Summer is here and CrazySoft is offering a 70% discount on a package of their games. CrazySoft has bundled 9 of their games worth $125, and is offering them for only $39.90.

The technology behind cleaning clothes has spun through more than a few cycles over the last century. Soon, those who delight in living the clean life could be awash in an even newer twist. Washers and dryers that link wirelessly to Internet-connected home networks are being tested by consumers who are receiving updates on their dirty laundry via cell phones, computers and TV sets. Messages not only indicate when a wash is complete but also can warn that a lint filter is clogged or a load is too large.

Mobile IQ, from Aircept, is an interactive GPS vehicle tracking device allowing the end user the ability to locate their vehicle at any given time via the Internet or cell phone. Mobile IQ is the most effective, low cost alternative to offer to your fleet customers who want to know where their drivers are at any given time without having to pay exorbitant monthly airtime fees.

Microsoft has released the source code to the Windows CE device emulator 1.0 that ships with Visual Studio 2005 under a shared source “academic” license. This makes the code available for “non-commercial teaching, research, and personal experimentation while attending or employed by an accredited educational institution,” according to the license.

The Microsoft Mobile Client Software Factory provides integrated guidance to help architects and developers create line-of-business Windows Mobile applications that interact with back-end systems over networks such as WiFi and GPRS that might be occasionally available. For those of you looking to create an application to interface with your back-end while helping your workers in the field be ultra-mobile, check out Microsoft’s new Mobile Client Software Factory.

Palm has ended shipments of the the LifeDrive Mobile Manager to Europe. Due to the EU’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances law, Palm has ceased exports of their LifeDrive, alongside the Treo 650, to Europe as of July 1st. The European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances law prohibits the use of lead and five other toxic substances in electronics equipment took effect on July 1st. The Treo 650 smartphone was also affected by the EU requirement.

Scammers have set up an exact copy of the download page for Google’s Toolbar plug-in in an attempt to lure users to download a Trojan back door. Reported by security outfit Surfcontrol, some versions of the scam even spoof the correct Google Toolbar Web address for Internet Explorer, using Google’s own redirection service in an attempt to hide the real, non-Google address. The Trojan itself, W32.Ranky.FW, is designed to turn the PC into a bot zombie, and is spread using the conventional technique of asking recipients of a spam email to follow an embedded link.

Merriam Webster has stuffed over 300,000 definitions and 500,000 synonyms onto a 256MB USB drive. In addition to the entire dictionary and thesaurus, it comes with phonetic spell correction, a grammar guide, confusable function alerts–a feature that alerts the user if there’s a potential mix-up in similar sounding words–and even a crossword puzzle solver.

Sony will begin selling an after-market Blu-ray Disc drive next month that can be added to existing desktop computers. The BWU-100A drive supports burning to single- and dual-layer BD-R (single use) or BD-RE (rewritable) discs. A single-layer disc can store up to 25GB of data or about two hours of high-definition video, and the dual-layer disc can accommodate double these amounts. Sony will ship the drive with CyberLink’s BD Solution burning software. The drive can write at 2X Blu-ray Disc speed, so burning a full 25GB disc takes about 50 minutes, Sony said.

Wow! All I can say is “Wow”! We ran what seemed like a perfectly innocuous interview with an expert on what seemed like a perfectly innocuous topic: broadband over powerline (BPL). It seemed like the perfect no-brainer: more broadband, no extra wires, and high-speed Internet to countries with no other infrastructure. Apparently, not everyone agrees.

Read this Computing Unplugged article.