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Apple's iPod touch-based point-of-sale system, dubbed EasyPay, had been rumored to be available for third-party retailers looking for a mobile solution to their sales experience, which may soon land in some major stores.

9to5Mac reports that Gap, Inc. has begun piloting the EasyPay (rebranded ZipPay) system at its Old Navy stores.

The ZipPay systems run on a modified iPod Touch that is encased with a barcode scanner and a credit card swiping feature. Customers need only accept the … Read more

Confirmation arrived this morning for earlier reports of Microsoft's Office Web apps product being integrated into Facebook's new in-box product.

At Facebook's San Francisco press event this morning about the overhaul of its messaging service, the company detailed how users can now view and share attachments on the service. Included on that list is Microsoft's Office Web Apps service, which means Facebook users will be able to open up Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments without having to have Microsoft's software installed locally.

The "view on Office.com" feature appears below each file attachment … Read more

WW Points Calculator from Scandinaviansoft Cookbook sounds a bit like something for pro wrestling fans, but in fact it's for those wrestling with their weight: it's a free tool for calculating Weight Watchers food points.

The program's zipped download includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions; we tried both. The installer automatically distinguished between our Windows XP and Windows 7 machines and installed the right version on each. WW Points Calculator's interface is a small, simple dialog with an attractive nature scene as a background. Aside from a compact box containing the calculator, the only controls are … Read more

Those of you still running the beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 have only three more weeks to use the software.

Today's Microsoft Office blog broke the news that the Office 2010 beta will expire on Sunday, October 31, meaning that all installations of the software will stop working the night of Halloween.

Launched almost a year ago, the Office 2010 beta has proved very successful, according to Microsoft's figures, triggering 9 million downloads, more than six times the number seen by the Office 2007 beta.

People who want to install the released version of Office 2010 will … Read more

It's all over the Internet.

That's the phrase that is increasingly being used to describe when a matter has become one of importance.

This week, the matter of importance concerns a Duke University graduate who decided to create a compendium of her sexual experiences with various men while at Duke.

Who knows why she decided to do it in PowerPoint? Perhaps she thought that one day she might present it to a symposium of intellectuals. It was, indeed, entitled: "An Education Beyond the Classroom: Excelling in the Realm of Horizontal Academics."

Within it, she described her … Read more

In spite of being viewed as the "other guys" in some Mac users' minds, Microsoft has generally put out an excellent productivity suite for the Mac with Microsoft Office. Though the latest package is still not on par with the Windows version (you get only the four main programs--a big difference when you consider the Windows version has 10), Microsoft made a big leap with this latest version for the Mac in several other ways. Not only has it nearly reached feature parity (and cross compatibility) with the Mac counterparts to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but it has … Read more

Microsoft announced today it will be taking preorders for Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. Microsoft says this major update will bring the Mac version of its office suite almost on par with the Windows version of the product. With significantly better cross-platform compatibility, several added new features, and some impressive interface elements exclusive to the Mac version, Office 2011 for Mac might be the best in its class.

Over the past couple of weeks, we had the chance to check out the entire suite--including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook--and we think there's plenty to be excited about. New and … Read more

Coulomb Technologies unveiled its latest electric-vehicle charging station on Thursday morning in Detroit.

The Motor City is the first locale in Michigan to get a charging station for public use as part of ChargePoint America, a $37 million program to install public and residential stations throughout the U.S. to encourage adoption of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

ChargePoint is funded in part by U.S. Department of Energy as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Automakers Ford Motor, General Motors, and Smart USA are also partners on the project. The automakers have a vested interest in making … Read more

Although officially only two months old, Microsoft's Office Web Apps is already growing up a bit.

To satisfy just some of the many user requests for new features, Microsoft this week updated its online version of Office with enhancements to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

One of the most requested features, according to a company blog post, was the ability to print from the Word editor. Previously, you could only print from the Word viewer. Clicking on the File menu in the Word Web App editor now displays a Print command that lets you send a document to your local … Read more