Day: June 21, 2009

Categories
gadgets

Nokia 5800 XM: video playback, game, bluetooth and podcast

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Last Updated on June 22, 2009 by stlplace

I got to play more with my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (XM) phone in the weekend. The following are the things I tried.

1) Video playback: I found there are some Nokia sample videos and a .wmv video (transferred from my PC Windows media player). Both played without problem. However, when I copied some Apple Dev movie (mpeg-4 format?), it only plays the audio.

2) Game: the Bounce game comes with the phone is a bit challenging for me, as you may know I don’t play computer or smartphone game often.

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Categories
Business

Sales tax on online shopping coming?

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Last Updated on June 21, 2009 by stlplace

I read two news this week, which makes me think this is coming. Keep in mind many local governments are upside down in terms of budget and debts, any tax revenue helps. Collecting tax revenue from online merchants in remote places like Seattle (HQ of Amazon) is a convenient choice.

Expedia (Nasdaq: EXPE) tax lawsuit (source: hotel-online): from my reading, basically the dispute is around the basis of tax, we know Expedia sells hotel room at discounted rates, but the local government (Columbus, GA in this case) think it should be the listed price. I am not lawyer but I lean towards the discounted rate.

Amazon may stop doing affiliate business. Quote WSJ Amazon Threatens Cuts Over State Taxes:

The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) may stop doing business with some of its marketing affiliates over state taxes.

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