City Of San Francisco Says No More Macs For Now

20120710-231637.jpg

The city of San Francisco has said no more Apple computer purchases for now. City employees will no longer be able to use city funds to buy Apple laptops, and desktops. This comes after Apple pulled their computers off of an environmentally friendly list of computer equipment called EPEAT.

EPEAT was created by government agencies, activist groups and manufacturers, including, at the time, Apple. The list is a grouping of computer equipment that is easily recyclable. San Francisco requires that all of their computer equipment purchases by EPEAT compliant. There is a waiver but it’s typically only granted for equipment purchases that are required and can only be outfitted with a piece of equipment off the list. CNET gave an example of a piece of police computer equipment that wasn’t EPEAT listed.

So why would Apple remove themselves from the list they helped create?

The latest Apple MacBook Pro, the one with the amazing Retina display is not EPEAT compliant. The battery on the newest MacBook Pro (that also costs over $2500) is glued into the computer making it harder to recycle the toxic materials in the battery itself.

This may not be a permanent ban though. San Francisco’s Chief Information Officer, John Walton, says there is a dialogue open with Apple and he’s hoping Apple will reconsider and re-list themselves on the EPEAT list.

“I’m hopeful since we haven’t had a dialogue with Apple on this, and we’re not really clear why they chose to do this, that they may have other standards,” Walton told CNET

Source: CNET

Baltimore Startup: Parking Panda Expanding To Philly & San Francisco

The genius parking startup out of Baltimore Maryland, Parking Panda, has announced that now that they’ve rolled out service in the nation’s capital, the next cities on the list are Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Parking Panda CEO and Co-Founder, Nick Miller, has reported that they’ve closed one $250,000 round of funding and have another one in the works.

The service works similarly to the way that hotels.com works. