Progressive insurance has been testing out the MyRate driving monitoring system for a few years now (it used to be called TripSense), but it's finally taking the system national, bringing pay-as-you-drive insurance into the mainstream. The little blue box plugs into your car's ODB II diagnostic port (all cars made after 1996 have one), and studiously records your driving habits, wirelessly sending the data back to Progressive HQ (it's not clear exactly how). Every six months, Progressive will crunch the numbers and issue a new rate for you based on how you drive -- savings of up to 40 percent are possible. That's pretty tempting, depending on your current rates and driving habits, but we're not so sure we're willing to share that much data for an unspecified discount -- especially since we're confident the MyRate box will get cracked almost immediately.

[Thanks, Mike; image courtesy of Aaron Landry]

Read - MyRate press release
Read - MyRate video
Read - How MyRate works

Merely hours after a substantial blackout halted six chip production lines in a complex operated by the world's largest flash memory producer, Samsung is now expected to "get insurance payments from a local insurer for the damage received during Friday's power outage." Reportedly, the firm's contract with Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance will cover the damage, which is currently estimated to be somewhere near $40 million. Of note, the exact cause of the outage is still unknown, and it was stated that it would take "considerable amounts of time" to look into before the losses are finally calculated. Furthermore, some analysts have speculated that it "would take weeks for the plants to reach full capacity," and if this does indeed prove true, supplies to electronic-product makers "will likely remain constrained and prices will stay high."

Read - Samsung Gets Insurance Payout for Power Outage Damage
Read - Samsung Restarts Plants, Damage Resulting [Subscription required]

If you're just finishing up what was likely a delicious and fulfilling Christmas dinner with your friends and family, connecting with loved ones probably isn't a problem at the moment, but for elderly and single folks who live alone and far away from old friends and relatives, Accenture is looking to expand their dinner tables as far as the webcam can see. The "virtual meal technology" seeks to aggrandize the dining room beyond a single home, allowing folks to enjoy separate meals while conversing together in real-time. Utilizing the basic premise found in videoconferencing, the plans are to unveil an (almost) automatic system that doesn't require a great deal of know-how in order to operate, with prototypes "automatically detecting" when someone is about to eat supper, and then searching for available family members that would also be interested in scarfing down some grub while chatting it up over the system. The firm is also pushing the medical aspects of such an invention, as it reports that "elderly people who eat alone often don't eat enough or eat the wrong kinds of food," which would allow younger family members to correct those eating habits before more serious health issues develop from malnutrition. While the company hasn't released any draft equipment just yet, it's hoping to have a prototype system available "in around two years," and while it's aiming for the "$500 to $1,000 range" per household, things could get a lot cheaper if your insurance company ends up footing the bill.

One of the main problems with the gradual transfer of content from physical media (CDs, DVDs, books) over to digital media (MP3s, movie downloads, e-books) is that when something happens to the devices storing your swag, you're basically out of luck -- most insurance companies will tell you to go take a hike. Well that's all about to change, according to a recent article in British newspaper The Independent, as insurers like Nationwide will now reimburse you for digital content stored on stolen or destroyed electronics as long as you can provide proof of purchase. Nationwide's even got your back for such seemingly trivial fare as games and ringtones downloaded to your cellphone, though its policies specifically state that if you lose your digital goods due to a wiped hard drive / memory card that's your own damn fault, and there'll be no reimbursement for you. Unfortunately some insurance companies -- like the cheapskates at esure -- seem dead set against the idea, claiming that owners of a stolen iPod still have the tracks on their PC and don't deserve digital coverage; well, while that may be true in cases of theft, esure's stance isn't very helpful for the unlucky individual whose house just burned down and whose DAPs and computers have all melted into the floorboards.

[Via Techdirt]

Here's an innovative business plan for you: start up an insurance company whose sole purpose is to cover your customers' fines should they get busted for illegal file sharing, thereby creating a clientele that by default is composed completely of criminals. Well believe it or not, a Swedish "entrepreneur" has begun to offer this very service to his fellow citizens -- for only $19 per year,  Magnus Braath's company Tankafritt promises to pay any penalties incurred from crackdowns on your rampant piracy, and he'll even throw in a free T-shirt to help you glorify your outlaw status. (Yes, you guessed it, the shirt actually does read "I got convicted for file-sharing and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"). Braath claims that he started the business as a statement against recent changes in Swedish law that had the nerve to criminalize illegal downloading, and that low conviction rates and relatively minor fines will allow him to keep the venture financially solvent. Hey Magnus, if you're looking to expand your operation, we hear that Spain's just passed some legislation that will probably create quite the demand for your unique little service -- who knows, with some hard work and a bit of luck, you could end up becoming the Geico of software and content piracy.

[Via Techdirt and Slashdot]