Acer’s N280-powered Aspire One D150 has already been reviewed , but considering that we’ve yet to have the pleasure of meeting, we took that very opportunity today while parked at the company’s CeBIT booth.

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Acer Aspire One D150 hands-on

I’m deadpooling this .ECO top level domain right now. Not because it’s global warming/eco related, there’s plenty of money being thrown around to support just about every crazy green idea out there. I just don’t think the world needs another top level domain, and certainly not one that is designed for “individuals to express their support for environmental causes, for companies to promote their environmental initiatives, and for environmental organizations to maintain their websites.”

People like .COM domains, or alternatively country level domains. These other ones are little more than traps to force brands to protect their trademarks during expensive pre-sale periods. The company behind the domain gets their most of the money, and ICANN, the quasi-governmental, quai-mafia organization that oversees this mess gets their cut as well. The more domain names get registered, the more money ICANN makes, which lets them hire more staff to stick their noses into more things. Meanwhile, they’re making a mess of the Internet.

Al Gore is partnering with the company to help secure ICANN approval and then promote the domain. Which goes without saying. Fred Kreuger, previously the founder of Tagworld (now Social Project), is one of the founders.

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Global Warming May Get Its Very Own Top Level Domain

Remember that GP1 pico projector that was quietly announced alongside a slew of others at CES this year?

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BenQ GP1 (P1) LED pocket projector hands-on

A 73-year-old man was recently given vision again after being outfitted with a ” bionic eye .” After 30 years of darkness, he now can see enough to follow white lines on the road and sort socks. The eye, known as Argus II , is made by American company Second Sight . It works by using a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images to a tiny receiver placed on the outside of a patient’s eye.

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Elderly Man Sees For First Time in 30 Years With Bionic Eye [We Can Rebuild Him]

AirBed and Breakfast, an online portal for renting space on a stranger’s airbed or couch, has re-launched its website to AirBnB, an eBay-like marketplace for all accommodations. Now a Y-Combinator start-up (the startup is currently in the winter session of the incubator), AirBnB, which launched as AirBed and Breakfast last August, found that users wanted to use the site for more than just renting space in someone’s house and were actively posting rental listings for apartments, houses and vacation rentals. The founders, San Francisco designers Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, and software engineer Nathan Blecharczyk, quickly realized that increased and varied choice is more appealing for consumers and are now re-branding their site to incorporate a variety of local accommodation options.

There is also a monetary benefit to opening up the site, says Chesky. For each rental, AirBnB takes a 7 to 10 percent cut of the traveler’s payment (as the rental price of the accommodation goes up, AirBnB will take less of a cut) and also takes a flat 3 percent cut of what the seller receives. With an increase in number of listings and a greater amount of pricier listings, AirBnB has had a jump in the number of transactions and seen a 50 percent jump in revenue plus created a profit. Vacation rentals can be a big business. Recently, HomeAway, a popular vacation rental site, raised $250 million in a venture round and was valued at more than $1 billion.

The site still allows users to post airbed and couch listings, which continues to be popular amongst consumers. But with a wider market, AirBnB has 2500 listings and close to 10,000 registered users. While AirBnB has no plans to follow eBay’s auction site model, the start-up would eventually like to post listings directly from the enterprise world (in this case, hotels and property managers), which eBay has been able to do with its marketplace.

Now that AirBnB is diversifying its accommodations, it will also face a fair amount of competitors in the rental space. Vacationrentals.com and Free-rental.com are just a few of the many short-term rental property listing hubs available for consumers. But AirBnB maintains that the combination of its former business of renting couches and the apartment and vacation rentals, all at relatively inexpensive price points, will make the start-up popular.

With the downturn in the economy wreaking havoc on expensive travel plans, inexpensive home rentals may become more popular amongst consumers. AirBnB provides relatively cost-effective alternatives to staying in a hotel. For example, I saw a listing for a nicely-furnished one bedroom apartment in Midtown for $160 per night. That’s not a bad deal for an entire apartment. And AirBnB offers rooms and couches in cities like Washington D.C. and Paris for under $20 per night.

