Bad Odds on Internet Gambling
Investors dumped shares of companies related to online gambling on Monday after U.S. lawmakers banned the use of credit cards, checks and electronic money transfers in the U.S. online gambling market. On Saturday, the online gambling legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate as part of a port security bill. "Congress has grappled with this issue for 10 years, and during that time we've watched this shadow industry explode," Senate majority leader Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, said in a statement. PartyGaming, which is reported to be the world's largest online gambling company, said it will exit the United States if the legislation is signed by President George W. Bush. Another U.K. firm, 888 Holdings PLC, said it has stopped its online betting operations in the U.S., while Sportingbet has scrapped its takeover talks with World Gaming. Reports indicate that companies that could be hit hardest by the new legislation include firms that offer wagering in U.S. dollars.


Passing Through Airport Security in a Tick
Denver International Airport is set to become one of the first to try out a new scheme involving biometric identification for flight passengers. Denver International will receive free cards and equipment to trial the program from the Fast Lane Option (FLO) Alliance, a group of businesses including JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft and Saflink. The FLO Card is to be used by those taking part in the Registered Traveller scheme from the Transportation Security Administration. This scheme will enable passengers who choose to undergo a background check, offer biometric information and pay a fee to use express security procedures at participating airports in the US. Other future perks of the FLO Card will include first or business class access to select airport car parks, lounges and hotels, as well as certain travel discounts.

Motorola Fighting for 1st Place
Motorola has gained headway on the mobile market landscape and taken the lead with design like its Razr and Slvr super-thin phones. With its recently launched Motofone, however, it is no longer mature markets such as the U.S. and Western Europe that Motorola is targeting, but emerging countries -- a long-time Nokia stronghold. In Eastern Europe, Africa, India and China, where price is key but looks aren't necessarily ignored, the introduction of a handset that's about as thick as a CD case, and sells for as little as 50 euros ($63), could give Motorola the edge. The first of the Scpl (pronounced "scalpel") line, the Motofone uses fewer parts, multiple-function chips and more efficient software to cut manufacturing costs. The Motofone design means as many as 15 phones roll off the production line every second, up from five a second for the Raz. The increased production speed could allow Motorola to boost its 11.2% operating margin, or percentage of net sales after subtracting the costs to make and sell products, which lags behind Nokia's 16.7%.


$1 million reward from NetFlix
Netflix wants recommendations on how to improve its movie recommendation system, and is dangling a $1 million reward as an incentive. The prize, offered in a contest scheduled to begin Monday, is part of Netflix's effort to sharpen its competitive edge as it continues a bitter duel with Blockbuster Inc. and prepares for an anticipated onslaught of services that make it easier to download movies onto computer hard drives. Netflix currently has 5.2 million subscribers and is doing what ever it takes to attract new customers. To win the prize, a software program must improve the accuracy of Netflix's current movie recommendation system by at least 10%. The differences will be tracked by a program that quantifies how well the recommendation systems predict which movies will be liked or disliked by a profiled consumer. Recommendation software is expected to play an increasingly important role in electronic commerce as Internet companies expand their databases of past consumer behavior. As they stockpile more information about individuals' habits and preferences, online businesses theoretically will be able to make more money by anticipating what consumers want before they even realize it. To fuel the contest, Netflix is releasing 100 million movie ratings pulled from about 500,000 of its current and past subscribers.

Downloading Office 2007 beta
Microsoft's latest sneak peek at its 2007 update to the Office software package unveils a much more customisable interface for Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Access. As Microsoft fine-tunes the Office 2007 system in preparation for its delayed release, expected early next year (though that is not yet set in stone), we found the latest batch of some 1,000 touted changes hard to spot at first. The apps look the same as they did upon their last update in the spring. Still, some notable tweaks allow you to minimise the features Ribbon, to make blog posts from within Word, and to block would-be phishing e-mails within Outlook. And eventually, there will be keyboard shortcuts for every last feature within Office 2007; by comparison, Office 2003 provided shortcuts for only one-third of its tools. Microsoft says that any future changes from now until the product is available in stores will be primarily cosmetic.


The Video MP4 Watch
Shenzhen Adragon Digitek is offering an Anlong MP4 wristwatch. Pretend you are just checking the time as you tune out the ramblings of bosses/children/firemen to watch your favorite soccer team score a goal. The watch is water and shockproof and can play video for 9 hours, though the storage capacity is still unknown. Content is loaded via USB 2.0. We will probably see both Mac and PC support if the rest of the manufacturer's line is any indication.

Today's Site To Peek At:
Scrapblog is a great example of just how much can be done by web based applications. It’s a Flash application that lets users drag and drop photos, video, text and audio onto a background image to build scrapbooks that can be printed as a photo-book, burned to DVD, exported as a photoset to Flickr and soon will be exportable to YouTube and other video sites as a narrated slide show. The amount of smooth control over layout that Scrapblog allows is really impressive. It’s a tool that will appeal beyond the usual scrapbooking demographic and could be of great use in making things like artist portfolios and online graphic presentations. Even scrapbooking, though, is one of the leading folk arts in the US today.Don’t let that dissuade you if you’re an art snob; Scrapbook is lots of fun to use just for its web interface. The company was started by Carlos Garcia and is currently self funded. It will be monetized through printing photobooks, burning DVDs and selling pro-accounts. Some advertising may appear on the site as well. There’s a less sophisticated beta version available for free on the Scrapblog site today, but the site I previewed here will be launched before the end of this year. Scrapblog allows users to move and change the directional orientation of a long list of graphic elements, add effects like shadows, text and audio narration. It’s like having Photoshop Elements on the web, but with drag and drop image adding, multimedia support and bidirectional syncing with your account at Flickr, Webshots and Photobucket.

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