Insurance Term - A

1. Accelerated Death Benefits: It is a benefit provided to life insurance owners where they can receive a significant portion (say 80%) of the death benefits in advance of the insured's death. This can pay for medical bills, or nursing home costs and other commitments so that others are not left with this responsibility.
2. Accident and Health Insurance: Coverage for accidental injury, accidental death and to bear the associated health expenses. The insured might be rewarded with limited benefits in the form of preventative services, medical expenses, and catastrophic care.
3. Accrual Taxation: A form of federal income taxation wherein a person who holds a life insurance policy gets taxed periodically on certain parts of the cash value accumulation of his policy.
4. Actual Cash Value: A common method by which the amount for reimbursement for a loss is determined. It is the cost of replacing an item after loss minus the depreciation value.
5. Auto insurance score: Similar to credit score there is an auto insurance score. A number used by auto insurance companies to determine how much premium you must pay. It is based generally on your driving record and also your credit score. Other important factors that influence the auto insurance costs are age, marital status, the type of car you use and whether you reside in a rural or urban society.

Why Dental Insurance

Good dental hygiene requires regular cleanings and check ups. Dental insurance helps you afford to keep your teeth in top condition and looking good for years to come.

About Dental Insurance

Different plans cover different needs. You can find plans that will cover everything from check ups to root canals, or plans that offer an across-the-boards discount for most dental services.

Choosing Your Coverage

Decide what type of coverage you need. For example, do you need coverage for braces and orthodontia or just straight dental? Do you already have a dentist and what to make sure he or she is part of any network you might choose. Then shop and compare to find the right plan or program for your specific needs.

More Reasons to Sign Up Now

It only takes a few minutes. You won’t find a better choice with more options anywhere else. And you’ll find the affordability of these plans something to smile about.

Using Dental Insurance

Dental insurance is rather unique. First, its low cost makes it highly affordable for individuals and families. Second, because dental insurance encourages and generally pays for regular check-ups, many people who purchase protection start to benefit immediately.

Finally, the price of maintaining a healthy mouth can cost hundreds ... even thousands of dollars. Should you ever need costly care, from filings and crowns to periodontics and orthodontics, your dental insurance will be there to provide benefits when needed.

So, if you buy dental insurance, you will probably use it. And, like millions of Americans who have protection, you'll probably be glad you did.

Using Dental Discount Plan

Discount cards are offered as a way to lower the cost of dental care. These cards are especially attractive for people who do not have insurance coverage for these services or who have inadequate coverage. Discount cards allow for unlimited use of services by using a dental network and are based on a discounted fee schedule. The cost of your membership card is small compared to the potential savings for you and your family.

IS an insurance policy which compensates lenders or investors for losses due to the default of a mortgage loan. Mortgage insurance can be either public or private depending upon the insurer. The policy is also known as a mortgage indemnity guarantee (MIG), particularly in the UK.

For example, Mr. John decides to purchase a house which costs $150,000. He pays 10% ($15,000) down payment and takes out a $135,000 ($150,000-$15,000) mortgage. Lenders will often require mortgage insurance for mortgage loans which exceed 80% (the typical cut-off) of the property's sale price. Because of his limited equity, the lender requires that Mr. John pay for mortgage insurance that protects the lender against his default. The lender then requires the mortgage insurer to provide insurance coverage at, for example, 25% of the 135,000, or $33,750, leaving the lender with an exposure of $101,250. The mortgage insurer will charge a premium for this coverage, which may be paid by either the borrower or the lender. If the borrower defaults and the property is sold at a loss, the insurer will cover the first $33,750 of losses. Coverages offered by mortgage insurers can vary from 20% to 50% and higher.

To obtain public mortgage insurance from the Federal Housing Administration, Mr. John must pay a mortgage insurance premium (MIP) equal to 1.75 percent of the loan amount at closing. This premium is normally financed by the lender and paid to FHA on the borrower's behalf. Depending on the loan-to-value ratio, there may be a monthly premium as well. The United States Veterans Administration also offers insurance on mortgages.

Reinsurance means one insurance company purchasing coverage from a second insurance company for a risk that the first insurance company is insuring. The best way of explaining this is through an example. Big City Life Insurance Company has written a $10 million life insurance policy on the life of Mr. Moneybags, the industrial tycoon. Big City is concerned that Mr. Moneybags’s death would have a material impact on Big City’s profits from the $10 million claim. So, Big City buys coverage on the life of Mr. Moneybags from Country Cousin Mutual Insurance Company. Big City decides to buy $3 million of coverage from Country Cousin.

If Moneybags dies in a plane crash, Big City will have to pay his beneficiary $10 million, but Big City can in turn collect on the coverage it obtained from Country Cousin. The two insurance companies will share the loss, with Country Cousin bearing $3 million of the loss and Big City $7 million ($10 million paid to the beneficiary less the $3 million collected from Country Cousin). Of course, both companies share in the premiums and profits of the coverage as well as the losses.