And for of our readers who are looking for a place to crash or a vacation rental, AirBnB is offering $50 off any trip that is booked from now until Monday, March 9th. All you have to do is type in “TECHCRUNCH” when booking.

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Y Combinator’s Airbed And Breakfast Casts A Wider Net For Housing Rentals As AirBnB

We’re not sure if it has anything to do with its falling out with Telsa or not, but auto-parts maker Magna International looks to have really gone all out for this year’s Geneva Motor Show, where it is showing off its new Mila EV concept vehicle. Apparently, in addition to proving that it can build more than just parts, Magna is hoping that the vehicle will appeal to manufactures who want a turn-key EV platform that they can quickly get into production

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Magna, Mitsubishi show off electric vehicle concepts in Geneva

HDGuru just caught wind that the 1-inch-thick 54″ Z1 plasma from Panasonic (TC-P54Z1) will cost a hefty $6000 when it arrives this June. The guru himself, Gary, is calling this baby the “most advanced HDTV” from Panasonic, with a native contrast ratio of 40,000:1, THX certification, a crazy color gamut, 24Hz movie playback and a separate box containing a wireless HDMI receiver, to keep the thinness thin. At a time when plasma seems to be dying—see Pioneer and Vizio —this is one last gasp that might be worth paying for. There’s more leaked info on the Z1 and all the lesser Panasonic plasmas, over there. [ HDGuru ]

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Sexiest Plasma (Still) Alive: Panasonic Z1 Priced at $6000 [Panasonic]

Not wanting you to miss a second of LOST while you’re making the Wednesday night commute, Intel has created an embeddable Digital TV antenna for picking up that fancy over-the-air HD signal from your laptop without having to use one of those cumbersome external receivers. There isn’t much to say here other than its existence and this handy diagram (the preferred DTV receptor method is on the right, by the way).

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Intel develops embeddable DTV antenna for OTA on the go

RIM’s newly-named BlackBerry App World might be all set to compete with the other mobile app stores on the scene, but it’s not going head-to-head on price: according to the developer docs, the first price tier above free is $2.99. That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a little puzzling in light of how successful various less-expensive iPhone apps have been. Of course, RIM might just want its apps to seem more valuable to customers — and maybe keep fart apps far from its business-oriented platform — but we’ll see how developers react when things go live. [Via CrackBerry ] Filed under: Cellphones BlackBerry App World minimum paid price: $2.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:10:00 EST.

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BlackBerry App World minimum paid price: $2.99

Divvyshot, a new Y Combinator company that makes sharing photos between groups very easy, has just launched in private alpha. The site allows groups of users to share full-resolution photos collaboratively both through online galleries and using native clients that will launch in the next few weeks. There are currently 700 invites available, which you can grab here.

Divvyshot albums can be edited by multiple users, and can be set as private (only allowing designated friends to upload photos) or public, which lets anyone upload their photos to the album. All photos are presented at a fairly high resolution on the site, and are also available at their original quality for download (you can also download entire albums at a time as .zip files).

Once the site’s native clients are released (they’re coming for both Mac and Windows), users will be able to simply drag their photos into a designated folder on their desktop, and they’ll be automatically uploaded to the online group albums and to every other group member’s native client.

Founder Sam Odio says that he hasn’t settled on a monetization plan, explaining that he has considered going the SmugMug route and charging for bandwidth/storage. But he’s also thinking of trying to generate revenue by appealing to certain target demographics and then selling them highly relevant customized goods. For example, he believes that Divvyshot will likely appeal to Sorority girls, who may be eager to share their photos between close friends but not on social networks like Facebook. Divvyshot could capitalize on this demographic by selling personalized items (perhaps branded with the sorority’s logo) that featured their photos.

Divvyshot looks nice and seems to work well, but it’s going to have no shortage of competition. There are already quite a few photo sharing sites that allow for group collaboration, and services like Apple’s MobileMe allow for photo sharing through desktop clients (you could even conceivably use something like Dropbox). That said, if it can effectively separate itself by offering a more intuitive (or cheaper) service, it may be able to carve out a niche.

divvyshot sneak peak from Sam O on Vimeo.

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Y Combinator’s Divvyshot Launches Dead Simple Group Photo Sharing