wealth

Ever wonder what it would be like to own your own island? Well, with Paradise Island for Android, you can at least simulate the experience. In this "freemium" simulator game, you are the owner of a small sector of a tropical island, on which you work to build a perfect resort getaway. As you build more attractions and entice more tourists, your wealth grows, and eventually (if you're good enough) you can expand your empire to cover the entire island.

With enough money, you can build resorts, restaurants, casinos, hot dog stands, shopping centers, monuments, pyramids, waterslides, … Read more

Scottrade Mobile puts all of the online brokerage's trading tools in the palm of your hand. It lets you conduct research on securities, manage your account, and place trade orders just as easily as you would on the full Web site.

From anywhere in the app, you can get stock readings by hitting the Get a Quote button on the bottom of the screen. Type in a ticker symbol or company name to bring up all of a stock's vitals, as well as options to find relevant news, set alerts, and add the stock to your Watch List. … Read more

Roku has inked a deal with WealthTV to bring a linear feed of the television network's programming to its set-top boxes.

If you're unfamiliar with the term, "linear feed," it's because Roku hasn't had anything of the sort until now. Unlike the other channels on the company's platform that provide on-demand access to programming, WealthTV's offering, which costs $2.99 per month, will act as a television channel, letting users drop in to see what's on. The network will be sending out its programming to Roku devices 24 hours a day, … Read more

Rich people are often unjustly maligned. They work hard just like the rest of us. They struggle just like the rest of us. They socially network just like the rest of us. Even more so, it seems.

However, a troubling new poll suggests that rich people, who are overly enthusiastic about giving to Facebook and other social networks, just aren't taking to them.

The poll, conducted by SEI Wealth Network, a company that advises the wealthy on how to survive their troubles, revealed that 70 percent of the moneyed had signed up for Facebook and other online homes of … Read more

At DemoFall 2009, one of the few hardware companies launching is Point of Wealth, which makes a bank machine. It's like an ATM, but in reverse: You can only put cash in, not get it out.

The kiosk is designed to be placed in businesses where employees are paid mostly in cash. The idea is that the employees, when they're paid, can then deposit their cash in the machine and distribute it as they wish -- to pay bills, put money into IRAs, or top off debit cards for use later. Of course they can keep whatever cash … Read more

Yes, we live (again) in the "age of conversations." There is something reassuring about listening to smart people having cultured conversations. When I was young, I would listen for hours to music-free radio programming that sounded like black-and-white movies.

Today, Monocle Magazine brought some of that magic back by launching Monocle Weekly, a 30-minute audio podcast. Hosted by editor in chief Tyler Brûlé, the short-form show extends the publication's monthly print content by offering fresh angles on stories in current and past issues, discussions, previews, field reports, and interviews. The light conversations on serious … Read more

The bigger a nation's wealth and carbon footprint, the less its residents care about global warming. That's according to an online survey of 46 countries on every continent by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The prosperous Dutch appeared the least worried about the prospect of future rising oceans and wild card weather, even though half of the Netherlands lies one meter below sea level. The next least concerned were people in Russia, the United States, Latvia, and Estonia.

"If you take global warming to heart, you understand that you have to sacrifice something," study … Read more

Millionaires who don't feel rich? While this proposition will sound absurd to many people, anyone who has lived in Silicon Valley will recognize the never-ending quest for more success and riches reported in The New York Times.

One survivor of the tech bubble burst describes it well: "Here, the top 1 percent chases the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and the top one-tenth of 1 percent chases the top one-one-hundredth of 1 percent," he said.

The Times piece explores the psychology of relative riches in great detail, but gives short shrift to an important option: moving away.… Read more

Wealth Base Camp, a recently-launched social networking site that I originally heard about at the New York Web 2.0 Meetup, encourages its user base to "live up to your dreams." The site is geared toward folks who have caught the entrepreneurial bug and are looking to figure out how to get themselves off the ground--and then make some bank.

Basically, it's like a "niche" version of LinkedIn--instead of a social networking site for business users in general, it's specifically for those with a particular set of needs and objectives ("creating wealth&… Read more