In the above example, Country Cousin is called the reinsurer. Country Cousin is not the insurer that wrote the original coverage. They are instead standing behind the original insurer. Big City is called the ceding company or cedant (sometimes spelled cedent). Big City has ceded some of its life insurance business to Country Cousin through the reinsurance arrangement.

There are a wide variety of reinsurance coverages that Big City can purchase. For example, if Big City believes Mr. Moneybags’s health is fine, but is worried that he might die from an accident, they can purchase reinsurance coverage only for death via an accident. In that arrangement, if instead of a plane crash Mr. Moneybags dies of a heart attack, Big City would still have to pay his beneficiary $10 million, but Country Cousin would not owe anything to Big City. Naturally, Big City would pay less premium to Country Cousin for accidental death reinsurance coverage than for comprehensive life reinsurance coverage.

Rather than Big City buying reinsurance only for accidents, Big City and Country Cousin can agree to more of a partnership reinsurance arrangement. Country Cousin could agree to pay half of any and all deaths Big City covers, in exchange for half of the premiums Big City collects.

Any reinsurance arrangement Big City and Country Cousin make does not affect the insurance policies that Big City writes for its policyholders. Mr. Moneybags will most likely not even be aware that Country Cousin has reinsured a portion of his coverage from Big City. Big City is still liable to pay its policyholders for insured losses regardless of the reinsurance coverage.

Reinsurance allows the insurance industry to spread its losses among more companies, lessening the impact of claims on any one company. This helps assure that a few big claims will not affect the solvency of an insurance company. An example of the value of reinsurance is the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York. Many insurance companies will contribute a share of the losses because of the reinsurance agreements in place. If one insurance company had to pay the tens of billions of dollars in losses alone, it might face bankruptcy. There are many different reasons why insurance companies might choose to buy reinsurance, but spreading of losses is the primary reason.

In the past, reinsurance of life insurance policies was sometimes called reassurance, but the distinction is largely a matter of history and has no substantive significance today. Still, the term can be found in the names of several life reinsurance companies, including our own (Munich American Reassurance Company).

It's amazing how quickly you get used to the silence. And yet, the absence of engine noise - apart from a fan-like whirr - is the main difference between driving the Nissan Leaf and, say, an automatic diesel Golf. Or maybe more pertinently, a Prius. Which is pretty amazing given how utterly unlike they are.

I've just been driving the Leaf around Bedfordshire, in suburbs and lanes and A-roads. Obviously it isn't a performance car, even though it steps off smartly from rest. It gets sluggish beyond 60mph, and top whack is just 90.

But it's meant as an econo-car so its cornering is, shall we say, unambitious, although to be fair the steering is direct and accurate. Instead Nissan has dialled in a nice, soft, stable, quiet ride.

The idea being you drive in a more stately and saintly way than you would in a petrol or diesel car, because range is more critical.

If you drive your ordinary car harder than the people in the official mpg tests do, you'll run out of fuel sooner. But then you just buy some more and get on your way.

Whereas in an electric car, if you run out of juice early, you've got to wait several hours to recharge.

There's actually fun to be had in the act of stretching range, by conserving momentum, thinking ahead, and avoiding the brakes. And it doesn't necessarily mean being glacially slow.

The Leaf doesn't only drive like a normal car, it does everything else you might need. Normal boot. Five seats (although the rear floor is a bit high because there's a battery underneath).

It looks odd in pictures, but on the road its range-enhancing low-drag curves aren't at all hideous. The cabin is full of fancy displays and electronics to coach you to eke out the miles.

Breakthrough performance, energy efficiency, extended lifecycle support and common socket Intel Xeon processor-based systems make them the ideal choice for compute-intensive embedded, storage and communications applications.

Lower thermal design power (TDP) and higher Tcase temperature Intel Xeon processor options are ideal options for low power consumption and/or compliance with the AdvancedTCA* form factor and NEBS level-3 thermal specifications*.

Platform configurations

These processors are validated with two different chipsets, providing a choice of flexible, dual-processor-capable platforms for a wide range of applications. These include storage area networks (SANs), network attached storage (NAS), routers, IP-PBX, converged/unified communications platforms, sophisticated content firewalls, unified threat management (UTM) systems, medical imaging equipment, military signal and image processing, and telecommunications (wireless and wireline) servers.

• Intel® 5000P chipset-based platforms are ideal for full performance and memory-intense applications by providing a maximum FB-DIMM memory capacity of 64 GB, 28 lanes of PCI Express* and accelerated I/O options.
• Intel® 5100 Memory Controller Hub (MCH) chipset-based platforms are ideal for bladed and dense bladed applications requiring less than 200 watts, including AdvancedTCA and NEBS-compliance.

