No texting while driving!

In July 2008, hands-free was mandated as the legal way to engage with a cell phone in a car, and I made the case that it was a worthwhile law since human brains aren't really good at multitasking.

I assumed then that it meant that texting was forbidden while driving - ha ha! Today, as I drove in to work, I saw an electronic billboard on Highway 85 saying "No texting while driving come Jan 1" - It sounded like a joke to me, until I read about the new law! I guess people need to be told everything explicitly, like in kindergarten!

So - maybe we should pass some more laws, and they will actually be followed:

"No reading the newspaper while driving"
"No applying mascara using the rear-view mirror while driving"
"No watching movies with the kids while driving" - "Dolby surround" has a new meaning when you have 2 screens delivering the audio, one conveniently located next to the rear-view mirror ;-)

While we're at it, here's some more -
"No taking huge bonus as CEO when your company is going bankrupt"
"No killing people because they belong to a different religion"

A solid storage idea!

My timing was all wrong - (my timing is always wrong when money is involved :-))

Here, Toshiba is proposing a solid idea at the upcoming Consumer Electronics show - a solid state disk (SSD) drive that can actually solve real problems and move things forward, and there, I own Sandisk stock (that I thought would ride this wave) that's down in the doldrums. This sad, solid state, despite Apple moving the needle with its MacBook Air (which offers a 128 MB SSD at an exorbitant price) and smart phones becoming popular computing devices!

25% is what they expect the SSD market to be at by 2012.

With no moving parts, SSDs are silent, generate little heat, and can handle shocks and vibrations more effectively than standard hard drives. Data-transfer rates can be faster than hard drives, and booting a large operating system such as Windows Vista can be quick work for SSDs. In addition, SSDs consume less power compared to traditional hard drives and are lighter.

I should buy more Sandisk stock now? NOT! (My luck....)

Score one for coopetition!

Microsoft and Apple have an interesting relationship! 

If Microsoft did not create Office for the Mac, it is not clear if Apple would be enjoying the growing market share for its Macbooks and iMacs. If Microsoft did not invest in Apple a few years ago, despite being the "evil monopoly", would Apple have been in trouble? 

Today, even as the Microsoft Zune continues to (try to) compete with the iPod, and there are rumors of a Zune-based phone to compete with the iPhone, Microsoft announced availability of its first iPhone app, SeaDragon, at the iPhone App Store. This application allows iPhone users browse super-large giga-pixel images on an iPhone screen. Users can zoom way out or zoom way in, and access their Photosynth photos.

It will be interesting to see when the Microsoft applications show up on the Android market.