cool cause the trackpad supports multi gesture (with one finger, two finger, and so on). As an example, if you want to zoom into something, you can pinch the trackpad. Apple has incorporated the technology on iPhone and apply it to the laptop.

It is thin so you cannot change anything, no even the battery. If you want to change the battery, you must go to Apple, just like an iPod. Also, it only has 1 USB 2.0 port, a headphone port, mini DVI connection and a power adapter connection. That's it, no ethernet, no Firewire, no DVD drive nothing. It's suppose to do everything with wireless. That's why it has the Wi-Fi 802.11n.

All the features as you expect come with a hefty price tag. The cheapest configuration starts at $2499 for Australia. If you want to get the solid state disk (SSD), it jumps to a ridiculous $4500. This is because SSD is still very expensive.

It is also Apple's first environmental friendly product. The display is Mercury free, and case is from aluminum that is recyclable too name a few. You can watch the guided tour for the product on Apple's website here.

It is definitely an impressive product but I don't know whether I want to get it. It's very expensive and with a couple of hundred dollars more you can get a Macbook Pro. But if versatility is what you're after, then you cannot go wrong with Macbook Air. It's got everything and so much more. Pre-orders are already open for the product. Just follow the link/picture below.

pictures from apple.com

Happy New Year!!!

I'd just like to say Happy New Year to all who read my blog. 2007 was great but let's hope for a better year in 2008. Anyway, I hope to increase the level of posting in 2008 so wish me luck on that.