In many ways, Volvo's C30 is the perfect blend of modern styling and retro sensibility with its aggressive front-end and that oversized glass hatch on the back. Now, with the EV model, it's looking better than ever. Okay, so we could do without the obligatory graphics up the side, but the wing on the back (shown below) gives it a smooth profile and, oh yeah, did we mention it's an EV? The car has been graced with a 110hp equivalent electric motor and 24kWh battery pack that's expected to deliver an average of 100 miles worth of range along with performance that, according to The Truth About Cars, matches the current petrol-powered version's. Handling too is said to still be taut despite a 260lb weight disadvantage. Volvo is pledging the car will be making an appearance as a 2012 model, though we're guessing lucky Swedish drivers will be getting a first crack at this one.

AMD Fusion's taken its sweet, sweet time getting here, but we're hearing you'll be able to get your hands on some Atom-beating netbook chips soon -- for instance, in this Acer Aspire One 522, which will reportedly drive its oh-so-glossy 10.1-inch, 720p screen with a 1GHz AMD C-50 Ontario APU. In case you need a brief refresher, Ontario's the chip rated at just nine watts, meaning we should expect some fairly decent battery life here, though possibly not the heroic performance of its 1.6GHz Zacate cousin. Aside from those specs, the Acer's mostly your standard netbook -- three USB ports, VGA-out, a webcam and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi -- though it does have HDMI out, something you won't find on the otherwise similar Aspire One D255. It's hard to say what it'll cost stateside, but a Thai e-tailer's ringing up a version right now with 2GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive for 12,829 baht (about $425). Wonder if it runs Android?

Chances are that we'll find out for sure next month at CES, but PC World has it on authority that BenQ will be throwing its hat into the overcrowded Android tablet ring early next year. The so-called R100 will be a 10.1-inch device, complete with a 1024 x 600 resolution touchscreen, an unspecified flavor of Android and a Samsung-built ARM CPU humming along at 833MHz. Moreover, we're told that the battery will run for a solid 12 hours before begging for mercy (and calling it a night), and it can also be used with a stylus -- you know, for handling both simplified and traditional Chinese handwriting. 8GB of internal storage, an SD slot, mini-USB port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a mini-HDMI socket are also marked for inclusion, and of course, an 802.11b/g/n radio will be planted right alongside a Bluetooth module. There's no mention of a price just yet, and a company representative noted that images wouldn't be available until the device "was officially launched.

Apple has released a special offer for their UK customers, that is Apple Offer Free Download iPhone App For 12 Days of Christmas 2010. That means the european customers can download free apps from iTunes.And this is a part of their Christmas 2010 special giveaway.
his Christmas season, you and your friends can download a fantastic selection of songs, music videos, apps, books, TV episodes and a film for free on iTunes.

Each free download will only be available for 24 hours.

You don’t need to purchase a single song from the 12 offered, all come for free to your iTunes store. This promotion will start in UK from December 26th 2010 to January 6th 2011. You can alos download free movies, music, music videos, books, and TV episodes from iTunes. Whether the promotion will be available in the US is not known.

The official iPhone app for “12 Days of Christmas” offer will also be available soon on the iTunes App Store.

You may not have heard of Ambarella factoring into the smartphone processor race alongside Qualcomm, TI, and Samsung, and there's a good reason for that: they don't do smartphone processors. Rather, these guys are in the business of making video and photographic processing chips, and their latest -- the iOne -- is a doozy. Starting with a dual-core Cortex-A9 at 1GHz, the iOne adds in an extra ARM11 core at 533MHz dedicated to handling camera functions and ensuring ready times of under one second. It's capable of real-time encode and decode of H.264 1080p video content at 30fps and includes a GPU that can run OpenGL ES 2.0 for what we can only assume would be the wildest camera UI you've ever seen. What kind of beastly point-and-shoot is this, anyway? Well, Ambarella envisions cameras running Android before too long, and when you think about it, the hardware difference between a smartphone and a digital camera is getting smaller by the day -- so it would make sense that this iOne sounds so much like something we'd like to have powering our handsets.

It's been awhile since we've heard anything official from ASUS about its 12-inch EP121 tablet announced back at Computex in May. That changes today as ASUS Chairman, Jonney Shih, promises an "Eee for everyone" at CES 2011 -- and that's not an exaggeration what with 7-, 9-, 10-, and 12-inch Armdroid and Wintel tablets expected. While the video doesn't show the physical EP121 first revealed as a prototype in Taipei, it does call it an "Eee Slate" (not an "Eee Pad" like before) while demonstrating pen-based input on the multitouch display riding Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system and a Core i5 processor. Naturally, ASUS is also promising better performance and more flexibility than existing tablets. Don't worry, we'll be getting hands-on with this beast in a few weeks before it hits retail sometime (somewhere) in January. Until then, you can watch the teaser after the break.

