No kidding. I want one.. oh wait... nevermind. I'm a renter (for now).

It turns out the rumors were true: Apple has begun selling the Nest Learning Thermostat in its online store for $249.95. It's the second large retail expansion for Nest in the past 24 hours, with the company announcing Canadian availability of the next-gen thermostat just yesterday. Apple is offering the device for $249.95 in the US — Nest charges $249 on its own site — while installation is available through trained professionals. Despite the Canadian launch, Apple is not currently stocking Nest at its online store in Canada.

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Just funny... 

I kid you not! You can enjoy such fragrances such as: grass, 2x4, and my personal favorite: MAN TOWN! That's GOTTA smell freaking terrific! 

Check them out for yourself and see if "Dad" gets one this Fathers Day! 

See them here...

Wow... another article stating what we have been saying in our podcasts all along... love some of it, hate the rest. 

I was very excited when I saw the first demos of Windows 8. After years of settling for mediocre incremental improvements in its core products, Microsoft finally was ready to make bold changes to Windows, something I thought it had to do to stay relevant in computing. What's more, the changes looked really nice! Once I'd seen the clean, modern-looking videos of Windows 8, the old Windows looked cramped and a little embarrassing, kind of like finding a picture of the way you dressed when you were a senior in high school (link).

So when Microsoft announced that it was releasing a "consumer preview" of Windows 8, I couldn't wait to play with it. So far I've installed Windows 8 on two computers, a middle of the road HP laptop and a mini tablet PC from Japan. I've browsed the web and used Office and even tested our new app, Zekira, on it. My conclusion is that Windows 8 in its current form is very different; attractive in some ways, and disturbing in others. It combines an interesting new interface with baffling changes to Windows compatibility, and amateur mistakes in customer messaging. Add up all the changes, and I am very worried that Microsoft may be about to shoot itself in the foot spectacularly. Even the plain colorful graphics in Windows 8 that looked so cool when I first saw them are starting to look ominous to me, like the hotel decor in The Shining. 

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Very cool! I have to get this installed on mine and check it out. 

Amazon.com, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today introduced a new Amazon Instant Video app for Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers that gives customers access to movies and TV episodes on their Xbox 360 console. The app also offers access to Prime Instant Video, a service with more than 17,000 movies and TV episodes available to Prime members at no additional cost. Customers who are Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers can find the free Amazon Instant Video app in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for Xbox 360. For more information on how to watch those videos on Xbox 360 visit, http://amazon.com/instantvideo/xbox.

“Amazon Instant Video on the Xbox 360 console is among one of the most requested video features from our customers, so we are excited to offer yet another way for customers to enjoy Amazon Instant Video,” said Anthony Bay, Amazon.com vice president for video. “With Amazon Instant Video on Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE Gold members can start enjoying new release movies, current TV episodes and Prime Instant Video right away. Our integration with Kinect for Xbox 360 lets customers play and search for videos with the wave of a hand or the sound of their voice, and our Whispersync technology allows customers to seamlessly switch between watching on their Kindle Fire and their Xbox 360 console, without losing their place. Also, Watchlist is a great new feature that lets customers keep a running queue of videos they want to see in the future.” 

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You have got to be kidding me... 

According to the report, when 38 Studios moved from Massachusetts to Rhode Island in 2010, it offered employees a relocation program that would see the company sell their old homes for them. However, "some" employees received notice from banks this week that they had missed mortgage payments on their old homes, at least one of which 38 Studios told the owner employee it had sold last year. An unspecified 38 Studios official told the site that it was trying to resolve the situation.

38 Studios' troubles first came to light earlier this month, when reports from the Rhode Island government indicated the company had failed to make a $1.125 million loan payment to the state's Economic Development Corporation. The studio eventually made the payment, but it also enacted a round of unspecified layoffs. Reports also surfaced that 38 Studios could not pay its employees as scheduled twice this month. 

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Here comes Apple! 

Apple just confirmed that its keynote event will take place on Monday, June 11, during the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). As usual, expectations are high — the event potentially brings a new product announcement or two.

The keynote will take place at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET on June 11. Apple typically kicks WWDC off with such an event, so no one's surprised by its appearance on the WWDC schedule. Instead, the focus is on whether or not a new product will be announced when Apple CEO Tim Cook steps onto a stage in San Francisco, California two weeks from now.

