Security Check for Greencard Holders

Under the new security check procedure announced Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. permanent residents with green cards will have their fingerprints checked every time they re-enter the U.S. by air or sea. According to the proposed rule published in the Federal Register, parolees and some Canadians will also need to undergo this procedure but the new program won't apply to Mexicans coming into the U.S. with a border crossing card. Canadians who cross the border to shop, visit or take a holiday won't need to enroll in the program. Canadians nurses, agricultural workers, students and religious workers will only have their fingerprints checked at land ports if they do not have proper documents or Customs and Border Protection officials question the validity of their documents.

There are between 8 million and 12 million legal permanent residents in the United States. The new procedure is part of the so-called US-VISIT program, which requires border-crossing documents to include a digital photograph and two fingerprints. The program currently has 61 million people enrolled from countries other than Canada and Mexico.

The proposed requirements may take effect on August 28. To know more about the program, visit this link: US-VISIT.

Google Map in Mobile Phones

Today Google began offering mobile phone users in more than 30 U.S. major metropolitan areas the ability to view highway maps with live traffic updates.

The users can get partial information for smaller cities as well, Google said. The search engine's mobile map service for cell phones is also available as a small download for compatible models. Traffic information will be provided as an additional layer that users can toggle on and off. Routes are shown in green, yellow, or red depending on the severity of traffic congestion, along with detailed information on incidents. So mobile phone users will now see the expected drive time as well as any unexpected traffic delays, making travel planning much easier and more effective.

Another new feature -- the ability to store their favorite searches and driving directions -- will allow users to access frequently used routes and compare traffic conditions on them. To date, none of the major online services offer such a service in their own map products for mobile devices. Yahoo offers traffic conditions in the desktop version of their product but the mobile version does not.

Microsoft's iPod-Rival: Zune

Microsoft confirmed the rumors about the iPod killer on Friday, stating that the future MP3 player named 'Zune' would be in market in the forthcoming holiday season.

Microsoft also confirmed that its iPod killer will feature wireless fidelity capabilities and a hard-drive (probably Flash-NAND based) for storing tunes. Microsoft is also promising a better-quality screen then the iPod. Even though the company remained mum about any new music download service, we may expect Microsoft to release a rival to iTunes as well. Currently, Apple's iTunes music store is used for 72% of music downloads, while Microsoft's store represents only 3%.

But Apple may also come up with new attractive updates to the iPod at its annual developer’s conference in San Francisco next month. While wireless downloading is one possibility, many are speculating about an iPod cellphone or a new video iPod with a larger screen.

Now CinemaNow too ...

After Monday's announcement by Movielink (read our last posting) that it would employ technology from Sonic Solutions to allow its customers to burn movie downloads to DVD starting from as yet unspecified date, its rival CinemaNow has come forward to declare that from today it starts selling downloads of popular films that can be burned to blank DVDs for use with home DVD players. Walt Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have already signed on to provide content. CinemaNow will also offer films from MGM Worldwide Digital Media, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Lionsgate and Sundance Channel.

CinemaNow’s DVD-burning technology employs Germany-based ACE’s fluxDVD technology. The company offers films starting at $8.99 each, and they’ll include all the features of a DVD purchased in a retail store, the company said, though once a copy is burned, its quality usually goes down a bit as compared to an official studio DVD. CinemaNow’s film downloads can be transferred to DVD only once, but customers will be able to repeatedly watch the movies on their computers.

DVD-burnable Movie Download

Movielink, a Santa Monica, California-based Web film service is signing up a deal with Sonic Solutions technology, which will allow the company to employ Sonic’s DVD-on-Demand software for burning digital copies of films downloaded from the Web to DVD, according to a joint statement from two companies.

Movielink is a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers Studios. Movielink offers films for rent for as little as $1.99, and its users purchase movies for as much as $19.99 for newly released titles. Only a portion of Movielink's 1,500-title library will be available for download-to-burn until Movielink clears those rights with its studio investors. Movielink is the first major download service to offer download-to-burn DVD for use in personal computers, and many consumers have been waiting until those DVDs could also be played on standard DVD players linked to television sets.

Currently, film enthusiasts who purchase movies via the Internet can rent or buy from a handful of film download services, but that content can only be viewed on their computers or other handheld devices. In order to restrict piracy, top Hollywood studios demanded that movies be protected by strict Digital Rights Management (DRM) software which prevents movies from being copied to DVD. The problem with such a strategy was that many customers didn't like being forced to watch them only on their PCs. Now, Sonic Solutions is providing DVD-burning software that comes equipped with DRM protection, which would prevent the making of numerous copies.