We already knew that it was coming to its home country of Korea in January. Now we know that LG's Tegra 2 Optimus 2X will bring its 4-inch display and 1080p video recording capability to the Android loving shores of Europe in the first month of 2011. The detail was hidden in a rather mundane press release touting the inclusion of 25 audio files (including 15 custom ringtones) from famed film composer Ennio Morricone, a man most recognizable for scoring those Sergio Leone "Spaghetti Westerns" starring Clint Eastwood. While we're not sure how this oddball partnership materialized, we do know that there are two kinds of people in this world. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig? So we're not going to push it.

The only official timeframe we have of an Android 3.0 Honeycomb release is sometime "next year." A little too vague for our liking and for a seemingly infinite list of manufacturers chomping at the bit to release their fully sanctioned Android tablets onto the world. Now DigiTimes narrows things down a bit with an off-the-cuff comment about MSI preparing to sell its Tegra 2-based tablets in April or May "after Google releases Android 3.0 in March." Of course, a March release seems almost definite what with Acer hoping to ship its tablets with Honeycomb in April as well. Hopefully we'll get this confirmed at CES in early January.

There are different types of insurance. Home, automobile, and life are just three of the various kinds of insurance policies that are available for consumers. Insurance, of all kinds, is used to help protect consumers when certain things happen. For the most part, this protection comes in the form of money. It can also provide protection from liability, damages, and financial loss, but in the end, it usually comes down to money.

Most consumers know that there are certain types of insurance that are mandatory. Many states require that automobile owners carry a minimum amount of insurance for each vehicle the person or business owns. As with some other types of insurance, automobile insurance can be somewhat broad in nature. In other words, you can buy a simple liability policy that will pay a certain amount of money to someone that you have an accident with, but will pay nothing towards your own damages. Moving up the scale, you could purchase a more comprehensive policy that pays for damages to both you and the other person, including medical awards and property damages. There are levels of coverage all along the way, and this is why automobile insurance can be considered broad in nature.

In the case of automobile insurance, the reason insurance is important is that it protects you from having to pay damages in the event that you are found at fault for the accident. Without automobile insurance, you might lose everything that you have, including future earnings in order to pay these damages. Most consumers simply cannot afford to buy another vehicle for someone should they severely damage that person's automobile. The same holds true for any medical costs that might be associated with an accident wherein you are found at fault.

With home owner's insurance, the minimum coverage level is often determined by the lender. Many home owners will add to this level of coverage in order to protect such things as their furniture and other personal items against loss. Coverage will usually extend to people who may be on the property should they encounter an accident and sustain injuries. Again, the importance of insurance is to protect the owner from legal actions that may arise from outside parties as well as to protect the owner from real property damage such as fire.

In the area of home owner's insurance, there is often controversy over what is known as flood insurance. Home owners should not assume that their policy covers damages due to flooding. This is often assumed by home owners and can lead to severe losses should a flooding event occur. The only way to know if you are covered for flooding is to ask the direct question to your insurance company and to read what is in the insurance contract. Thousands upon thousands of homeowners have encountered severe financial loss because they assumed they were covered for flood damages when, in fact, they were not.

In addition to personal property insurance there are other types of insurance as well. There are policies that insure against lost wages should you be injured; there are commercial policies used for businesses; there are specialty policies used for high-ticket items such as jewelry or art work. Some might suggest that there is virtually nothing that you cannot insure, but protecting yourself and your assets against loss is one of the most important reasons for having insurance.

UK residents who are planning to travel to local or foreign destinations should make sure that they are properly insured before their trips. Accidents can occur anytime, and travelers will be exposed to a greater risk of accidents when they are in a strange land. Travel insurance is important because it provides compensation for expenses that are incurred as a result of accident, loss, or theft.

There are many insurance providers that offer travel insurance policies to UK travelers, and they provide a wide range of coverage to suit the insurance needs of every traveler. Standard policies usually provide coverage for medical expenses, cancellation, loss of baggage or belongings, as well as personal liability. There are other coverage options that UK travelers can avail of, and these include coverage for high-risk activities, pre-existing conditions, travel provider default, repatriation, emergency evacuation, and valuable belongings. Travelers can get these extra coverage options by paying a higher premium.

The compensation amounts that are offered through travel insurance policies vary from one insurance provider to another. While some policies may provide compensation that is as high as £10 million for medical expenses, others may just offer £2 million. The compensation amount also differs for loss, damage, or theft of baggage and personal belongings. Travel insurance policies that offer higher compensation are more expensive, and those that provide better coverage and benefits are usually costlier, too.

