Archive for the ‘worldwide websites’ Category
Skype offers unlimited long-distance plan
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Internet calling company Skype said on Monday that it would offer an unlimited long-distance calling service for customers who want to reach friends and family without computers or Internet access.
Skype, owned by eBay, is one of the best-known Internet calling firms which allow free calls among Internet users. Users pay to call landlines and mobile phones, but the fee is often lower than standard long-distance services.
The company said it was offering unlimited calls to landline and cell phones in the U.S. and Canada for $2.95 a month.
It also offers unlimited calls to phones in 34 countries including Australia, China, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, for $9.95 per month, it said.
Skype users in Europe can choose from unlimited plans ranging from 2.95 euros to 8.95 euros a month depending on the destination of calls, the company said.
Skype is one of eBay’s biggest divisions. The parent firm took a $1.4 billion write-down off Skype’s $4.3 billion price tag last year due to problems in making money from largely free Internet voice communications.
Skype’s new chief executive, Josh Silverman, told Reuters in an interview on Friday that he was pleased with the support it has received from eBay, and brushed off media reports that Skype might be put up for sale.
Porn for the Blind… Do we need it in Vancouver?
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008http://www.pornfortheblind.org/
Porn preview sites aren’t known for their usability. You’re familiar with the template, I’m sure. The standard design looks like someone spilled a box of dirty photos across a black laminate floor and then vandalized the result with several colors of primary paint. In all caps. With lots of misspellings and exclamation points!!!
It’s bad enough when you can see it. But what if you have a visual impairment? Your screen-reader software would probably spit out a few choice words and crash out of sheer spite.
Porn for the Blind, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass., was established for the sole purpose of making the millions of free porn clips available online accessible to people with visual impairments.
Given the abundance of audio erotica, pornographic podcasts and adult online radio, you might think that Porn for the Blind is at best unnecessary, or at worst, a hoax.
Yet there’s something hot about the absolute amateur quality of the submissions, just like a homemade snapshot capturing real sexual energy can have more impact than a studio photograph of a professional model.
“We imagine that visually impaired people benefit from this service in many of the same ways that non-visually impaired people benefit from the raw hard-core pornography that’s being described,” says the site’s co-founder, who asked to be identified simply as Elmer.
The method? Volunteer audiodescribers watch porn preview videos and describe the content as it unfolds, using the site’s recording software to capture the audio and post it to the home page.
read more http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle
Toxic Free Foundation
Monday, March 31st, 2008toxicfree.org
The TOXICFREE® Foundation is a leading educator and resource on the possible toxic ingredients used in personal care, household, baby and pet products. We are committed to assuring ever increasing product safety and product integrity for our children, ourselves and our pets and to being the inspiration for healthy solutions.
Chemical poisons in cosmetics, personal care, and household products are affecting you and your children more than you may know.
According to the Poison Control Center report published in 1999, there are more than two million, two hundred thousand reported cases of exposure to poisonous substances annually. In this report, household cleaning substances are the number one source, responsible for more than 217,400 cases of exposure each year. Analgesics, primarily acetaminophen, are number two.
The number three source is personal care products, which include cosmetics, at more than 205,200 exposures. Household and personal care products together are responsible for more than FIVE TIMES THE NUMBER REPORTED FROM PESTICIDES.
For Children under the age of 6 years, the number one source of exposure is personal care products, including cosmetics (153,057), and the number two source is household cleaning substances (123,575).
Read Labels!
Refuse to buy products that contain chemicals that can hurt you, your family, your friends and the earth. Get a cosmetic ingredient dictionary and become informed.
