September 22, 2006

Honda spends $5 million to make its cars see New technologies such as sonar, radar, and night vision are being used by automakers to help drivers avoid obstacles. Honda has signaled its intention to adopt 3D cameras with a $5 million investment in Canesta, a company that makes high-tech chips for a variety of applications. 10:40:22 AM

Microsoft launches Soapbox, its YouTube competitor Microsoft's YouTube competitor, Soapbox on MSN Video, has gone into private beta. (CNET) wheedled our way onto the invite list and gave it a spin. Soapbox is a solid video-sharing service. You can tag videos and comment on them, and you can browse for clips without stopping the video you're watching. Uploading is easy, and videos can be of any length as long as they're less than 100MB. But despite its good interface and decent features, there's nothing in the Soapbox product itself to propel it past other video-sharing sites. It will need a lot of love from Microsoft's Spaces blogging community if it's to get any traction. Read full story 10:37:44 AM

[link] CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "How dare you say Islam is a violent religion? I'll kill you for it" is not exactly the best way to go about refuting the charge. But of course, refuting is not the point here. The point is intimidation. . . . In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders. Those who do not practice tolerance have no right to expect it in return. [Instapundit.com] 8:02:12 AM

Starbucks gives its prices a jolt. Starbucks Corp. plans to raise prices of its lattes, cappuccinos, drip coffee and other drinks by an average of 1.9 per cent. By CBC. [CBC | Money News] 8:00:20 AM

Wal-Mart Sets $4 Price For Many Generic Drugs Retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc., known for forcing prices down to dominate nearly every market it enters, said yesterday that it would sell nearly 300 generic drugs for $4 per prescription, whether or not a customer has insurance. Using its might as the nation's largest retailer and its legendary ability to force suppliers to cut prices to the bone, the company will begin the $4 price program in its 65 stores in the Tampa area today....Health-care industry analysts said the program has the potential to transform the $230 billion prescription-drug business the way Wal-Mart has transformed other industries, where its aggressive pricing has forced some competitors out of business and allowed it to dominate entire categories of merchandise 7:02:21 AM