Our $1.7million iPad: Couple sell their tiny $6,000 home to Apple after computer giant tells them: 'Name your price'

For Donnie and Kathy Fulbright, it's the 'iDeal' situation. 

The North Carolina couple have bucked the housing trend rather spectacularly - by selling their $6,000 home to computer giant Apple for $1.7million.

The pair - who have now built a brand new dream house with the proceeds - had lived in their tiny home in rural Maiden, North Carolina, for 34 years. 

Apple of Apple's eye: Donnie and Kathy Fulbright, who sold their $6,000 home to the computer giant for $1.7million


Modest: The $6,000 home that the Fulbrights lived in for 34 years - before Apple came along




Name your price: The home sits on less than one acre of land - but that land happens to be right where Apple want to build their new $1billion facility

They had no plans to move.

But when Apple Inc said they wanted to buy the property, which originally cost just under $6,000 and sits on less than one acre of land, they finally agreed.

'They told us to put a price on it and we did,' Kathy Fulbright, 62, told a U.S. newspaper.

The couple used the proceeds from the sale to build a new 4,200 square-foot house - on 49 acres, boasting a jacuzzi and pond.

They said they rejected Apple's first offer, and second. Well, they always did say that the third time's  the charm. 

Apple is in the process of building a $1billion data centre on the surrounding property.

Moving on up: The dream house that the couple built with the profits from the sale on 49 acres of land


Retiring with style: The 4,200-square foot house boasts a jacuzzi and a man-made pond filled with bass and catfish

The gigantic warehouse-like facility is set to be humming with servers and generators that will deliver all the digital entertainment that makes Apple's flagship products - the iPod, iPhone and iPad - so popular.

The centre - dubbed 'Project Dolphin' by officials - is believed to be aiming at allowing customers to download the products via the online iTunes store.

But they will be able to download to the 'cloud' - that is, via internet-based computing, with resources and software provided to computers on demand, similar to an electricity grid.

Using the cloud - rather than downloading data on to a hard drive - is set to speed things up considerably.

The Fulbrights live in the rural town of Maiden, North Carolina

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on what exactly the company is planning in Maiden, a tiny town of 3,200.

But speculation was rife, with analysts suggesting the company could also be examining as-yet unannounced initiatives - like forays into social networking and search, according to a Bloomberg report.

That would pit Apple against those current industry giants, Facebook and Google.

Google has already opened a facility near Maiden, and the town officials are hoping that the combined power of the two names will help put their town on the map. 

Google has already employed 80 people - Apple is set to hire 50, but generate 3,000. 

Officials have already bent over backwards to make the area attractive to Apple. 

North Carolina’s legislature approved $46million in tax breaks for the company. 

Local governments also slashed Apple’s real property taxes by half and slashed personal property taxes by 85 per cent.

But as good a deal as the move may be for Apple, surely it can't top the deal that the Fulbrights made.

[Via Daily Mail UK]

Google’s Self-Driving Car Spotted On The Highway Almost A Year Ago [Video]

[Via TechCrunch]

In November 2009, Ben Tseitlin was driving along on the 280 highway between San Francisco and Palo Alto when he noticed something weird. There was a Toyota Prius next to him with a weird spolier-like thing on the roof. And on top of that was some sort of spinning contraption. It was weird enough that Tseitlin decided to take a video of it and posted it to his Facebook page, guessing it was sort of test wind-powered Prius. Little did Ben know at the time, it was actually something much more.

What Tseitlin captured, of course, was the Google self-driving car. The secret project, which Google revealed for the first time today, is a combination of different technologies developed by Google that will allow a car to drive itself — yes, even on the highway. Google has disclosed that they’ve been testing these cars “recently“, but they’ve clearly been testing them for longer than that, as Tseitlin’s video proves. The fact that these specially-equipped Priuses (and one Audi TT) have racked up over 140,000 miles (1,000 of while have been completely human-free) on the road, suggests a longer cycle of testing as well.

One of the most interesting aspects of this whole project is that local authorities were fine with Google road-testing these cars. “We’ve briefed local police on our work,” Google noted today and said that human beings are always present in the driver’s seat when the cars are on the road just in case a manual override is needed. The only accident over all these months involved someone else rear-ending one of the cars.

Tseitlin tells us that he’s actually seen the cars around a few other places as well in the past several months. A commenter on his Facebook post notes the same thing.

Google’s secret project has been driving next to many of us all these months and we never ever realized it. That won’t be the case anymore. Watch Tseitlin’s video below.

