For people that live in Apartments or Dormitories or even townhouses or condominiums it is not always possible or financially feasible to have an expensive alarm system wired into the the rooms.

LaserShield has developed a solution and brought it to market in an attempt to help protect people with an almost out-of-the-box Security System experience.

Their device includes an infrared system that boasts a motion detector system that can monitor a space in front of the device up to 110 degrees and screen out some pet activity as well.  The system monitors motion and body heat to detect intruders.

It plugs into a phone jack and just like a wired system will phone the police or emergency response in the advent the alarm is triggered.  After just purchasing an expensive alarm system myself over a year ago, I even suspect that it might make a good solution for home owners that cannot afford a hard wired system.  Plus, with the average American moving about every seven years, you can take it with you!

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Scientists from around the world have been bombarded with samples of Comet dust gathered from the Wild-2 comet as it recently flew by Earth.

A probe swept up particles from the comet back in January of 2004 and scientists are marveling at the tiny grains, about a millimeter in size, that were returned in a capsule.

The compounds found are very high in nitrogen and oxygen and definitely not inconsistent with theories that propose that the planet Earth may have been bombarded with comets, resulting in the deposit of an organic population of molecules made back when our solar system was formed at which time dense ice clouds were believed to be irradiated stimulating these molecules to create cell like membranes.  This irradiation of molecules has reproduced this action in laboratories and finding the ingredients in the trails of a comet helps to substantiate the possibility.

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Hurricane Katrina helped to demonstrate to all of us the hard way that we need to take action ourselves to save our own skin sometimes.

We can not necessarily rely on the government planners or rescuers to protect us before its too late. This means that we need to be prepared for many different situations. Many things can go wrong even if you do not live by the coast.

In a tornado, the main thing we need is a place to go for emergency shelter.

FamilySafeShelterms.com recently provided a press release describing how they have been working for many years to provide some of the highest quality storm shelters made out of steal construction. Their goal is not to provide the lowest price at any cost but to provide the safest product and protection.

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No one likes their conversation taken out of context especially in court, so it has to be a little embarrassing for Windows Development Chief James Allchin to have been quoted from his email to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as saying that he’d rather buy an Apple Mac if he didn’t work for Microsoft.

He states today that he sent the email in 2003 to make a point and push Microsoft to make dramatic changes in their development of their operating system that today is known as Vista.  He also says that those changes were made and the OS is better than it would have been.  His comments and others stating that Microsoft had “lost sight” of customers needs were revealed in some of the remaining anti-trust cases looming in state courts against Microsoft.  These statements may have been dramatic at the time and are probably no less dramatic now.

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Well the season is almost upon us, not Christmas or New Years but tech show season.  The Consumer Electronics Show and MacWorld are coming up right after the lesser holidays of Christmas and New Year’s and that means lots of gifts and toys for geeky visitors that haven’t been naughty.

Of course I’m talking about all those great promotion products that are given out at the trade shows.  Getting good foot traffic is sometimes as simple as giving away the good stuff.

Odds are most companies will get their existing client base or partners to visit them at the show, but to get exposure to new customers and partners a little branding bling sometimes can go a long ways.  For that you need some good stuff for a trade show giveaway. 

Now you want to make sure that its something that people will use and remember in a positve way.  It should have your logo or brand or theme involved and hopefully it will bring a smile to their face for years to come.

Popular favorites are typically  backpacks and bags with wheels to hold all the other stuff.  If you are looking for advertising at the show itself, nothing works better than giving out the best backpack wheeled or not so that everyone will carry the rest of their stuff in your bag throughout the show.

After that the gift that seems to keep on giving is memory cards.  Flash memory is always useful, and its a great way to convey your product details, trial software and much much more.  Everytime someone plugs a usb card into their computer they might then think about your company and products.  Those are excellent reminders that you can capitalize on at a tradeshow.

And don’t forget the toys!  There’s alwasys something that everyone wants to play with at the show, whether its a ball, or putty or lazer beem pointers or something!

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Siemens has big problems with slush and we’re not talking about the kind of slush that results from snow and ice turning mushy as it converts back into water. No we’re talking about the type of slush that results when a company pays cash to a intermediary, who then proceeds to pay that cash to a partner, customer or some other stakeholder of the company in the form of bribes, kickbacks, hush money or a number of other possibilities.

Siemens has been investigating a slush fund scandal within its company that dates back to the mid to late 1990’s and has grown from tens of millions of euros in pay offs to 200 and now 420 million euros.

The company is being investigated in multiple countries throughout Europe and over a half dozen former employees including the chief financial officer of the telecommunications unit, Michael Kutschenreuter, who was working as the head of Siemen’s real-estate division at the time of his arrest in mid-November.

The scandal is based on some simple and unfortunately classic uses of dummy corporations. Siemens paid money allegedly to dummy companies that held the funds in secret Swiss bank accounts and then funneled that money off to pay non-existent consulting contracts with funds going through the Caribbean just for good measure.

Siemens is cooperating with the investigation but the troubles threaten to unravel a deal with Nokia as the potential financial burdens from wrong doing threatened to torpedo the deal.

KPMG, Siemens’ auditor of record, has indicated that they did not notice any of the wrong doing. The tip off came to investigators when a whistleblower contacted the Swiss Money Laundering Authority. This prompted a Swiss, Austrian and German investigation and shortly there after it came to light that Italian were also investigating and thought that the corruption went back to the mid-90’s.

Siemens current CFO, Joe Kaeser, indicated that 420 million euros in illegal payments dating back to 1999 have been identified coupled with an additional 168 million euros in tax charges. This has resulted in a temporary restatement from 3.11 billion down to 3.03 billion euros, but if the recipients of the payments are not identified, then the payments can not be deducted from their tax liability and that liability will increase.

This investigation is not over and its like much more information will come out in the weeks to come.

Additional reading

• www.techworld.com/…/NewsID=7411
• www.techworld.com/…/newsid=7571

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