plans

Lock in your trade-in value for tech purchases

Packrats need not apply; for others I might have some good news.

TigerDirect and TechForward announced on Thursday their partnership to offer Guaranteed Buyback plans at TigerDirect and CompUSA retail stores for electronic products.

The plans lock in trade-in values for electronics at the point of sale for an additional fee, for up to two years. The fee is calculated based on specific model and configuration. In layman's terms, you pay a relatively small amount of money to ensure that you can sell back the purchased product within two years from the day you buy it, for a set … Read more

Green news harvest: Toyota handicaps alt fuels, Pickens Plan skeptics

AltaRock & Weyerhaeuser Sign Engineered Geothermal Exploration Deal - RenewableEnergyWorld.comAltaRock, funded by Google and Kleiner Perkins, is an enhanced geothermal systems company drilling deep into stone to get renewable energy. Toyota Plugs Lithium Ion Batteries, Reluctantly - Greentech MediaA presentation from Toyota exec handicaps the different transportation technologies, including plug-in hybrids, liquid fuels, and hydrogen. Not mentioned is Toyota's rumored plans to use zinc air batteries for plug-ins.

Toyota Releases Sustainability Report 2008, Looks to Liquid Peak - Green Car CongressMore on Toyota's plans to use alternative fuels, as part of its corporate sustainability … Read more

AT&T expands iPhone international data plans

AT&T announced Tuesday it's expanding its iPhone international data plans, in a move designed to cut consumers' reliance on pay-per-use data services.

Under the expansion, which is slated to begin Wednesday, iPhone users can add one of two international plans to their existing service.

The 100MB iPhone plan will cost an additional monthly fee of $119.99, while the 200MB plan will run an additional $199.99 a month. Both plans can be added or dropped from users' existing plans at any time, without penalty.

On a pay-per-use data basis, users could pay as much as 0.… Read more

Cities to count emissions with Carbon Disclosure Project

How can cities reduce the role they may play in global warming? Could fire departments, garbage collection services, residential building codes, and industrial regulations be greener?

Attempting to help address those questions, 21 U.S. cities, including New York, Las Vegas, and New Orleans will describe their major sources of greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project, one of the world's largest repositories linking such data to climate change.

The nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project comprises 385 institutional investors with assets of $57 trillion, from ABN Amro to the RBS Group. It has been collecting data on corporate greenhouse … Read more

Digital invites suit up for black-tie affairs

Electronic wedding invitations aren't exactly Adam Lowe's cup of tea.

As host of the popular Modern Manners Guy podcast, Lowe attempts to marry--pun completely intended--the culture of traditional etiquette with a digital world that increasingly threatens to subvert its longstanding norms. And he admits up front that he thinks using the likes of Evite and MyPunchbowl for formal occasions is "a terrible idea" for the most part; except when difficult circumstances demand it, as was the case when he received a digital wedding invitation recently. There was an illness in the groom's family, and the … Read more

The 404 159: Where Justin burns down the 404 studio

On today's show: In Jeff's absence, Justin takes over the studio and all hell breaks loose. Natali Del Conte rushes in to save the day! Wilson sits back and laughs, and we discuss a few stories about free Olympic condoms, annoying neighbors, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, and lost light sabers.

When Jeff's away, the SPig will play! That's right, Jeff's on vacation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, gambling his salary away, so I decide to take up the reins and jump into the hot seat! And trust me, you don't want … Read more

The Real Deal 119: Travel resources

Tom and Rafe share some of the best websites and web resources for planning, booking, and enjoying your holiday. Listen now: Download today's podcast

--Picking and planning--TravelMusehttp://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9962541-2.htmlFarecasthttp://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9921811-2.htmlPriceline.comTrippit, BrightKite, DopplrGoogleWikiTravelhttp://wikitravel.org/en/Main_PageTripSayhttp://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9977210-2.htmlPlanetEyehttp://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9975242-2.htmlAirBed & Breakfasthttp://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9957126-2.html--Taking the trip--Yelp, OpenTable, Chow, TripAdvisorOffbeat Guideshttp://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9956255-2.htmlBeerMenushttp://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9927958-2.htmlPlazes - maps of your tripSmall GPS … Read more

T. Boone Pickens: A man with an energy plan

Oil mogul and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens launched an energy plan and social-networking campaign on Tuesday that calls for replacing Middle Eastern oil with Midwestern wind.

The so-called Pickens Plan would exploit the country's "wind corridor" from the Canadian border to West Texas to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity.

Transmission lines would be built to transport the power to places in the U.S. where the demand is. The natural gas, now used to fuel power plants, would instead be used as a transportation fuel, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is domestic. … Read more

Canadian iPhone 3G plans lack unlimited data

If you think AT&T's iPhone 3G service plans are expensive, just consider what Rogers is forcing on our Canadian friends.

Friday, the carrier announced its service plans for the iPhone 3G, none of which include unlimited data use. Instead, Rogers will cap data each month at a certain amount, which will range from 400MB for the cheapest service plan ($60 Canadian or $59.23 U.S.) to 2GB for the most expensive plan ($115 Canadian or $113.64 U.S.).

Though 2GB is a lot of data, we're not sure how a customer is supposed to … Read more