As I've explained when I reviewed what we can expect to hear from Apple, both at WWDC and for the rest of the year, the Cupertino-based company is prone to releasing major iOS updates during the summer. And besides, WWDC — as its name implies — is a global crossroads for Mac and iOS developers, and generally focuses on software, rather than hardware. So, if I were placing bets on what will be announced at WWDC 2012, I'd put my big money on iOS 6. 

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The netbook market has been slowly but surely disappearing, and now there's word that one major notebook maker is abandoning netbooks entirely, at least in the US. Liliputing.com reports it has heard from an unnamed executive at Toshiba that the Toshiba America division has no plans to release any more netbooks in the US.

Toshiba did show off a new netbook at CES 2012 in January, the NB510; however, that model will only be sold in international markets. For the US, Toshiba will be releasing Ultrabook-style notebooks, which are light but are also more expensive than netbooks, which tend to have prices below $400.

As the article notes, many other notebook makers such as Dell, Lenovo, Samsung and Sony have either officially announced they won't be making any more netbooks or have not released any new models in some time. Get the complete article HERE!

There are few tales in the tech business as sad as that of webOS, the groundbreaking (at the time) mobile OS by beleaguered Palm that HP bought for far too much money a few years ago. Sales of webOS phones never made a dent in the industry, and the much-anticipated TouchPad tablet was cancelled by HP before it even got started.

Then HP reshuffled its management and decided to make webOS open-source to keep the platform from going the way of the dodo. It would offer webOS to the world for anyone to use, and keep the team intact to make a serious effort.

Now comes the word that Google has poached the core Enyo team from HP, to end up doing who-knows-what at Google.

Read the details HERE!

Microsoft this week continued to push for the demise of Windows XP, arguing that it is more expensive for businesses to remain on the aging OS than it is to upgrade to Windows 7.

Pointing to a report it commissioned from IDC, Microsoft's Erwin Visser wrote in a blog post that "staying on Windows XP is an expensive investment when Windows 7 provides dramatic savings."

Specifically, IDC said that base IT and end-user labor costs associated with Windows XP are about five times as much as those for Windows 7. "That's a significant amount of money IT shops could put towards modernizing their departments and adding value to the businesses," Visser said.

Those prices are also still on the rise. "IDC found the longer you wait, the pricier supporting Windows XP gets: IT labor costs go up 25 percent in the fourth year of continuing to run Windows XP past deadline, and user productivity suffers as well, with an increased cost of 23 percent," he said.

Microsoft celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Windows XP last year, and promptly called for its demise. Support for the OS will end on April 8, 2014, so Redmond is making a push for businesses to switch to more modern versions of Windows.

PCMag has the details HERE!

Forget those years of grainy, washed-out photos from cell phone cameras. Today's higher-end handsets snap pictures that rival many standalone point-and-shoots. Plus, your phone is always in your pocket or purse, and as any photography enthusiast will tell you, the best camera is the one you have with you.

Still, it's a bit of a minefield out there as to which phones take the best pictures. Just as is the case with point-and-shoots, you can't tell from the specs alone. For example, the HTC Titan II is one of the first phones available in the U.S. with a 16-megapixel sensor. But in testing, we found its photos don't really measure up. In addition, even the best smartphone cameras lack optical zoom, and of course none will stand up to even the least-expensive interchangeable lens camera. Even so, you'll be amazed at the quality you'll get from some camera phones—enough that you can probably leave the point-and-shoot behind for good.

Read the details HERE!

Want to keep your email safe from prying eyes? Encipher.it is a free snippet of code that you can store in your browser bookmarks to encrypt email, or any block of text you enter on a website.

To set it up, direct your Web browser to encipher.it, scroll to the Add Bookmark section, and add the Encipher It link to your bookmarks bar. In Firefox or Google Chrome, you can just click the Encipher It link and drag it to the Bookmarks bar; in Internet Explorer, you must right-click the link and select Add to Favorites.

When you’re ready to use it, load up your Web-based email in your browser, and compose a message. Click the Encipher.it bookmarklet, and it will prompt you to enter an encryption key for your message. Include any string of numbers and letters you wish (the longer and more complicated your encryption key is, the better), but be sure to make a note of your string, as your message will be unreadable without this key (or some serious decryption software).

PC World has the story HERE!