By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I use to live in New York and can still remember the searing pain brought about by grocery day. The items always looked manageable at the store, but the palm-cutting plastic grocery bag handles had a way of turning ugly after a few blocks. If I only had the One Trip Bag Holder - a simple handle you clip around your bags to make hauling more efficient and less painful.

Features:
• Soft Squeeze Grip
• 50 lb. capacity
• Made of high strength plastic
• Easy open thumb tab
• Durable locking tab - safely secures bags
• Dimensions: 6.5″H x 5.5″W x 1.0″D

Price: $4.99
Product Page
Source: Always Organized

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Joining Australia and the European Union, today Canada decreed they would ban incandescent bulbs by the year 2012, in an attempt to reduce the release of greenhouse gases.

Canada will ban the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2012 as part of a plan to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said on Wednesday. Source: Yahoo! News

We Say: As I said during my earlier story about the E.U., you can’t just toss these. Especially in California, where the Electronic Waste Recycling Act makes it unlawful. These bulbs have trace amounts of mercury, and can’t just be thrown into the trash. As I also said then, these countries enforcing these bans need to come up with effective collection and / or recycling campaigns (California actually does not!) in order to make sure these don’t just end up in landfills.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Yeah, yeah, this is more science than technology … unless we can harness this mineral to power technology … nah. It’s just fun. The mining company Rio Tinto discovered the unusual mineral, couldn’t ID it, and asked Dr. Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London’s Natural History Museum for help. After determining its chemical make-up, he discovered it had already been named … in the movie Superman Returns.

“Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral’s chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns. Source: BBC News

We Say: No, it’s not radioactive, meaning we can’t use it to kill Kryptonians, if there were any around. I haven’t seen any Daxamites lately either.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

What? Enterprise customers? AT&T, you’ve got to be kidding. The device only has a virtual keyboard, no removable battery, a closed operating system … why would any corporation want this?

The idea of marketing the iPhone as an enterprise product baffles some analysts.

If AT&T announces that it will be marketing the phone to enterprise customers, “we’d be against it,” said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner, who said he hasn’t heard of such a plan from the operator. “We’d immediately tell our customers that’d be a very serious mistake.” Source: InfoWorld

We Say: The marketspace I work in gives me insight into this … no executive is going to want to keep up with their corporate email on a device without a static keyboard. And heavy users are going to run out of battery power and want to swap out the battery .. not possible with this device. Marketing this to corporations? A big mistake.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

No, it’s not a PET, but it is a Commodore. The old brand has been resurrected as a series of Wintel gaming boxes.

The online store will be launching across Europe in mid May, alongside retail outlets in UK, Germany, France and the Benelux. Further details on retailers for European territories will be released shortly.

The online store will supply the higher specification models Commodore gx and Commodore xx, while the Commodore g and Commodore gs range will be made available in retail outlets. Commodore Gaming machines are priced competitively for such high spec components and hand-finished build quality: Source: GamesIndustry.biz

We Say: Those were the days. The Commodore PET, the TRS-80, the Apple II (yes, I’m dating myself, aren’t I? ).

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

This has to the the wost product name ever for such a useful car gadget. The TransDoc is an FM transmitter that works with your iPod or other audio source. But it boasts a few nice extras - video out so you can doc your Video iPod and connect it to your car’s video system - that means the whole car can enjoy your saved videos on as many screen as you have, at once. It also will do audio out so you can connect to your car’s aux input or via the cassette adapter, and it has a USB port. If your cell phone or other USB-device is along for the ride, they can top off their batteries while the music and video good times keep on rolling.

Price: $99
Product Page
Source: DLO.com

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Anyone remember the last time TurboTax had a headline-making issue? It was when Intuit added DRM to the product. It wasn’t the addition in itself, it was the way it was implemented, and past experiences with SafeCast told me I wanted no part of it. I parted ways with TurboTax that year, 2003.

Tuesday the issue was overloaded servers. People trying to submit their returns via e-filing were met with increasing frustration as the day went on. Although the IRS has already said those affected would have until Thursday at midnight, Intuit has gone them one better by offering refunds to those attempting to e-file between 3PM Tuesday and 4AM Wednesday morning.

Steve Bennett, the company’s CEO, also apologized for the breakdown, which prevented about 200,000 users from e-filing in the hours leading up to the midnight Tuesday federal income tax deadline. “We deeply regret the frustration and anxiety this caused our customers,” said Bennett. “This is not the experience customers have come to expect from Intuit. It’s not acceptable to us, and we will do right by our customers who were impacted by this delay.”

That will include reversing credit card charges to any TurboTax software user who tried to e-file from between 3 p.m. PDT Tuesday to 4 a.m. PDT Wednesday. Source: ComputerWorld

We Say: Personally, I feel filers have to shoulder some of the blame for waiting until the last second, in some cases. That said, in my original post, I indicated I had a friend thus affected, and he’s already received an email saying his charges were reversed. Intuit estimates the total cost will be upwards of $15 million. Me? As I said in my first paragraph I switched products in 2003, and I generally file pretty early.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

You have to stare at this a little while to get a good sense of it (not that the contraption make sense in any way.) Looks like a scooter-drawn ox cart painting scaffold.
Source: funniestgadgets.com