The most common type of insurance for UK travelers is the single trip travel insurance policy. As the name suggests, this type of policy will provide insurance coverage for a single trip, and it is the best option for individual travelers who are making only one or two trips a year. Those who are planning to travel more than two times a year should opt for the annual multi trip travel insurance policy, because this type of policy will provide coverage for every trip that a traveler makes within a year, and it is much cheaper than the total price paid to obtain several single trip insurance policies.

UK travel insurance providers also offer discount travel insurance policies for family travelers. It is more cost-effective to get a family travel insurance policy than to purchase several policies to cover every individual in the family. A family travel insurance policy can be single trip or multi trip as well. Another type of travel insurance that provides good coverage at an affordable rate is the backpacker insurance policy. Those who opt for this policy will benefit from extended duration of coverage as well as special features that provide better protection for backpackers. This policy is also suitable for travelers who intend to stay in a foreign country for a long time.

There are also travel insurance policies for senior travelers from the UK. Senior travelers are not allowed to get a standard policy because they have a higher chance of falling ill during their travels. Insurance companies feel that they are taking a bigger risk if they offer ordinary insurance to senior travelers. As such, senior travelers have to purchase a special policy that provides better medical coverage and benefits, and such a policy is usually more expensive than standard policies.

Panasonic has introduces a new series of Viera TV in Japan with the G3 Series, and more precisely the 42” TH-L42G3.
This backlight LED Full HD TV comes with the possibility to record HD or SD contents not only on an external USB Drive but also directly on a SD, SDHC or SDXC Card.

Depending on the HD Video contents, BS Digital HD or Ground Digital HD, you will be capable to record full HD contents (1920×1080) at 24Mbps for the first one and 1440×1080 at 17Mbps for the second one, giving you respectively five hours and eight hours worth of recording time on a 64GB SDXC card.

The TH-L42G3 comes with Panasonic VIERA Link support, AVCHD support, Tsutaya TV, DTCP-IP and DLNA Support as well.

Finally I had the chance to get some quality time, a few hours, with Onkyo latest Windows 7 tablet, the 11.6” TW317.

Please remember that this is a “First Impression” and that it will require more time to get a better acquainted with the TW317, still having the chance to play with it for few hours and even had the time to wipe the original OS to install an English one it gave me a unique chance to test this baby.

The first things that will stick you is the excellent build quality of the TW317, this Onkyo tablet looks and feel great as well as being well designed. The TW317 is also huge with its 11.6” screen (1366×768) and yet amazingly thin with a total size of just 295x195x14mm only!

The screen is bright, clear but the plastic covering it is not unfortunately made from the best plastic ever giving you some kind of “chess pattern” and even some “dark spots” when viewed in certain angles. If First thought that I had to clean the censor of my Camera or my lens, but nope, there is indeed some “weird” spots on several part of the screen only visible when tilting the screen.

The Onkyo TW317 comes with an Atom N450 CPU at 1.66GHz, 1GB of RAM and a 32GB Sandisk SSD, and to be frank, these may be a bit too light for running Windows 7, giving for example slow response time when tilting the screen in order to change the tablet screen rotation (See Video). The Touch panel is “OK”, but not amazingly responsive neither.

Bottom line, the TW317 is a promising tablet, but it would have been better with 2GB of RAM and a better CPU when installed with Windows 7. Unfortunately, the TW317 is only available with the N450 ATOM and cannot have its RAM or internal battery upgraded.
Maybe, just Maybe, the TW317 in its actual specs would have been better running on Ubuntu or any other Linux OS than Microsoft still “over weight” but very capable Windows 7 OS.

This morning, our beloved assistant Maki, came to us with a rather unusual bug on her Shiny new iPhone 4 with a “Ghost” Q icon on the upper left corner on the screen.
After checked with Maki what she could have done to get this rather unusual icon there on the top left of her iPhone screen, she just told us that she was typing an email before putting back into her bag her iPhone 4, and when she arrived at the office this morning she found out that a Q icon was stuck on her screen.

We took a quick (Q for quick?) Screenshot of her iPhone, before trying to play with the phone itself. While the Q icon was not responding to any finger input, it disappeared just after we reseted the phone… Not sure that this is all about, but with the 4 iPhone 4 we have here at the office this is the first time we’ve seen this, but what about you guys? Did you ever seen this kind of behavior before on your iPhone 4?

How are you killing the time until the Nexus S finally goes on sale? Google's answer to that question has been a typically outlandish affair, involving seven Nexi, a collection of weather balloons, and another quest to see how much can be learned from a humble smartphone's sensors when they're shot to the edge of space. Yes, the Mountain View madmen fired a week's worth of their latest and greatest smartphones through the Earth's atmosphere, hoping to test both the durability and the information-gathering skills of the onboard compass, gyro, and accelerometer, while dedicated GPS modules were installed in each "shuttle" (made out of styrofoam beer coolers, if you can believe it) to help recover the cargo on its return to terra firma. So far, only six of the phones have been recovered -- might this be another of Google's crazy puzzles? A treasure hunt for an Android fallen from heaven? Video after the break.

we didn't see this one coming: iGrill is a Bluetooth-enabled meat thermometer. That's right, this bad boy not only displays the temp of whatever you sink the probe into, it also takes that info and transmits it to your iOS device for remote monitoring. Hell, the app itself even features a kitchen timer, alerts for whatever temp you set it to, and more. Because really, you do everything else with your smartphone, so why not use it to free yourself from the tyranny of the kitchen once and for all? Oh, that's right -- because this thing costs $100. See for yourself by hitting up the source link.

