I heard a nice little piece on one of the radio shows today (can't remember which one) on Yammer - which TechCrunch recently described as "Twitter with a business model."

Yammer takes Twitter-style micorblogging and adapts it to internal business communications. Let's say you need to know who's working on the Kladly-Playstein Account Report. You could email 15 or 20 people and wait/hope for responses - but that involves deciding who to email (and, depending on your corporate cultural environment, deciding what order to email them in). If everyone in the office (or building) is on Yammer, you simply post the question with there. It goes to everyone, and to no one in particular. People reply back in short little bursts. And everyone's inbox in the building ends up being reserved for things that really need one-on-one communications.

Yammer won the prize from TechCrunch for top startup back in September. The advantage of Yammer over Twitter is that Yammer is a closed system within your corporate intranet. No one outside the company can ready what you Yammer about..

By:  Greg Cruey                        Source

In a 5 to 4 decision, the US Supreme Court has opened the door to a flood of lawsuits against tobacco companies with a ruling that smokers can sue over the way they promote light and low tar brands. Basically, the court has allowed smokers to sue for fraud. It is, as the New York Times points out, a fraught issue because fraud claims are not suited to class action and in any case, the question before the court was not whether use of the term "light" amounted to fraud but whether plaintiffs should be allowed to sue at all given US law requires tobacco companies to place rotating warnings on their packaging and advertising. Basically, the argument goes that smokers were misled into buying cigarettes they believed were safer than regular ones.

Still, this was inevitable. As The Times points out: Packs sold in Britain have to include health warnings covering 30 per cent of the front surface and 40 per cent of the back European law sets an upper limit of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide in cigarettes. Words such as "light" or "mild" are banned as part of a brand name, unless authorised by member states A study by the American Journal of Public Health found that people who smoke light cigarettes are half as likely to quit as other smokers. A third of respondents said that they smoked lights because of health concerns".

By:  leon                        Source

In our current design area, it seems you can tell how great a product is by the number of RanDomLY capitalized words in its title. I guess that makes the iDesign SongView Alarm one of the coolest gadgets around. Despite the capitalization, the SongView does have a few things going for it.

Aside from the typical iPod connectivity, sound profiles, and remote, the iDesign SongView also features a large scrolling LED display. The LED display can show, from afar, the song title, genre, album title and other various information. The LED display works well enough that you can read the information from a distance. The best part is that you can control the display with the included remote.

Most of the iDesign iPod docks I have come across have had pretty good sound, so I can only assume this one will be the same. And for $99, it is right where it needs to be price-wise. Give the iDesign SongView a look - it might be what you need.

via ChipChick

By:  Chris Matier                        Source

Lenovo and China Mobile have entered into partnership to bring an Android based device codenamed the 'Ophone' into the Chinese market. The device will be based on the Open Mobile System (OMS), which basically features the Android OS running on TD SCDMA (Chinese 3G standard).

China Mobile has been working on the Open Mobile System (OMS) for quite some time now as it felt the need to have its own mobile operating system in order to maximize its revenues and not be dictated by revenue sharing terms and conditions of handset manufacturers.

There is no information as yet on the specs of the Ophone device but judging from the pics, it does look like the coolest Android device up till now.

Source: Mod My Gphone

By:  Umair Khalid                        Source

The 3D virtual world Lively is being closed, according to .

Lively is Google's virtual world. It was just launched back in July, but the hype around it has died and it looks like Lively itself will die to over the next six month. The Inquisitr says Lively may set a record as the shortest lived Google product. It will have been around for less than a year when the plug is pulled completely….

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Eric Hood

By:  Greg Cruey                        Source