The Internet, magazines, newspapers, mobile phones, radio, and recently, maybe even billboards. But is Google going to top all those media this year by working with CBS to set up an online auction for TV advertising spots? Reports conflict, and Google, as usual, will not “comment on rumor or speculation.”

Google says its main mission is to index the world’s information and to do it in an un-evil way. Of course, the cost of indexing and not-evil business practices is provided by advertising. They should amend that mission statement to include, “collect all the world’s advertising money.”

AdAge’s expert disagrees with MediaPost’s expert about the likelihood of a Google/CBS partnership to sell TV ads online.
But for those of us who’ve watched Google closely, we know that anything is possible - and likely.

Tim Spengler, chief activation officer at Initiative North America, believes Google and CBS will make a big announcement in 2007 that they will test an “online auction with local media.”

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Source: Jason Lee Miller, Staff Writer, Webpronews

Apple knew that it could not use a brand name that is a trademark belonging to another company, but it went ahead anyway and launched the much anticipated iPhone. Why did Apple willing to take such a risk? I think I know why. Apple needs a grand publicity for its latest and expensive toy. And what better alternative for Steve Jobs to generate even more publicity than inciting giant Cisco to start trademark war with Apple?

iPhone had generated a lot of buzz many months prior to its release at the recent CES 2007 in Las Vegas. Apple saw the benefit of the huge attention it was getting even before the iPhone was released. Now that the iPhone is already in the market, Apple needs to maintain the public excitement generated by pre-launch publicity. The lawsuit brought by Cisco against Apple over iPhone trademark is going to deliver just what Apple needs to make sure iPhone news remain at the front pages of all tech news headlines to generate the sales for iPhone.

Simple… and effective. But at what cost? I can’t tell for now but my guess is that Apple will finally settle this with Cisco out of court. By then, millions already ringing in Apple’s cash registers and Steve Jobs would be smiling all the way to his bank.

Read [CanoeMoney]
Read [TechNewsWorld]

It’s no secret that Amazon offers a 30-day price refund if you make a purchase from them. The programs works easily enough: you find a lower price on an item within 30 days of your purchase and Amazon refunds the difference. The trouble has been actually finding those prices to watch for.

Now you don’t have to.

You just submit your Amazon purchase to Refund Please and they’ll email you if the price drops within 30 days of your purchase. One cool item on their site is located at the top of the page. You can see the total amount of refunds that Refund Please has been able to get for people, along with the largest single refund to date. Somebody got really lucky and got a credit of over $3,000! I’m just wondering what they bought to get that massive amount of shekels back…

If you’re like me and you did some last minute online Christmas shopping, Refund Please might help you pay for some of those credit card bills that will be coming in over the next month or so

Read [Refund Please] Via [LifeHacker]

Never mind the puny little 1080 px resolution on your TVs. That’s so 2006. Enter a new breed of pixel resolution brought to you by the folks at Westinghouse. I’ve always been impressed by the quality of the TVs produced by these folks (and at some of the best prices out there), but this is amazing.

Get ready to be blown away by Westinghouse’s 56-inch Quad HD monitor, sporting a mind-boggling 3,840 x 2,160 resolution. Also, they’ll be showing off a 24-inch unit with 1,920 x 1,200.

You might want to have some tissues handy if you’re going to be at CES. When you look at one of these high-res beauties, your eyes will do one of two things: tear up, or bleed.

Read [Gizmodo]

With the buzz around CES already starting to build, Toshiba thought it was a good idea to throw a hornet in the nest with an announcement about a pre-CES news conference on January 7th. Toshiba will be joined by other members of the group supporting the HD-DVD format to update everyone on their plans for 2007.

Toshiba introduced the first generation of its HD-DVD players at CES 2006 and recently released second-generation players, drawing speculation that price drops are coming soon. Which is a good thing.

Sales for both HD-DVD and the competing Blu-Ray format have been sluggish at best, due to the low availability of titles for either format and the price of the players themselves. For Toshiba, the first generation HD-A1 and HD-XA1 entered the world at $500 and $800 respectively. The new HD-A2 and HD-XA2 show no signs of relenting on your wallet with their $500 and $1,000 price points.

Have hope and don’t fear, Toshiba president and CEO Yoshihide Fujii provided some light on the topic of discussion for the aforementioned news conference.

At first I thought the price threshold is $499. Maybe coming next is $399 and after that is $299.

That’s about as vague as you can get, so form your own opinion. I already have. I’m just hoping that somebody is offering no-interest financing on a big honkin’ Plasma TV. Like a 60 inch. Yeah, 60 inch. Or maybe I’ll get real bold and go for the 100 inch. But that would require a new living room…

Read [CEPro] Via [PC World]