| Cathy Sorbo: Ahead of the curve on good changes
Marlowe Harris, one of the P-I real estate bloggers, sent me a blurb about something new to try on New Year's Day. It involves wearing a tacky tracksuit and donning a bad wig. There is a meet-up at Green Lake, and the track-suited, wig-wearing mob enjoys a nice walk around the lake en masse. Or there's always the Polar Bear Dip, whereby one relaxes in the 44-degree waters of the Puget Sound with others. I opted for the less public and much warmer option, the New Year's Resolution. This year, I have two. The first one is to delete, without guilt, any self-esteem themed e-mails, especially if it is required that I forward it to all my female friends in order for a wish to come true. Throughout the year I received this type of egospam, and last month I received an e-mail that had an especially massive list of "feel good about yourself no matter what" missives.
Medical insurers Aetna, Cigna agree to pay for online doctor visits
Consulting your family physician is finally moving into the 21st century and out of the doctor's office. Since the dawn of e-mail, patients have been pleading for more doctors to offer medical advice online. No traffic jams, no long waits, no germ-infested offices. There was always one major roadblock: Many health insurers wouldn't pay for it. Until now. In recent weeks, Aetna Inc., the nation's largest insurer, and Cigna Corp. have agreed to reimburse doctors for online visits. Other large insurers are expected to follow, experts say. These new online services, which typically cost the same as a regular office visit, are aimed primarily at those who already have a doctor. The virtual visits are considered best for follow-up consultations and treatment for minor ailments such as colds and sore throats.
Intel peddles pie in the sky
INTEL'S PAUL OTELLINI gave a CES keynote that had one new codeword, some tech that is much farther off than he hopes and a lot of older process technology news. We will skip the older stuff. The technology is based on the idea of a Star Trekish communicator, a little PDA that will translate voice on the fly. This may not surprise you, the tech is close to real, and probably will be available in the not hugely distant future. It may even be in PDA form before we all die of old age and ennuis. The part less likely to happen before the sun dies a heat death is the camera on the back translating everything that you take a picture of. The Chinese writing on the store menu might be possible, but tossing in contextual info based on pictures? Overlay it intelligently on video in realtime? Ummm, call me a skeptic......
Hey Thursday, Shut Up
And I don't even care that Barry Bonds was indicted. Yawn. So what? Somebody wake me up when they take him to jail. 275 Million Dollars for ten years. That is the craziest thing I have ever heard in my life. I don't even think the Yankees really even want him playing for them. The Yanks and ARod. They're just like that nauseating High School Lovers thing. You know, the ugly couple that fought all the time, but could never end the relationship because they had what they thought was pretty good sex. Then one day they got older and realized that the sex was actually never really that good. Well, in this case, money is the sex, and PayRod is really good at accepting it and using it to buy cheesy, expensive suits, while the Yankees are fantastic at handing it out.
Camera makers vie for SLR buyers' attention
Camera manufacturers including Canon, Pentax, and Fujifilm will show new digital SLRs for professional photographers at the PMA07 show in Las Vegas next month. The new models balance traditional and advanced features to retain existing customers and tempt new ones. Canon will show the EOS-1D Mark III Digital SLR, an upgrade of its classic 1D model that shoots 10.1 megapixel images at up to 10 frames per second. Canon developed a more sensitive image sensor for the camera that can be pushed to ISO 6400, it said Thursday. Fujifilm, meanwhile, will show the FinePix S5 Pro, which begins shipping this month. The digital SLR has a 12.34 megapixel image sensor: half the pixels respond best to low light levels, the other half to stronger light, a system that captures images with a wider dynamic range, the company said.
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