Sobering

In the Winter of 2009, The Heritage Foundation will release a high-definition documentary that tells the story of the very real threat that hostile nations and rogue dictators now pose to every one of us. In 33 minutes or less, life as we know it in America could end. That's the time it would take for an enemy's ballistic missile to hit the United States. Hit this link to view the trailer.

NYT: Energy Goals a Moving Target for States

In hopes of slowing global warming and creating “green jobs,” Congress and the incoming administration may soon impose a mandate that the nation get 10 or 15 percent of its electricity from renewable sources within a few years.

Yet the experience of states that have adopted similar goals suggests that passing that requirement could be a lot easier than achieving it. The record so far is decidedly mixed: some states appear to be on track to meet energy targets, but others have fallen behind on the aggressive goals they set several years ago.

LAT: Charging ahead to push electric cars

A Palo Alto start-up company wants to electrify the global auto industry, one place at a time.Better Place created a stir last month when it announced an ambitious plan to install thousands of electric-car charging sites and battery-replacement stations around the Bay Area.

The idea is to jump-start the adoption of electric vehicles by providing places where people can easily charge them, leading, the company's founder hopes, to a reduction in global dependence on oil.Better Place and its competitors are betting that providing a variety of charging choices will help overcome the chicken-and-egg question that bedevils electric cars -- which do you build first, the cars or the infrastructure to keep them running?

If they succeed, the result could be the upending of Detroit's century-old business model -- an objective that Better Place founder Shai Agassi calls Car 2.0.

Keeping tabs on gift cards

The Irvine-based company hopes its online service, at www.leveragecard.com, will alleviate some of the frustrations associated with gift cards. This year, consumers will lose about $8 billion in unredeemed gift cards, according to Consumer Reports, which also found that 27% of gift card recipients have at least one unused card from last year.

Shoppers listed gift cards among their favorite presents to receive, but many acknowledged having a difficult time keeping track of their whereabouts and balances. Some had found creative ways to keep their gift cards in one place.

"I used to lose them like crazy," said Andrea McCoy, a corporate flight attendant from Los Angeles. "Now I keep them all in a Ziploc bag. It's not very sophisticated but it works."

Julie Foster, a Long Beach accountant, was so notorious among her friends for misplacing gift cards that one pal gave her a business card case for her recent birthday."When you lose several of them," she said, showing off the new leather case filled with 11 gift cards, "it adds up."

By registering a card at Leverage, users can track their gift cards online and are notified when gift card balances change. If a card is misplaced, a backup mechanism can retrieve lost card numbers.For those who buy gift cards on the site, there's a small financial reward: 3.65% in interest. Cards that are registered with but not purchased from the website earn 1%
interest.

"People might not be making $100 a year from this," Mathe said, "but it's definitely better than having dead plastic sitting in your wallet."

Can Facebook be worth $10billion?

They are joined by more than 100,000 new users a day – the company is set to triple in size this year. In America, more people visit the site than go to eBay and, to applause, Zuckerberg said they were working on overtaking Google.

Facebook has emerged as the star of the latest wave of “Web 2.0” internet companies. Now, Zuckerberg told Fortune magazine, he was about to unveil “the most powerful distribution mechanism that’s been created in a generation”.

It’s the sort of statement guaranteed to stop executives in the technology and media industry in their tracks.

In Seattle, Microsoft was clearly listening. The software giant has struggled in recent years as Google has stolen its thunder, and software services have moved increasingly online. Last week Zuckerberg was at Microsoft’s HQ, where he was reported to be negotiating the sale of a minority stake in the company for $500m (£244m). The price would value Facebook at $10 billion.

There have been rumours Zuckerberg may be holding out for $15 billion. Google, too, is said to be considering an offer.

Google Advances on Europe

“Googliness” is still important for Google’s operations outside the US, but it is incorporating local touches. In some countries, such as Russia, Google has struggled to compete against local rivals such as Yandex and Rambler. “Our support for the Russian language was not great, so we opened an office in Russia and got Russian engineers to look at the problem,” says Nelson Mattos, Google’s new head of engineering for Europe.

Meanwhile, Google is launching products such as mapping services, which by their nature require regional expertise. A team in Israel is leading developments that include reading internet pages from right to left. The company is keen to move into mobile services, in which London is a global centre.

Above all, there is a fear that unless Google is sensitive to concerns voiced by European governments it could become embroiled in long legal disputes. European data protection officials, for example, question the length of time Google keeps the results of search queries, amid concern that these could compromise users’ rights to privacy.