Kansas City, Kansas is the first city that will receive Google’s experimental über-high speed internet infrastructure, beating out thousands of cities that hoped to be the Google guinea pig, including Portland. Over a year ago the company announced the new internet project which will bring a Google-provided fiber optic internet network, including speeds as ludicrous as 1 GB/second, to Kansas City. Read More +
Powell’s City of Books on Meridian iPhone App
Meridian is a new iPhone app designed to be your personal tour guide for a number of indoor places, and recently it launched its guide for Portland’s own Powell’s City of Books. Meridian gives iPhone users much more detailed information and step-by-step directions for various locations such as museums and other landmarks. For Powell’s, the app provides featured titles and staff picks, as well as turn-by-turn walking directions to any book within the store (the map even features the store’s signature colored rooms for easy navigation). Read More +
New York Times Moves Toward Digital Subscriptions
If you’re a fan of digital media, today is your lucky day. Kindle owners who already subscribe to the New York Times will get access to NYTimes.com for free, according to today’s announcement. The New York Times has been adjusting and adding to a new paywall, and today’s announcement stems from that new strategy. While future prices haven’t been set in stone yet, all current subscribers are getting nytimes.com for free now, and those who want to grab the smart phone app and the subscription to fill it out will be charged $15 for non-home subscribers; tablet owners will be charged $20.00 for the app and the relevant content. Read More +
OMG! Oxford English Dictionary Adds New Words, FYI (LOL!)
If you’ve been waiting for “text speak” like OMG and LOL to die out, it’s now official: it won’t. Today the Oxford English Dictionary added some new words, most notably the initialisms “LOL,” “OMG,” and “FYI,” perhaps signaling the impending doom of mankind—but probably not. (As you probably guessed, an initialism is an abbreviation consisting of the initial letters of a name, expression or saying.)
Clark County Mulls New Biomass Plant in Downtown Vancouver
Clark County is entertaining the idea of building a biomass plant in downtown Vancouver that could save the county up to $175,000 a year. More importantly, and the driving reason behind the project, it would greatly reduce the county’s carbon footprint. Read More +
Summa to Open New Office in Bend’s Old Mill District!
We here at Summa Real Estate Group are elated to announce the opening of a new office in Bend’s Old Mill District. We’re always thrilled to see the unparalleled Summa brand grow through our franchising system—which gives limitless creative control and equity to our brokers—but the Old Mill District office is an especially exciting addition. Read More +
Video: Facebook–The CIA’s “Dream Come True”
Did you ever think how much easier government agencies have it these days when it comes to monitoring the citizens that are on their radar? Rather than investing in time-consuming, expensive and occasionally illegal spying activities, organizations like the CIA can just log in and take a gander at the profiles of a couple hundred million people. So might Mark Zuckerberg in fact be an agent of the CIA? Further, did the government roll out Farmville to distract millions of people from the sagging economy? The Onion News Network thinks so. And if there’s one thing the Onion always is, it’s serious. Read More +
AT&T to Buy T-Mobile USA (Your iPhone Will be Fine)
AT&T, the US’s second-largest wireless carrier, will buy T-Mobile USA, the nation’s fourth-largest, the company announced Sunday. AT&T will pay $39 billion to current T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom AG, with $25 billion in cash and the remaining $14 billion in company stock. The transaction will give Deutsche Telekom AG an eight percent stake in AT&T. Read More +
Pixelate 2.0 for iPhone Shows What Your Walls Will Look Like Any Color
If you’re checking out any of Summa’s wide range of listings today and you have an iPhone, imagining the house with your own personal flair just got a lot easier. With the new Pixelate 2.0 app for the iPhone, you can take a picture of an object—say, the walls inside a house you’re looking at—pick a color and see what said object would look like in the new tone. A zoom feature allows easy work on small areas of a photo, while a simple erase button allows the user to undo any color spillover. Read More +
