So how will this new tool know which e-mails should be in the priority list?

Gmail automatically determines whether an e-mail is important based on the user’s behavior. If you have opened or replied to similar emails in the past, then most probably, that e-mail will marked important. Users can also use the new “+” and “-“ buttons to set priorities.

Google has been slow in bringing in new corporate customers for their business application suite. The ‘Priority Inbox,’ together with its new contacts feature and phone call application, is meant to address the things that Gmail’s competitors lack.

What should worry Google is the strong series of updates for Microsoft’s Office suite, including the company’s email client Outlook 2010. The new Outlook is now equipped with features that once helped Gmail take lead – that includes linked conversations, quick search, instant messaging, and option to ignore entire conversations with a click of a button.

And, interestingly, while most companies want users to spend more time with their products, the new feature lessens the amount of time users spend in Gmail by 13% – also risking the money Google makes from the ads found in the Gmail screen.

Source: CNN Money

Movie Theater Popcorn. Grocery stores sell microwave popcorn at about $3 per box. Each box comes with 3.5 ounce bags. Movie theaters sell a single medium-sized bag of popcorn for $6. The average markup? A whopping 1275%!

Greeting Cards. Creating a home-made card will only cost you a few cents. And yet, people are still willing to pay an average cost of $2 to $4 for a greeting card. That’s a markup of between 100 to 200% for the fancy picture and the cleverly written message.

College Textbooks. Since 1986, the prices for college textbooks have skyrocketed to 186%. Books account for the 26% of the overall cost of college. Broke college students are required to purchase these costly books, hoping that, at the end of the semester, they can sell the books back to the local book store for a few bucks.

Bottled Water. In 2009, the U.S. Congress revealed that 45% of bottled water comes from municipal taps. Bottled water companies can choose to whether or not filter the water before selling it to you for $3 a bottle.

Printer Ink. Think about this: the Red Cross charges $200 for 500 ml of blood. That’s 40 cents per ml. A 42ml cartridge of blank printer ink is sold at $30. That’s 71 cents per ml. So over the life of your printer, you’ll be spending more than 500% of the total price of your printer for ink refills.

Brand-name Fashion. The mark up for branded clothes is at 500 to 1000%. Yet, some consumers still deny the fact that a pair of jeans from a budget store will work as fine as a pair from True Religion or Calvin Klein.

Source: Investopedia

The ‘Call Phone’ option will appear in the Gmail user’s chat window. When clicked, a telephone dialer will pop up on the screen and users can place calls through an internal microphone or connected headset.

Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of 2010. But calls to other countries, like U.K., France, Germany, China, and Japan, will be offered for 2 cents per minute.

Google said that the service will be available to its U.S. users in the next several days, but international users have yet to hear a definite timeline regarding its availability abroad.

The move positions the company to clash with Skype. And like Skype, Google has also the option to sell this service to corporations. But Google hasn’t had much success with the business sector. Their Apps services are slow to be adopted by corporate costumers, as the company also recently terminated Google Wave – a collaborative tool for businesses.

Analysts say that Google is just providing fans and users with something just good enough to use, but not necessarily good enough to meet enterprise requirements. As a result, Google’s paid revenue stream for this new service is projected to be just $20.3 million per quarter or 0.3% of Google’s second quarter revenue.

Source: CNN Money

This investigation is the latest blow to the company’s reputation. But Toyota execs admit that this is more than just a battle for reputation. Toyota also faces 200 lawsuits involving faulty throttles and other types of problems, including liability claims for 79 deaths and hundreds of crashes.

The automaker is already addressing the problem on several fronts. Toyota has repaired 48% of the 5.4 million recalled cars due to potential pedal entrapment by an unsecured or incompatible floor mat, which Toyota defends as the root cause for the unintended acceleration. 80% of the 2.6 million cars in a separate recall aimed at fixing potentially faulty or sticking accelerator pedals have also been fixed. Analysts estimate that the cost of all of these measures is to exceed $2 billion.

Those estimates do not include a significant cost that Toyota spends for aggressive sales incentives such as, cash rebates, 0% financing, etc. It’s the automaker’s way to keep its older baby-boomers customers happy, since recent buyers haven’t had much good experience to speak of. Toyota’s incentive spending has jumped from $1,400 per vehicle in January to more than $2,200 today.

It has taken Ford nearly a decade to overcome awful publicity for its faulty Firestone tires on the Ford Explorer. Audi took almost 20 years to rebuild its reputation for its own unintended-acceleration controversy in the late 1980s. Despite richer incentives, Toyota’s market sales have only increased a meager 2.8% so far this year. It’s going to be hard to convince back consumers that their cars are safe. And with the NHTSA spotlight still on the automaker, can Toyota ever bounce back?

1. Asmara, Eritrea — $9.59/gallon
2. Oslo, Norway — $7.41/gallon
3. Copenhagen, Denmark — $6.89/gallon
4. Hong Kong — $6.87/gallon
5. Monaco, Monte Carlo — $6.82/gallon

On the contrary, if you’re addicted to driving, these places can be heaven. Here’s the list of places with the lowest gas prices:

1. Caracas, Venezuela — 6 cents/gallon
2. Tehran, Iran — 32 cents/gallon
3. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — 45 cents/gallon
4. Kuwait, City, Kuwait — 85 cents/gallon
5. Cairo, Egypt — $1.17/gallon

In case you’re wondering, there’s nothing special about the gas sold in Asmara compared to the gas sold in Caracas. But, why the big difference? One reason is that most of the countries under the low-price list have lots of oil. Government intervention could be another reason. Some governments control the gas price and/or consumption by loading on taxes. Some countries, like Venezuela, subsidize the price.

These lists can be interesting, but I bet you’re still wondering where you can find cheap gas in your neighborhood. Try looking in these sites:

• Gasbuddy
• MSN gas prices
• Gas Price Watch
• Mapquest Gas Prices
• FuelMeUp

Beware: gas prices found on these sites may be out of date or inaccurate, or gas station owners posted false low prices just to attract customers. But if you really want cut your gas consumption, consider walking or riding a bike – it’s healthier and more environmentally friendly that way.

Source: Yahoo Autos