insurance

Home possessions monitor

Household Register 2009 offers users a tool for tracking all their home's possessions, which is very useful in the case of a disaster. With its simple navigation and excellent results, this is a program that homeowners will appreciate.

The program requires a large amount of information, but thankfully its interface is intuitive and doesn't seem like a chore. With well-planned drop-down menus and fillable fields, users should have no trouble taking stock in their home. For those who need a little more assistance, a Help file will shed some light. Users simply click on a button to add … Read more

127: Ford Taurus SHO: Um, yeah, that's a great car.

Hybrid drivers are something of an insurance nightmare! How much is your driving privacy worth? Ford Taurus SHO blows us away. And hang on to those spark plugs; they could be collectible!

Listen now: Download today's podcast SHOW NOTES

• Taurus SHO is a badass. There, we said it.

• Audi A5 Sportback makes us nuts

• Ford developing laser spark plugs

• Pioneer AVIC-U310BT is a scorching value

• CNET's tests speed radar and adaptive cruise control

Size matters in car collision test

Bigger really is better when it comes to driver safety in a head on collision. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, minicars and microcars take a lot more damage than their midsized counterparts do in 40 mph car-to-car collision tests.

The IIHS this week published its findings, and posted a Web video on YouTube.

Although smaller cars are a lot safer than they were just a few years ago, they crumble and buckle in head-on collisions. The smaller, lighter weight cars are also propelled backward during a crash, causing further damage to the car.

According to the test … Read more

IIHS adds new rating for roof strength

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) created a roof strength rating system to help customers assess a vehicle's safeness. Roof strength is critical to keeping passengers alive and in the car in the event of a rollover accident, according to a press release issued by the IIHS. The stronger the roof, the less likely it will deform.

More than 10,000 people die in rollover-related accidents. While any vehicle can roll in a crash, SUVs are three times as likely to roll in an accident than a passenger car.

To earn a good rating, the vehicle must have … Read more

iPhone Insurance: Are We in Good Hands Yet?

Within the span of the weeks since I last wrote about the iPhone, its ubiquity has grown even more. Sales are through the roof. iPhones and PDAs have been used in jury trials or should I say mistrials. Half of all web mobile device traffic is conducted on iPhones. Applications are blossoming. More goodies such as the 3.0 OS are in the pipeline. Even my die-hard Verizon holdout friends have made the switch to the network that constantly drops calls.

I've settled into a comfort, perhaps even complacency, with the iPhone of late. I used to be a … Read more

Webware Radar: Particls brings keyword search back to Twitter

Particls, a company that once provided RSS feed organizers, announced Monday that it has launched a new project, called Particls Fountain. According to the company, the project will replace Twitter Track, which allowed the microblog's users to follow topics by keyword, and users will be able to use it with Google Talk or Twitter itself.

To start using Particls Fountain, the company says users will first need to follow @particls on Twitter. To track a specific keyword, users can then start a request with "d particls" and follow that with the keyword they want to have access … Read more

Open-source projects to provide corporate benefits?

I spent some time talking with an Accenture veteran this morning, and came away with an intriguing idea: enable open-source projects to provide corporate benefits like health insurance to their developers so that they can ditch their day jobs to focus on their open-source passion.

If you've ever started a small business, you know that getting "enterprise-grade" benefits like health insurance is very difficult. At Alfresco, for example, we ultimately joined a PEO (Professional Employer Organization) called Trinet [PDF], which aggregates many smaller companies to negotiate insurance plans with companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield that would … Read more

Wiis, iPods and Playstations dangerous to pets

A survey of 3000 pet owners has revealed that tech gadgets are proving hazardous to their pets' health.

No, this seems to be nothing to do with dangerous rays being projected from their electronics. Rather, it seems that our dogs, cats, and, goodness, guinea pigs, haven't quite got used to the rapid proliferation of domestic electronic playthings. Neither, apparently, have reptiles and birds.

For a reason that remains slightly unclear, iPods are, apparently, most likely to injure cats. I am not sure if this is because the cats are slipping the headphones into their ears and turning up the … Read more

Oracle to acquire Skywire Software

Oracle on Monday announced plans to expand its enterprise insurance applications business with the acquisition of Skywire Software.

Skywire develops software designed to manage insurance policies from their initial creation, rating and oversight by insurance agents and brokers. Skywire's applications will be combined with Oracle's Insurance Global Business Unit and the software giant's pending acquisition of AdminServer.

Oracle's announcement marks its latest effort to bolster its breadth of enterprise software applications in targeted markets, ranging from transaction-processing specialist Tangosol to retail specialist Retek to logistics and transportation management specialist G-Log.

Roughly over 1,000 insurers already … Read more

Watch YouTube on your umbrella

So you've been meaning to waterproof your iPod but haven't gotten around to it. And now the rainy season has begun, and you're afraid of getting it wet.

Why not just watch your videos on the umbrella? That's what researchers at Tokyo's Keio University do, with their invention called the "Pileus": a system that projects photos and videos onto your open brolly. According to Plastic Bamboo, it can even stream Flickr photos and YouTube videos directly through a Wi-Fi connection.

We assume the university won't be held responsible for the sidewalk accidents … Read more