Lights of Your Car

Your car's lights are the most important lights in your nightlife and all the time most of us remain forgetful about it. The following tips will help you see the road better, alleviate glare from other cars, and reduce glare that could distract other drivers:

Keep your car's headlights and windows clean. This increases headlights' effectiveness and reduces the glare coming from and into your vehicle. Keeping your eyeglasses clean helps reduce glare, too. If your car's clear plastic headlight covers have become clouded and darkened from aging effects, replace them with new ones. It will improve your ability to see the road and reduce glare from your car.

Use the "night" position on your rearview mirror to reduce glare from cars behind you. For the same reason, adjust your side mirrors properly. If you're buying a new car, consider equipping it with auto-dimming rearview and sideview mirrors, which are very effective in combating glare.

If you're temporarily blinded by oncoming headights, look slightly to the side, keeping your eyes on the lane divider or the white line on the roadside for a sense of direction, until the oncoming vehicle passes.

Use auxiliary lighting with care. If your car is equipped with auxiliary driving lights, be considerate to oncoming drivers. Use your high beams appropriately. You should not use high beams if an oncoming car is within 500 feet of your car or if a car you're following is closer than 300 feet. Also, don't use high beams in foggy or rainy weather. The water droplets reflect light back into your eyes .

On mountain roads, it's always better to keep your headlights on even in daytime to increase the visibility of your car to oncoming traffic.

Talking iPod

The world of music is currently dominated by Apple whose iPods and iTunes claim about 80% of the music player share in the U.S. Reports and rumors surfaced last week that Microsoft would come up with a new player to challenge iPod just before christmas but Microsoft issued a statement on Friday denying to have shown or briefed the music industry any such music player.

In any case, in order to keep its domination intact, Apple has introduced a talking iPod today. The device will convert the names of bands, albums and songs into recognizable voice patterns. The iPod will announce what is going to play in advance of it coming on, and allow users to change selections with voice commands.

Apple maintains that the device will be safer for those who are engaging in an activity such as driving or bicycling, where looking at the screen to change songs may be dangerous. A patent application indicates that it will use the same speech technology common in Apple's Macintosh computers.

Garage Sale

Things that pile up over the years in your cupboard, kitchen and Garage need to be disposed at some point of time and Garage sale is a great way to do that in exchange of some small but significant income.

But before you go for it, sort out items which you may rather sell/auction at ebay.com or amazon.com . Those provide a national exposure to your items like textbooks or DVDs and you may hope to get better prices. If you just depend on your neighborhood or pedestrians walking by, you may not even be able to sell it or may sell it at a much less price for the urge of disposing what you think is junk.

You may also take the service of some other Auction places as we described in one of our past postings. You may use those for large items in particular, which you may not like to ship.

You may now list rest of the items for your garage sale. Take permission from your city office (if your city requires it), put free advertisements at following websites well in advance (about 3 weeks so that ads appear just before the target weekend), put signs at road-crossings around your home and then open up your Garage door and enjoy talking to people who appear from nowhere and buy things that you wish to get rid of.

The following sites offer free listings :
GarageSaleHunter, GarageSaleZone, Craigslist, PennySaverUsa .
GarageSale-Guru is also a good site that offers information for buyers and sellers.

Home Prices Slowing Down

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFEHO) reported last week its home-price index was up 12.5% in the past year and up 2% from the 4th quarter to the first quarter. It was the slowest quarterly gain in prices in two years, as prices fell in some of the hot markets in California. The median price of a new home is up 0.9% in the past year. The median price of an existing home is up 4.2%.

Arizona continued to have the fastest growth in prices, but its growth rate fell in half during the 1st quarter. Prices in Arizona are up 32.8% in the past year. Other states with fast price appreciation in the past year have been Florida, Hawaii, Oregon, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Idaho. All saw prices rise more than 20% in the past year. Prices in California were up 19.2% in the past year. States with the slowest home price gains were Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa. All had year-over-year price gains of less than 5%.

Among 275 metro areas, St. George, UT, had the year-to-year gain at 38.4%. It was followed by Naples, FL (37.7%), Fort Myers, FL (36.9%), Phoenix, AZ (36.5%) and Lakeland, FL (35.6%). Among 275 metro areas, 53 saw prices decline from the 4th quarter to the 1st quarter, including some hot markets in California. Prices declined on a quarterly basis in San Jose, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Sacramento and Salinas in California, even though prices are still up more than 10% year-over-year. The smallest annual gains were in Saginaw, MI (0.1%), Anderson, IN (0.8%), Erie, PA (1%), Canton, OH (1.2%), and Lafayette, IN (1.2%). Among 275 metro areas, 53 saw prices decline from the 4th quarter to the 1st quarter.

How much does your house cost? You may use this very good home price calculator from OFEHO's site.