After a long wait, the Readius e-Reader AND 3G Phone is finally around the corner! The first countries to get the Readius are England, Italy and Germany, according to the NYTimes. Americans will have to wait until early 2009 before they can lay their hands on it.

From Readius:

Our exclusive rollable display technology is the core around which we build our plans, and in the Autumn of this year we will launch Readius, the first pocket eReader. Readius offers the advantages of eReaders as known today - but now all neatly wrapped into a pocket sized device.

Readius is very much a data centered mobile product, designed around eBooks, eNews, RSS feeds, and receiving email messages. It is optimized for mobility by allowing instant access to hundreds of books from your pocket, while the integrated 3.5G data connection ensures high speed downloads of pre-ordered content and instant news updates on the go.

Read: Readius
Read: N.Y. Times

The Fed's continual decrease in interest rates has NOT been reflected in mortgage rates offered by banks. Can you say Sub-Prime mess? ;-(

Read: Voice of San Diego

Affluenza;
An unhappy condition of overload,
debt, anxiety and waste resulting
from the dogged pursuit of more.

PBS Documentary: Part 1/6 (above)
PBS Documentary: Part 2/6
PBS Documentary: Part 3/6
PBS Documentary: Part 4/6
PBS Documentary: Part 5/6
PBS Documentary: Part 6/6

One of the producers of the documentary (Dave Wann) has also written a book called: Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle. The book follows along similar lines to "Affluenza," and discusses concerns of overconsumption, and it's effect on personal, community and planet level.

A few days ago I posted 2008 Most Fuel Efficient Cars. And here is another way of looking at the numbers:

.
Now lets look at it this way; on average we may drive 10,000 miles per year (50% City & 50% Highway), and let's just average out gas at $4/gallon (Current in my city it is $4.69). So the yearly numbers become:
.

Toyota Prius Hybrid / City: 48 mpg / Highway: 45 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $860

Typical Small Car / City: 30 mpg / Highway: 35 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $1,238

Typical Large Car / City: 20 mpg / Highway: 30 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $1,666

Typical Mini-Van / City: 18 mpg / Highway: 25 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $1,911

Typical Large SUV / City: 12 mpg / Highway: 20 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $2,666

With these simple parameters; if you switch from a large SUV to a Toyota Prius, and even if you drive a modest 10,000 miles per year, you'll save about $1,800 per year.

Matt was asked, "What the message of the videos?" His reply, "Up to you, I'm just dancing."

You can't not smile when watching this video. Beautiful places and ordinary places, and a guy doing the only move he knows how to do, surrounded by people having fun.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Here is a great article on The Atlantic about how we are adopting to the Internet.

It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.

Read the complete article: The Atlantic

Flooding in Wisconsin has been devastating ;-(

By cartoonist Stuart Carlson.

Home prices here in San Diego have drastically come down.

The accompanying chart attempts to answer this question using the three tiers of the Case-Shiller home price index in addition to the overall index for San Diego. To find the appropriate months, I just took the March value of each index (the most recent available, unfortunately) and noted what prior month was closest to the March figure.

Read: Voice of San Diego

Also Read: LA Times: In Escondido: Buy one (house), get one free.

Here is a top-ten list of Most and Least polluted cities (metro areas) in United States:

Areas with the highest CO emissions:

1. Lexington-Fayette, Ky.
2. Indianapolis
3. Cincinnati-Middletown, Ohio-Ky.-Ind.
4. Toledo, Ohio
5. Louisville
6. Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro
7. St. Louis
8. Oklahoma City
9. Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pa.
10. Knoxville

Areas with the lowest CO emissions:

1. Honolulu
2. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana
3. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Ore.-Wash.
4. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y-N.J.-Pa.
5. Boise-Nampa, Idaho
6. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.
7. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara
8. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont
9. El Paso
10. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos

Source: Brookings Institution

Read: The complete report

Joe McNally is the author of the The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters, who is one of the greatest photographers of our times.

Here, he gives a presentation/speech at the Google Headquarters. Although this is a long video, but I feel it's well worth watching.

(Direct Link: YouTube )