Inevitable? Perhaps. But there's still nothing like seeing Linux running on a device for the first time -- especially when it involves such a seemingly hacker-friendly device as the Google Cr-48 laptop. As you might expect, however, that required a bit more effort than your usual Ubuntu installation (not to mention a flick of that carefully concealed developer switch), but it isn't too far out of reach for the average user, and the complete process has thankfully already been explained in a thorough how-to guide. You can also, incidentally, keep Chrome OS around in a dual-boot config so as to not completely break Google's heart. Head on past the break for a quick video of the end result, and hit up the source link below for all the necessary details to do it yourself -- assuming you're lucky enough to actually have a Cr-48, that is.

It's taken AMD a long time to refresh the top end of its graphics hardware, but today's culmination to that wait has to be described as somewhat bittersweet. Sweet, because we're finally getting a successor to the venerable HD 5870, one that offers improved power management and tessellation performance at a lower $369 price point, but also bitter because in terms of sheer firepower, the Radeon series doesn't seem to have made quite the leap many of us had hoped for. The new top of AMD's single-GPU pile, the HD 6970, offers 1,536 stream processors, an 880MHz core clock speed, and 2GB of GDDR5 RAM running at 5.5GHz for a total of 176GBps of memory bandwidth. Its partner in crime, the HD 6950, is expected to list at $299, for which saving you'll have to sacrifice some clock speed (down to 800MHz) and processing units (1,408 in total). There's a neat little addition to both new boards: a Dual-BIOS switch that will act like Google's hardware jailbreak toggle on the Cr-48, allowing tweakers to unlock the extra (unprotected by warranty!) performance headroom in their cards.

Early reviews all seem to agree that both the Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 have struck a very fine price-to-performance ratio. The 6970 manages to spar with the much pricier GTX 580, but given that it's priced similarly to NVIDIA's GTX 570, it scores plaudits for being a more than viable alternative. The HD 6950 is seen as the real value item here, however, particularly since it occupies a relatively unique spot in the price range, and most reviewers tipped it as their new bang-for-the-buck leader

The Japanese subsidiary of the IT marketing research company International Data Corporation released a report today announcing cell phone shipments in the third quarter in the domestic market. Mobile phone shipments increased 18.9 percent from the same period last year for a grand total of 8.66 million units, continuing a four-quarter trend of record growth in both the smartphone and dumbphone markets.

Sharp is keeping its four-and-a-half-year streak as the top cell phone manufacturer this quarter, with a market share of 18.8%, followed closely by previously-fourth-place Panasonic Mobile, whose 16.6% share is supported primarily by its handsets on NTT Docomo’s network. Fujitsu was pushed down by Panasonic but was able to maintain its 15.1% slice of the market, and Kyocera (“They still make phones?”) comes in fourth riding on their Au handsets with 12.7%, up 1.3 percent from last quarter. Apple, with their top-selling iPhone 4, hit the top five for the first time with 12.2% market share.

IDC Japan projects that the fourth quarter will see further growth by Sharp, especially with their new smartphones; this will push smartphone shipments in Japan over 20% of domestic handset numbers and also lend to positive growth in yearly figures.

Among the countless amazing videos on the Google Demo Slam page is one titled, quite simply, Skydiving. It depicts a bunch of Japanese people who set up a projector pointing downward, over which two victims lucky bastards are strung… and get to experience skydiving over Hawaii, at about five feet off the ground.

I suppose the initial starting altitude of the dive would make this a space jump, not a skydive. Also, the music is a big win.

LG Electronics, no stranger to slim TVs and displays, announced today its slimmest LED monitor, the E90. Measuring only 7.2mm thick, this 21.5-inch widescreen 1920×1080 display has a response time of 2 ms, which LG touts is great for fast-moving action flicks and sports matches. The power supply and D-Sub/DVI-D/HDMI ports are in the stand to keep the display slim, which makes it easier to connect those cables to this monitor; in addition, power usage is reduced as much as 40% compared to CCFL LCD monitors. Available starting this month, and the E90 will be on display at CES 2011.

The SHW-A170K is Samsung first NFC or Near Field Communication phone to be available in Korea. The SHW-A170K will allow users to make at first basic payment via the “SHOW Touch” NFC services available in subways, bus, Taxis, convenience stores at first and will soon expand its possibility to other services taking advantage of the Read/Write capacity of the NFC technology.

