The US Government will eventually find a way to generate even more taxes from gasoline use and this latest series of tests seems to aim exactly towards this reality. Some researchers at the University of Iowa Public Policy Center have developed a special system for charging drivers various federal taxes. All is based on the distance the individual travels and not on how much gas they purchase.We currently have 2,700 different drivers from Iowa, Texas, Maryland and California that are testing the system. Federal gas tax is currently 18.4 cents per gallon and has remained unchanged since 1993. Automobiles are also getting more efficient when it comes to fuel efficiency. This is why the US Government is not at all happy at the moment and the raw reality is that individuals are paying fewer taxes each year, taxes that are needed by the authorities.
Now there is a solution: instead of paying a fee on fuel purchased, drivers might end up having cars equipped with a taxi-like meter. Individuals will then receive a monthly bill that they have to pay, based on the number of miles traveled. The solution seems to be very good for the US Government but will probably enrage drivers. When technology gets mixed with tax paying, it is not good news for us. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe paying energy taxes based on how much time the light bulb stays on. The University of Iowa Public Policy Center researched an interesting system but that does not mean it should be used to generate more taxes from the population. In my view, this will only enrage drivers. But then again, I would love to test the system myself and see what that gadget in the picture actually does and there is always a very skim chance that we would end up paying less taxes.

Here is a difference of how 1 GB of storage looked like 20 years ago and how it looks now. Quite a bit of a difference isn’t it? Just picture the huge changes this brought to technology and how it helps digital cameras. Cool ha? Just click on the thumb to see the full image.

OK, I have seen a lot of strange things but this bicycle right here really looks odd. How could two people ride it? First off, they would probably need to be around the same weight and secondly, that steering wheel is definitely strange. It would probably be more interesting to ride separate bikes, no?

A design student in Germany, Sebastian Ritzler, just created a special rolling white cane named Mygo that might be very useful to blind people. Mygo helps by utilizing a sensor camera combination that ends up measuring the ground below and it gives users real feedback via wireless headset. This cane ends in a small wheel that is combined with a steering engine that can be steered easily as it gives feedback through the grip. This Mygo is very adjustable and waterproof and works on lithium-ion battery that lasts for around 6 hours. It is quite interesting and Ritzler is trying to make it as affordable as possible at around $200. If it really does what it says and really helps blind people, it is a pretty interesting deal.

There are many statements online that say productivity is lowered at work because employees surf the Internet. In most cases these statements have been used by individuals that sell Internet filters. On the other hand we also have different studies that show us that most people will not have a problem with their work results if they do personal surfing as well. My personal belief is that this “personal surfing” actually eases work and makes the individual work better. The problem appears when individuals tend to rather surf the net instead of doing their job but if they can get the job done, why attack this extra surfing?

The recent case that brought attention to the media is in UK. 9 office workers were fired after the company discovered that they spent up to 2 hours a day on eBay. OK, I totally agree, two hours per day is a long time to be spending on eBay but that “up to” stated is very circumstantial. There is no news related to whether this impacted their job performance or if the windows just remained open on eBay or they were actually browsing the web site. The defense on the other hand seems very strange. It seems that the workers are represented by a union and that union is attacking the employer for putting temptation in the way of workers. It is the employer’s fault that they did not filter out eBay. OK! That is stupid in my view! The employer will probably win, but only because of an improper defense.

Well, Google was sued for crimes against humanity. If you thought that lawsuit was strange you should hear about these two. One individual that is detained by the Immigration services in Houston recently filed a lawsuit against both Yahoo and Google. The Reason? Well, he claims that the two highly popular web sites stole their names from Tanzanian tribes. Conveniently enough, this guy is a direct descendant of the two tribes mentioned: Gogo and Yao. Can you see the similarities between Gogo and Google and between Yao and Yahoo? Well, they might have something in common when we put the names on paper but how could such a lawsuit win? This guy is only asking for $10K for every member of these three tribes, going back for three generations! I wonder how much that would get him! In any case, both Google and Yahoo have documents that show where their name come from. It is strange though that such stupid lawsuits, including the one with crimes against humanity, would get to trial. Companies need to spend money, not much but still money, in order to fight off lawsuits coming from detainees. On the other hand this piece of news marks a first: it is the first time as far as I remember that Google and Yahoo are both attacked at the same time and they need to protect themselves together. Kind of funny!

You have to love Firefox and if you own a pretty cool sports car, you too can let the world know that you love Firefox. Leaving jokes aside, this here sports car was seen at the Mozilla 24 “Firefox Rock Festival” in Tokyo on September the 15th. You have got to love this vehicle!

DigiTimes is the latest in rumoring about Google launching their very own handset. The only thing that was really added to the statement (besides what is already having the world talk about) is the fact that the operating system for the GooglePhone will be Linux. Still no news as to hardware facts and eventual partners that are working on the project. DigiTimes sources also stated something very interesting. It seems like Google is aiming towards a 3G mobile phone instead of the EDGE platform utilized by the iPhone. This could already be a big point in favor of Google. On the other hand this could lead to a late 2008 launch. Not a problem, we will wait for it! I still feel I shouldn’t purchase an iPhone but the GooglePhone is really making me wait for it!

There are many of us that constantly use Digg.com and are very happy with it. We are going to be very happy at learning that Digg got some interesting updates. Digg users got an interesting email that highlighted some changes in site policy but mainly in new digg profiles. The site boasts with over 50 new features. Some of them even had a presentation that was also very interesting.

First off we have shouts. When a user finds an interesting story he should click the share button right under it and select the shout tab. You then just select your friends from the list and type in any message you may find fit. There are also 4 more features that are highlighted in a movie on the official Digg.com blog. You can view the movie HERE.

After watching the movie be sure to log on to your digg.com account and check for changes. Update your profile and have even more fun on digg.com. I just hope that this closeness to social network sites will not be damaging on the long run.

Once again, Japan is the best market to be in when looking for cool gadgets. We now have Toshiba launching their gigashot A and K series of video recorders. We can notice the A100F, which supports an 1.8 inch 100 GB hard disk and a 1/3 inch CMOS sensor 2 megapixel stilles. This nifty video camera can record at 1,920X1,080 at 60 frames per second with a 16 but Dolby Digital stereo included at 384 kbs. If we do the maths we now that this sums up to around 12 hours of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 formatted video of high quality or around 23 hours in standard mode. To make it even better, we have a 3 inch LCD, 10X optical zoom, SDHC expansion possibility, HDMI and USB link possibility with your personal computer. The A100F stands in at 78.1 X 135.4 X 79.0 mm and is now considered the smallest Full HD camcorder in the world (with a built in hard disk of course). The gigashot K series features 720p video and 0.92 megapixels stills stored on a hard disk of just 80 GB maximum. Talking about shipping dates, the Toshiba A100F will start shipping in the middle of November for around $1,650 and the lowest K-series model (featuring just 40 GB of hard drive space) will be sold starting from the end of October for around $950.