Donkeys in Israel get equiped with Wi-Fi

The Hotspot Donkey

It's WiFi for your ass -- the animal kind -- and it's only available in Israel. Yes, as unreal and inappropriate as that proposition may seem, an historical amusement park located in the Middle Eastern country will offer tourists the opportunity to tweet, email and upload photos on-the-fly from the back of a burro. Known as Kfar Kedem, or Village of Yore (sounds exciting!), the unique attraction attempts to reenact life from the Common Era's First and Second centuries, albeit with a healthy dose of wireless internet. So far, only five of the village's 30 available donkeys are currently outfitted with routers, but park manager Menachem Goldberg's toying with an expansion to the rest of his "fleet." Sure, a biblical ren faire might not be your number one vacation destination, but if you're in the area, there's no way you can pass up this low-tech ride back in time.

Content by:  Joseph Volpe - Times Of Israel.

The Shoking story behind microsoft's Downfall

 

Once-mighty Microsoft may be on the verge of joining corporate dinosaurs like Pan Am, Sears, Sharper Image, Circuit City, and Kodak

 After 26 years of redefining how we live, work, play, and think, the first shoe has finally dropped for the company that ushered in the PC age.

The once wildly profitable Microsoft just posted its first-ever quarterly loss as a public company -- to the tune of $492 million. Granted, this was due in large part to taking a $6.2 billion write-down on its failed online ad business, aQuantive... But whether the company's top brass is willing to admit it or not, the writing is most definitely on the wall... in the papers... and even in magazines.

Take Vanity Fair, for example. Its brand-new August issue contains a 7,734-word exposé that delves into exactly "how Microsoft lost its mojo," a recent overly hyped company event that turned out to be nothing more than a "low-octane swan song," and what's behind what the author dubbed..."Corporate America's Most Spectacular Decline"

Of course, one of the things the article points to is the meteoric rise of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, as well as the fact that Microsoft is always at least a full step behind Apple when it comes to innovation and new products. For instance, Microsoft didn't get around to releasing its own digital music player, called Zune, until November 14, 2006. That's five years after Apple released its game-changing iPod -- and just 54 days before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. 

Today, the iPhone alone brings in more money than every single product Microsoft has created since 1975 -- $5.3 billion more, to be exact. But as a handful of insiders --including Bill Gates himself -- know, it isn't any one iProduct that will ultimately bring down Microsoft...Instead it's an awe-inspiring 119-year-old development lurking inside the walls of two mysterious warehouses on the Columbia River...

Bill Gates first learned of these massive windowless buildings on October 30, 2005. Shortly thereafter, he sent an urgent memo to Microsoft's top people -- and then quietly retired. And the incredible story behind the secret that could so easily bring down the world's most powerful and profitable company is so compelling that the former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review dropped everything to pen an entire book on the subject.

Yet few investors have read it -- and even fewer have been clued into the three easiest ways to profit from Microsoft's dizzying fall from grace. 

 Content courtesy of The Motley Fool. (fool.com)

Windows 8 on The New RT Version of Tablets.

Image Courtesy of ASUSTek Computer inc.

Toshiba will join Hewlett-Packard in passing on the first round of tablets based on the RT versions of Windows 8. This follows the confirmation Monday from Microsoft that Dell, Samsung, and Lenovo will debut tablets and/or convertibles (Asus has already announced its) based on the version of the Windows 8 that runs on ARM chips. That RT version cannot run the vast library of software written for Intel-based "x86" PCs, though it will have a version of Microsoft Office.

"Toshiba has decided not to introduce Windows RT models due to delayed components that would make a timely launch impossible," Toshiba said in a statement provided to CNET. "For the time being, Toshiba will focus on bringing Windows 8 products to market. We will continue to look into the possibility of Windows RT products in the future while monitoring market conditions."It's not clear if the "delayed components" is the Texas Instruments processor that Toshiba was slated to use. Toshiba would not confirm this when asked.
And Hewlett-Packard has been a no-show in the list of planned RT devices for months now. Though, like Toshiba, HP is expected to go ahead with an Intel-based tablet.  Most Intel-based tablets are expected to use the chipmaker's "Clover Trail" system-on-a-chip (SoC), which is a power-efficient family of x86 processors.
According to Microsoft, Microsoft's Surface tablets will come in both RT and Intel versions. RT Surface will be introduced on October 26, while the Intel-based Surface will be rolled out in early 2013 -- that will use a more powerful Intel i series chip, the same kind used in ultrabooks. 

Video courtesy of YouTube.