Specification-wise, the SHW-A170K comes with Wi-Fi, DMB, a 3Mpix Camera, a 3.2” Touchscreen and will be available in black and white.

Kenwood has announced a new iPod and iPhone speaker dock, the CLX-70, to go on sale later this month. With the landscape of home audio usage changing to incorporate portable media players as the primary hosts of media, this new dock also doubles as an interior design piece with its extravagant use of curved lines. It has a digital connection to the iPod via the dock connector (compatible with all dock connector models after the 2nd-generation Nano), a USB port and SD card slot, and FM and AM radio tuners. DTS Envelo Speakers provide three-dimensional sound, D-Bass emphasizes bass, and equalizer settings match best curves for any kind of music. Comes in pink, white, and black; 465x188x105 mm (18.3×7.4×4.13 in) and 2.7 kg (6 lbs).

Apple's flipped the switch on extending iTunes preview clips to the totally revolutionary length of 90 seconds. Only songs that last for two and a half minutes or longer and a limited number of artists are benefiting from this change -- which seems to be of Apple's unilateral doing -- and it's only effective in the US iTunes Store. Trust us, we checked our UK accounts and were met with those mediocre, entirely unsatisfying 30-second previews on everything. We reckon there's still a little more intrigue left in this tale, particularly when it comes to propitiating the record labels and securing international deals, but we'll leave those negotiations to the well shaven dudes in expensive suits -- for you and us, there's a whole load of Black Eyed Peas and Kanye West stuff to go and preview.

Truth be told, Toshiba Japan latest dynabook N300 is in fact a variant of the European version name the NB550 Series announced a few days ago.
Both models feature the exact same specs, same dimension and a nice pair of Harman/Kardon speakers. The only difference maybe is in terms of choice offered to Japanese customers with only three colors available in Japan including, brown, green and orange.

The dynabook N300 comes packed with an Intel Atom N550 proc, up to 2GB RAM(depending on model) and up to 250GB HDD. All that comes in a 10.31×7.46×0.65(front)/1.39(back) inches case [261.9x189.5x16.6(front)/35.5(back) mm] weighing 2.91 pounds [1.32 kg] battery included.

The 3d glasses market is expanding and innovations are coming on all sides. After Samsung’s prescription glasses, it’s LG’s turn to go a step forward by developing, in cooperation with Alain Mikli, a pair of luxury designer-made 3D glasses. They should be unveiled publicly during CES 2010, taking place in Las Vegas from January 6 to 9.

Toshiba launched few months ago an impressive dual screen, with the Libretto W100, and yesterday, they introduced a more “standard” tablet PC, with the FOLIO 100, a 10.1’’ (25.7cm) tablet device.
Targeting people who want to enjoy web-based content, the Toshiba FOLIO 100 is powered by the Android 2.2 (Froyo) platform. Fully loaded, you will find an intuitive touchscreen interface with 1024×600 resolution, 16GB On-Board storage capacity, a SD/MMC card slot, HDMI connector, USB 2.0 port, the Wi-Fi, the Bluetooth 2.1, an accelerometer, the DLNA compatibility and an integrated 1.3 Mpix front facing webcam. Note that Toshiba provides a 3G model that should be available on Q1 2011

Our tablet is only 14mm thick, for a weight of 760g and features an NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU. Toshiba promises up to 7 hours battery life span. Lastly, the Folio 100 comes with Opera Mobile web browser, FBReader, Evernote, and Document To Go office suite.

Available in UK for 329£ from October 2010.

In a figurative googolplex of names and programs, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Motorola(NYSE: MOT) unveiled a tablet computer Monday night at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference that runs on Google's Android 3.0 operating system, aka "Honeycomb." Only the tablet remains without a name.

Conference gawkers claim the Google/Motorola Honeycomb tablet has about the same footprint as an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad, though Android head Andy Rubin -- who offered the prototype peek -- provided few details.

After cleaning the tablet screen on his blue jean pant leg, Rubin demonstrated "the newest version of Google Maps," eliciting an "ooh!" from Boomtown blogger Kara Swisher at a D: Dive"fireside chat" alongside Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walter Mossberg.

Equipped with a 3D Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) processor, the tablet/mapping combo generated three-dimensional images with a slide of the finger across a screen punctuated by suggestive shadows. Though Rubin's fingers took full control of the map, his audience still couldn't "see through the windows" of buildings along the street -- "yet," he joked.

Windowpeak is an app, Swisher then quipped, "on the other Google engineer's launch."

Though the new Maps app will join Android phones "in a matter of days," Rubin said, the Honeycomb tablet will be available "sometime next year."

