India, the second most populated country in the world, crosses the population mark at 1.02 billion people! (Only China has a higher population.) It seems that people are not dissuaded from having large families, even though the cost of living in India is relatively high. To an American, products from India may seem cheap, however the Indian rupee, not the dollar, is the major currency and they don’t go very far in India’s economy today.

Gasoline alone is a little more than 70 times as expensive as gas in the United States. And with the economy of India as it is, the majority of the population can’t afford a can of gas, let alone the car that goes with it. Needless to say, mass transit or “pedal power” has been the way to get around for quite some time.

Imagine, though, if there were a way for a sizeable percentage of the almost one billion people to be able to afford a car. What would that mean for the economy? The average household? Employment rates? The environment? These are some of the many issues dredged up by the introduction of the TATA Nano, an extremely cheap vehicle unveiled in India at the New Delhi Auto Expo.

Later this year, these cars will roll out of the factory ready for consumers in the mainstream Indian population. This four-door, five-seater (if you really squeeze in) hatchback is in the shape of a kidney bean, small in front and wider in back. This helps cut wind shear and allows for cheaper engines. Part of the cost-cutting measures involved questions such as: “Is it necessary to have four brake pads, or can we get by with three?” and “Do we really need [insert car part here]?” It certainly has none of the luxuries Americans seem to require such as a radio, air conditioning, or power windows and steering. However, as one Indian man put it, “it’s faster than a bicycle!” This is the sentiment many Indians may be sharing as they consider the ramifications of adding a vehicle to their household.

But they’re not the only ones considering the cost. Critics of the vehicle are concerned with its impact on the environment. They worry the car could burden already-crowded streets and add enormous amounts of air and noise pollution in the atmosphere, creating an “environmental nightmare.”

Hopefully, with projected pollution levels more than quadrupling in the next 30 years, Indian officials will consider ways to offset the impact. If India’s population continues to increase exponentially, though, that’s certainly a lot of trees to plant. Still, chairman Ratan Tata insists the Nano will release less pollution than motorcycles, meet safety standards, and pass emission standards. And at 50 miles to the gallon, few are thinking about the environmental impact, and instead see the opportunity to trade two wheels for four. But does it really matter if a car gets 50 miles to the gallon when millions of them eventually are added to the roads of India and beyond?

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Did you know that there’s actually a SCIENCE about happiness? I had no idea, until I heard this young man speak at a recent conference. His name is Shawn Achor and he is a HOOT! He teaches at Harvard and has THE most popular course on campus. Over 1000 students have signed up for his course, “Psychology: Positive Psychology and the Science of Happiness”.

Course Description:

In our increasingly modern and even luxurious world, why aren’t wealth and success translating into greater happiness? Depression rates in the United States are currently eight times higher than they were during the Great Depression, and that’s just one measure of our society’s mental health. Positive Psychology is an emerging branch in social psychology that attempts to answer this paradox. Researchers in this field are also investigating whether there is a way of living and thinking that can lead not only to increased happiness, but also to a longer, healthier life. Whereas traditional psychology explores the abnormally bad or merely the average, positive psychology looks at the “growing tip” of the curve-the most happy and the most successful-to figure out what can be learned from them. This lecture examines the latest research and discoveries in the field, and explores some of the techniques that incorporate positive psychology and can lead to increased happiness and health.

Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University. Indeed, Achor is the Head Teaching Fellow for the most popular course at Harvard, Positive Psychology, which is led by Professor Tal Ben-Shahar. Over 1,000 students a semester have signed up for the course. Beyond Positive Psychology, Achor has taught in four academic departments at Harvard, including courses in Psychology of Leadership, Personality Psychology and Business, and Human Sexuality. After receiving his BA from Harvard in English and earning a Masters from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist Ethics, Achor has synthesized his understanding of rhetoric, religion and ethics into the field of psychology, where he is currently finishing his PhD in social psychology at Tufts. Indeed part of Achor’s interest in positive psychology stems from the fact that studies have shown many of Harvard’s undergrads suffer, at one time or another, from depression while at school. As a freshman advisor and proctor on the Harvard campus, Achor has seen this experience firsthand.

I share this information with you for a few reasons. One, when you hear this man speak, it’s impossible NOT to get excited. He’s so authentic and enthusiastic and utterly darling in his passion for helping people understand the power they have to BE happy. And he truly cares. It shines from him like a halo; he is as inspiring as he is informative. The studies they’ve conducted thus far are truly astonishing and the results of those studies will really make you rethink those moments when you’re miserable. The fact is, we CAN control our lives by readjusting how we think. The brain is actually ‘elastic’ and can be rewired! The idea of this just blew me away!

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US marketers spent 7.8% of their total online marketing budget on social media marketing in Q3 2007. Social media sites realizing their advertising potential have unleashed newer and better advertising platforms to attract advertisers and developers alike.

Google recently announced the beta launch of its OpenSocial platform. Google gadgets are set to compete with Facebook’s recently unveiled SocialAds. Social gadgets will work across many popular social networking sites including Orkut, MySpace, hi5, LinkedIn, Ning and SalesForce. Developers can now build multi-site applications using HTML and JavaScript. Google’s portable social gadgets are poised to give tough competition to the widely popular Facebook platform.

OpenSocial platform opens up many possibilities like sharing your song playlists on iLike with your social network on Orkut. The gadgets stream live data from other websites without the user having to navigate away from the current site. With a wide number of popular social media sites partnering with Google, the platform should see fast adoption. Webmasters and businesses building social media sites can adopt the OpenSocial platform to benefit from the large number of developers who will be able to build applications for them.

