Thursday, March 4, 2010

Microsoft offers first Google Android mobile phone app


Microsoft has made an application that works with Google's Android phone.
Called Tag, the free software uses a handset's camera to turn it into a mobile barcode reader.
It is the first application Microsoft has made for the Android operating system - one of the key rivals to Windows Mobile.
Android is among the last to get the Tag application which is available on Windows phones, the iPhone, Blackberry and Symbian handsets.

How to save money on health care

When Heather Staples' 6-year-old daughter, Sophia, fell and cut her eyebrow, Staples knew her daughter might need stitches. But instead of running straight to an emergency room, Staples took a few minutes to compare prices at nearby emergency rooms.
"I have a high-deductible plan, so I knew that I would be paying for the charges out of [my own] pocket completely," Staples says. "Price was definitely a concern of mine."
Using a New Hampshire state Web site, she realized the closest emergency room would cost $500 more than an emergency room 20 minutes away। Since Sophia wasn't in immediate danger, Staples made the drive, spending $1,200 instead of $1,700 to treat her daughter.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/04/medical.waste/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Greece offers key new bond issue


ATHENS, Greece – Greece launched a critical 10-year bond issue on Thursday, a key test of its ability to raise funds to pay off expiring debts — and dig out of a financial crisis that has shaken the European Union.
The bond was already oversubscribed — meaning more takers than there were bonds available — within an hour of the book opening, with euro7 billion ($9.5 billion) in offers received. The government was seeking a maximum of euro5 billion ($6.8 billion), said the chief of Greece's debt management agency, Petros Christodoulou.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Gaga for Google Broadband

Jared Starkey is going all out for Google broadband. The day after Google (GOOG) said it would provide high-speed Internet access to as many as 500,000 people around the U।S., Starkey set up a Facebook page to lobby Google to bring the service to his hometown, Topeka, Kan. Since then, Starkey has passed out bright-orange necklaces made of the kind of fiber-optic cable used to deliver fast Web connections and rallied 100 people to show up at a downtown redevelopment meeting wearing T-shirts that play on Google's motto for the broadband plan. "I've been talking to absolutely everybody about this," says Starkey, owner of a small Web-design company.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2010/tc2010032_027253.htm