Significantly more advanced than the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, based on an earlier Android version, the Honeycomb tablet offers a "no button" design that allows phone and tablet applications to run more seamlessly and with a greater diversity of presentation, Rubin explained.

Motorola did not return TechNewsWorld's requests for comment. Google representatives declined to add anything to Rubin's demonstration.

Top Gear has crowned the Honda CR-Z their ‘Green Car of the Year’ in the magazine’s fiercely contested annual Awards. This new trophy brings the total to four awards in as many weeks for the world’s first sporty hybrid.

The CR-Z’s blend of sporty looks, agile handling and good fuel efficiency allowed it to deal with the bustling back streets of the Third Ring district in China to win over the judges at Top Gear.

This Top Gear honor joins the CR-Z’s fast-growing awards cabinet, which already consists of What Car? Green Awards’ Best Sports Car trophy as well as the more recent Japan Car of the Year 2010-2011 and Stuff magazine’s Eco Gadget of the Year title, plus Most Economic & Environment Friendly Sports HEV at the first RAC Brighton to London Future Car Challenge.

The 2011 Mercedes-Benz E-Class is fresh from major revisions last year, and the lineup has now been filled out with the new 2011 E550 Cabrio.

The new Mercedes-Benz E550 Cabrio features an innovative soft top that's nearly one-inch thick with three layers of acoustic sound dampening, leaves good trunk space, and provides wind protection with the top down. The soft top disappears in 17 silent seconds, as Mercedes says. Mercedes claims the E550 is the most affordable V8 four-seat convertible on the market.

The Mercedes-Benz E350 and E550 sedans, coupes, convertibles and wagons are a technological tour de force, yet none of the new technology is intrusive.

The essence of the Mercedes E-Class cars hasn't changed. They retain the feeling of robustness and engineering excellence that has defined them for decades.

The E-Class sits in the middle of the Mercedes car line, between the compact C-Class and the big S-Class. It's the company's best-selling car worldwide, and as such it defines the brand's essence. Every E-Class model delivers an excellent balance of passenger space, luxury, style and impressive performance in a practical, manageably sized package.

No matter how much you love your iPad, there will always come a time when you feel the need to prop up this hefty tablet while simultaneously giving its audio and battery a little boost. Well, Altec Lansing thinks you do, anyway. Like the $99 SMK-Link PadDock 10 we reviewed not long ago, Altec's Octiv Stage (or Octiv 450 outside the US) also provides a combo of swivel hinge and speakers for the iPad, but is this $149.95 dock worth the extra money? Read on to find out.

No matter how much you love your iPad, there will always come a time when you feel the need to prop up this hefty tablet while simultaneously giving its audio and battery a little boost. Well, Altec Lansing thinks you do, anyway. Like the $99 SMK-Link PadDock 10 we reviewed not long ago, Altec's Octiv Stage (or Octiv 450 outside the US) also provides a combo of swivel hinge and speakers for the iPad, but is this $149.95 dock worth the extra money? Read on to find out.

It looks like this CES could be a hot one for Motorola. Can you believe it was only a bit more than a year ago that Motorola introduced the Droid? Now it has a whole lineup of incredibly hot phones, and CES seems like a perfect time for the beating of chests in front of an industry. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha just went on record during a keynote at the Credit Suisse 2010 Technology Conference, saying Motorola will be entering the tablet space 'in the near future.' He also said that he sees both 7-inch and 10-inch tablets as viable sizes -- something that seems perfectly logical to us, and might jibe with how we initially heard of Motorola's "Stingray" tablet as a smaller device, but later heard it was a full 10-incher upgradeable to LTE. This all follow's on Sanjay's statement in September that Motorola wouldn't be joining in on the tablet space until next year, a year which is rapidly approaching. Meanwhile, Sanjay also confirmed that Motorola would have 4G devices "early" next year, which also sounds like a CES hint to us, though it might just be 4G modems and hotspots at the outset. Still, bring it on.

If you’ve ever shopped at a brick and mortar Apple store (which I’d say is a pretty safe assumption if you’re reading this site), then you’ve probably also seen their fancy iPod touch checkout system: EasyPay. These mobile checkouts have allowed Apple to take up less room for checkout counters by being able to handle everything on the iPhone, from card swiping to signing. The point of sale system is not only great for Apple, it could be great for retailers in general. Imagine walking into a store and never having to wait in line again because every employee is armed with a small iPod touch and is capable of checking you out from anywhere in the store. Sweet, ‘ey?

Well, that may be becoming closer to a reality. Gap-owned Old Navy stores are reportedly piloting a rebranded form of this technology from Apple to be known as ZipCheck. This point of sale system is the same that Apple uses in their checkout store but has obviously been changed to work with Old Navy’s backend. It’s worth noting that this news is coming around the holiday season. This could mean that Old Navy is pretty trustful and serious about this technology as they are going to be having a lot more transactions than usual over the next month or so.