Update: And none other than Robert Scoble caught the car on video in January 2010 — but he assumed it was the new Street View car. His comment on the video page is funny:

They must be testing the latest Mapping car a lot lately. Seems I see them on almost every trip. I’m not sure what company they work for, I’ve always assumed Google but I see these cars quite frequently in Silicon Valley. This time I had my HD camera ready. Note that there’s two cameras on top: one that looks like it’s recording video (the black thing on top) and one that’s recording stills (the rotating camera). Also note that they didn’t like me shooting video, when they noticed me they slowed down quickly.

There was a reason they didn’t like him shooting that footage. Also – eyes on the damn road, Robert! This is exactly why we need these cars.

Frankie Muniz WIN! (but still kinda mean)

In some regards I find this pretty freakin’ awesome. I mean if I had made that amount of money at that age I think I would have the balls to make statements like this too. He didn’t have to go into the whole “moms house” “35″ thing but nonetheless…ZING! Something that I learned too is that Frankie has stopped acting for the time being and is trying to start an actual career as Formula One racecar driver. He’s actually done pretty well and won a few races.

• In 2005 he won the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race.
• In January 2007, he placed second at the Sebring Winter National Phat Sack race.
• Muniz signed with Atlantic Championship winning team Pacific Coast Motorsports in January 2008. He finished the 2008 season in eleventh place.
• At the end of the 2008 season, Muniz won the Jovy Marcelo Sportsmanship Award.

How does this make you feel about him? Do you like him more or less for saying something like this? (Funny thing is, Frankie has 72,313 followers and Liam Laferriere (the random tweeter) has a whopping 64. That’s just not fair.

[Via Top Cultured]

The Definitive Guide to Windows Phone 7 Handsets [Via Gizmodo]

Eager for a piece of WP7? Here are the top phones you should consider, broken down by US carrier. You're welcome

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T-Mobile

HTC 7 Mozart

Like many of HTC's WP7 phones announced today, the 3.7-inch Mozart has a 8MP camera and Xenon flash, and also has Dolby Mobile and SRS Wow HD for "virtual surround sound."

Otherwise, there's a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB RAM and 576MB of ROM, and 8GB of internal storage. The phone itself measures 119 x 60.2 x 11.9mm, and weighs 130 grams. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a G-sensor, ambient light sensor and GPS are also included, as with HTC's other phones.

HTC 7 HD7

This is a big beast at 4.3-inches, but inside there's 16GB of storage and a 5MP camera. Check out what Matt has to say about the HD7 here.

Dell Venue Pro
Want something different from your WP7 smartphone? How about a vertical slider, with a 4.1-inch screen?

AT&T

HTC 7 Surround

At 3.8-inches with a 480 x 800 resolution, it's a little larger than the Mozart, and internal storage is just 8GB. Considering this is a media-tuned device, that's a little surprising. The processor is powered up at 1GHz, and there's 512MB of ROM AND 576MB of RAM.

Weighing 165grams, it measures 119.5 x 61.5 x 12.97mm, and has the usual assortment of specs such as Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi, a g-sensor, ambient light sensor, and a 5MP camera with LED flash, capable of 720p video recording. Inside, a 1230mAh battery lurks.

Samsung Focus
With a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, the Focus is the thinnest of all WP7 phones. As to whether it still makes for a good phone, wait and see. Europe, it'll be known as the Omnia 7 to you.

LG Quantum
A rounded 5MP Snapper, the Quantum has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

Sprint

HTC 7 Pro
Internally, it's roughly the same phone ticking away as the various other WP7 handsets HTC is launching, with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM, 576MB of ROM and 16GB of internal storage. That extra memory will be hugely appreciated, I'm sure.

It's a little smaller in size than some of the other handsets, despite its slide-out keyboard. It measures 117.5 x 59 x 15.5mm, and weighs 183.5 grams, and is crammed full with the usual specs, along with a 5MP camera with LED flash (capable of shooting 720p video), and a more powerful battery at 1500mAh. The Pro won't be released until the first half of 2011.

No Carrier

LG Optimus 7
Either the Optimus 7 will be available on most networks worldwide, or the carrier just hasn't been announced yet. It's a 3.8-inch candybar with 16GB of internal storage, and has a 5MP camera.

Europe-Only

HTC Trophy

In the meantime, the Trophy should be one of the cheapest WP7 phones on the market. Internally, it has 8GB of storage with 576MB of ROM and 512MB of RAM, and has a 3.8-inch WVGA screen, and measures 118.5 x 61.5 x 11.96mm, weighing 140 grams. Instead of compromising on the camera or battery in favor of keeping costs down, it's a 5MP effort with 720p video recording (Microsoft's lowest-allowed spec for WP7 phones), and the battery is a 1300mAh.