Toyota Motor Corp on Friday detailed plans to study U.S. consumer demand for a version of its hot-selling Prius hybrid that could be recharged at a standard outlet and run on electric power only.

A senior Toyota executive declined to say when a plug-in Prius would be launched or whether it could beat rival General Motors Corp to market with a technology seen as capable of slashing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Bob Carter, who heads the Toyota brand in the United States, said it was more important for Toyota to understand consumer expectations and hone the battery-centered technology behind plug-in cars than to race to bring them to showrooms.
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This is what I called a James Bond Pen! It’s a pen and a cell phone which you can talk while you write. Still in concept stage, the pen is designed to connect with Bluetooth headsets, a USB connector, microSD slot, an mono LCD screen to show numbers, day and date, and cell signal strength information. The are micro (and we do mean micro) phone and earpiece slots at either end of the pen. The only thing really missing from the phone is a camera.
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The possible gPhone prototype we pointed out yesterday named the “Dream” might just be this HTC Omni communicator. The first reason is that HTC’s actually seen and commented on the internal Google prototype, even going so far as to consider developing a real version of the reference design. Unwired View matches up the description of the device to the leaked specs of the HTC Omni, which mesh quite well in both size, shape and functionality. So is this the real “Google Phone” design? If so, it looks less like a phone and more like a fancy—and pants tearingly-large—communicator. We wouldn’t have our Google Phone any other way.

Facebook, the social media network, will become the advertising network tonight when it launches Facebook Ads. Facebook made the official announcement today at Ad:Tech New York. The new ad network fires a shot across the bows of Google, which is trying to take Facebook head on with its own social-networking platform call OpenSocial.

Facebook Ads is comprised of three parts:

• Social Ads: Ads targeted at Facebook members using their profile data.
• Beacon: Ad widgets that advertisers can put on their own sites that allow Facebook members to become product endorsers, and spread that endorsement to all of their friends on Facebook through their personal feeds.
• Insight: Aggregated profile information that is exposed to Facebook advertisers that tells them what kind of people are getting their ads and who is clicking on them.

With over 50 million users and a very targeted demographic profiling of those users, Facebook is going to be very attractive to brand advertisers. However, I have a feeling Internet marketers will be finding ways to make money off the new platform as well.

As previous post [cref 36], there are many rumors about the gPhone. No Google phone exists yet, but the search giant’s announcement of an open platform for mobile-phone apps is a step in the right direction. So when will we see the so-called Android phones from members of the newly founded Open Handset Alliance?

We have answers to some of these questions!

1. Will a Google Phone ever be made?
2. So what is this Android?
3. When will I be able to buy a Google-powered phone?
4. How will Android phones differ from today’s coolest smart phones?
5. Why is a Google mobile platform any better than an existing mobile OS from Palm or Microsoft?

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We already told you about it and now it’s finally put on sale in most European countries, it is LG’s latest smartphone: the KS20. Prada’s successor?
As a reminder, the KS20 is a 3.6MBps HSPDA phone, 12.8mm thick, featuring a 2.8 inches touchscreen, 2MPx camera, microSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, integrated FM tuner and running Windows Mobile 6.
If you want to know more, check the link to the dedicated website at the bottom of the page!

Source: http://ks20.lgmobile.com

As in-store video rental era has been rapidly diminished, should Blockbuster fall into the Deadpool? Unable to fight off new competition from say Netflix, kiosks, Cable TV on-demand, and losing marketshare to dastardly P2P downloaders, Blockbuster is losing money and it has closed 526 stores in the past year, and the number of employees will be reduced to offset high operation costs to the tune of $45 million!

Tell us what ya think… Did you got hit by those late fees from Blockbuster before?

If they are really closing, most likely there could be some huge DVD/Video games sales?! I’m waiting for that…

Google has just announced that it will work with leading technology and wireless companies to develop Android - the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. The main goal would be fostering innovation on mobile devices while providing them with a superior user experience compared to what they’re getting today. The Android platform will be made available under one of the most progressive, developer-friendly open-source licenses, which gives mobile operators and device manufacturers significant freedom and flexibility to design products. An early access software development kit will be released as early as next week, enabling developers to come up with innovating and compelling applications for Android. Sorry guys, no gPhone for you.

This 1.5 inch Mini Photo Keychain is a replacement for storing wallet-sized pictures of your kids printed out on—gasp—paper. Instead, this has 8mb of memory storing up to 70 (really tiny) photos. It supports JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF of file formats. A slideshow can run for 5 hours on a charge. [via USB]

Comes in three colors: Silver, black and red. A great little gift for friends or family.

• Display: 1.5-inch CSTN color LCD display (96×64)
• Picture area: view area (24.07 x 16.71) Active area (22.449 x 14.961)
• Button Interface: 3 control keys
• System: Windows 98/ME/2000/NT/XP
• Power Source: built in rechargeable Li-Battery