Archives for November 2009

To the District Court in Sydney now where a judge has just handed down the decision on the appeal by rugby league star Greg Bird against his conviction for assault. Last June the former Cronulla Shark and Australian representative was sentenced to 16 months in jail for recklessly wounding his girlfriend Katie Milligan by smashing a glass into her face.

Both had claimed the incident, in August last year, was a drunken accident that had occurred during an argument in their Cronulla flat.  But during this week's appeal, Ms Milligan says she falsely accused a flatmate in order to protect her high-profile boyfriend from going to jail.

The ABC's court reporter Liv Casben is at the court and joins us now. So Liv, what did the appeal judge rule? LIV CASBEN: Judge Michael Finnane ruled that both Milligan and Bird were witnesses of truth, Eleanor. Neither had given evidence, as you'd know, on legal advice at the earlier hearing. But with this jail term hanging over Greg Bird's head both were allowed to offer fresh evidence, Judge Michael Finnane ruling that that was in the interests of justice.

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Those catchy commercials advertising free credit reports are hard to miss. But many consumers complain about their truthfulness, and now the government is proposing a crackdown as CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan reports.

The ads star slackers made poor by identity theft singing about their troubles. Flight attendant Euridicis Romero remembers the jingle, but also the hassle that came with getting a credit report from FreeCreditReport.com.

"It wasn't actually free," she said.  A week after Romero got her report, she noticed charges on her credit card for credit monitoring: $15 dollars a month. It took her three weeks of arguing before she got her money back. She's one of 11,000 people to complain to the Better Business Bureau.

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Swindon is to become Britain’s first with “Wi-Fi mesh” to offer free wireless Internet access to all of its 186,000 residents. As many as 1,400 access points will be set up around the Swindon to create a Wi-Fi mesh.

The first phase of the project, which is expected to cost around one million pounds, will be switched on in early December and the whole project is hoped to be completed by April.

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The £1million scheme will cover the area's 186,000 population in a "WiFi mesh" allowing easy online access. Users will be able to log on anywhere in the town — accessing the internet and e-mail accounts free of charge.

The project — which is the brainchild of Swindon Borough Council — will be funded by a mixture of public and private money.  But it is hoped it will soon break into profit by offering residents the chance to upgrade to a faster service.

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Some of the world's biggest internet companies are to provide free WiFi access in U.S. airports and planes over Christmas.
Google announced this week that it would lay on free internet in 47 airports across America, including Boston, Houston and Seattle until January 15.

The airports handle about 35 per cent of U.S. air passengers, the company said. Travellers who connect to a wireless 'hot spot' at one of the airports will see a browser page that gives them the chance to donate to three charities and have the donation matched by Google.

The 47 airports include some, such as McCarran International in Las Vegas, that already provide free WiFi but sponsorships help the airport keep the service free.

Google is also providing free WiFi on Virgin America flights for the same period. Web auction powerhouse eBay will provide free WiFi on some Delta Air Lines planes during Thanksgiving week at the end of November.

Logging on will take users first to eBay's holiday page, but they will be free to roam from there. Since September, Microsoft has given away WiFi access at some hotels and airports, encouraging users to make a query on the company's new search engine, Bing.

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Online shopping, long a bright spot in retail, has hit a bump in the cyber road. E-commerce retail sales, excluding travel, fell 2 percent to $29.6 billion in the third quarter compared to a year ago, marking the first time on record that online sales have tumbled two quarters in a row, according to a report released Thursday from ComScore Inc.

"The good news is that these declines may finally be in our rear view mirror, as we anticipate marginally positive growth for the fourth quarter," said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of the Reston, Va.-based online research firm.

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Fresno, CA (KFSN) -- There's been a huge turnout for a free H1N1 vaccine clinic in Central Fresno. It was supposed to end around 7:00 p.m., but it will be quite some time before everyone gets immunized.
Action News has been at Manchester Center all day; watch the video above for the latest on the rush to get vaccinated.

As an impending free agent who had snapped an 86-race winless skid, Jamie McMurray viewed Sunday's victory at Talladega Superspeedway as a résumé booster. "Certainly, being able to win is not going to hurt my chances at getting another ride," he said.

But it wouldn't necessarily help a lot, either. "There's not a lot available right now," said McMurray, the first driver not in the Chase for the Sprint Cup to win a Chase event since Greg Biffle at Kansas Speedway in September 2007. "If a sponsor were to call, that would make it a lot easier with the amount of teams that are shutting down. I just hope that we can get (a new deal) signed so that it will make it a little bit easier to sleep at night."

It's not been a driver's market this year in the Sprint Cup Series, where the down economy has turned the annual "silly season" parade of driver and crew chief switches into a subdued affair. With a sponsorship shortage limiting budgets, teams are contracting rather than expanding, and those behind the wheel are feeling the squeeze. Besides McMurray, 2000 champion Bobby Labonte, Casey Mears, Reed Sorenson and David Stremme also face uncertain futures.

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With Google announcing that it is launching a free turn by turn sat-nav service using Google maps, are the days of Tom Tom and Garmin numbered? All the phone manufacturers need to do now is get a decent in-car cradle for a smart phone and I can't see why you would buy a $300+ sat nav for your car? Of course, the smartphone's screen won't be as good as a purpose built GPS, but with voice directions, it would probably be good enough.

With Google maps, it would also mean you could take your smart phone overseas and use it without having to buy expensive maps for each overseas destination. You would be hit with data charges though. Google maps also mean you would have all the local landmarks layed out for you (parks, service stations, etc). But I think it is a win/win for consumers with the only losers being GPS manufacturers and Google's competitors.