Facebook will have to rethink its strategy of having a walled development platform. Under the new ad strategy from Facebook, advertisers can create free pages for their products and services. These pages can host interesting applications for download. Users can choose to become fans of an advertiser’s products or services. Facebook’s beacon allows advertisers to add fans activities to news feed their friends receive on the home page. Facebook also announced the lauch of SocialAds, which are display and text ads shown to a user’s friends when the user purchases or interacts with a product/service. Advertisers will be provided with analytics and reports about consumer response.

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When you received an energy (heating) bill last winter, were you afraid to open it? Granted that we have a home with a lot of really big windows, but we saw energy bills last winter in the hundreds of dollars. Your bill probably wasn’t that bad but I’m guessing that it was a lot higher than you would have liked.

The good news is that there are some inexpensive things you can do to cut that cost. Here are 10 of them.

1. If you have a fireplace, be sure to keep the damper closed. You can lose up to 5 percent of your heat if your damper is open when the fireplace is not in use.

2. Keep your furnace filter clean. Replace it at least once a month during heating season. This alone can cut your heating costs by as much as 5 percent.

3. Be sure to keep inside doors open to improve heat circulation. This will help the efficiency of your heating system.

4. Lower the setting on your thermostat. If you can reduce your daytime indoor thermostat temperature from 72 to 68 degrees, you should save about 5 per- cent during the heating season.

5. If your hot water pipes and water heater are warm to the touch, insulate them. This will reduce heat loss and water heating costs.

6. Every minute you cut from your shower saves three gallons of water and the energy required to heat it.

7. Install compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. Over the life of just one of these bulbs, you’ll save about $15. Use just a handful of these around your home and you could notice a difference in your energy bill.

8. Motion detectors put light where you want it, when you want it, for brief periods of time. They provide safety and security for you and your property, but require much less energy since they are on only when you need them.

9.Be sure to check for cold air leaks at doors and windows. If you have a question as to whether or not they are leaking cold air, light a match and hold it at the bottom of the window or door. You should be able to see very quickly if there is a draft.

10. Apply weather stripping around any doors that are leaking air, and caulk around all your windows. Weather stripping can be purchased from just about any hardware store, as well as stores like Home Deport and Lowe’s.

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There’s no doubt that the IPhone was on a lot of Christmas wish lists this year. The IPhone is highly innovative and much sought-after for its multimedia functionality, but the IPhone is also incredibly expensive with a $500 price tag and a required expensive monthly AT&T contract. Enter the IClone, or the IPhone Clone, also known as the CECT P168.

With the IPhone you are forced to contract with AT&T for your wireless service. If you want anywhere near 1,000 minutes, you’ll be paying over $100 per month for your service.

There is a way around both the initial price of an IPhone and the costs of the expensive AT&T plan. It’s called the IClone, The Iphone Clone or the CECT P168 (called “the real thing” by Popular Science) - and it looks amazingly identical to the IPhone and offers ALL of the features of an IPhone plus bonus, additional features like extra speakers and a removable battery, plus it allows you to use whatever participating carrier you like (even your current provider). Popular Science Magazine dubbed the IClone CECT P168 “the real thing” because the IClone CECT P168 performs amazingly well, is 1/4 the price of an iPhone and even has bonus features that the iPhone doesn’t include. (The aforementioned the ability to operate on two different networks at once, SIX speakers, and a removable, renewable battery.) Seeing both phones side by side makes the IClone CECT 168 an easy sell.

Better still, the IClone CECT P168 runs well under $200. This means you can actually get yourself, your kid or loved one all of the features of the IPhone - the touch screen, the ability to surf the web or watch videos, and the MP3 capabilities we all want, without worrying about the credit card bill coming or without having to threaten your kid’s life if they lose the IClone. Basically, anything you can do with the IPhone, you can also do with the IClone CECT P168 - AND you can remove the battery and operate on two Sim cards. Take the significant money ($400) you save and do something nice for yourself or your family.

You don’t need to buy or install any software for the IClone P168. The phone will automatically recognize your network, phone book, personal settings and phone book. Additional standard features on the CECT P168 are:

Ring tones Type: Polyphonic (64 channels), Monophonic, True Tones, MP3;

Music player: Support MP3 player, with mp3, midi, and wav format;

Movie player: Support 3GP/MP4 movie player with full-screen;

Camera function: Camera with 1.3MP, 1024*1280 pixels, video (QCIF);

Memory Type: Support T-FLASH arbitrary expansion slot (256mb TF card included);

Interface: USB;

Vibrate: Yes;

Internet Browser;

Bluetooth;

Java 2.0;

Handwriting Recognition;

Messaging: SMS, MMS;

Cell phone Directory: iPhone Book Memory supports 300 records;

Supports Caller Ringing / Caller Video Player;

Game: Two games built in + downloadable;

Calculator/world time/stopwatch;

Unit Conversion/Currency Conversion/Calendar;

Stand-by time: Up to 150h;

Talk time: 180min–300min;

and

Supports: English (Default), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic.

(You can get an English Manual on Ebay for about $3.00)

There are a few sketchy overseas vendors of the CECT P168, but I strongly recommend getting your IClone CECT P168 on eBay, because EBay offers pay pal fraud protection, the protection of the feedback system, and the competition on EBay ensures you get the lowest price. EBay’s feedback system allows you to actually see buyer comments about the seller so you will know how many happy customers the seller has. Nearly all of the CECT P168 feedback is positive. You can also contact previous buyers to see if they are enjoying their IClone.

If you’re not a current Ebay member, it is quick, easy and free to sign up. And unlike overseas vendors, Ebay is safe, secure and protected.

With features and specifications amazingly similar to the IPhone at under ¼ of the price, the IClone is a great way to try out the Phone’s features while waiting for the price of the IPhone to trickle down. It’s also a way to give your kids (or yourself) the technology they are hungry for at a fraction of the price.

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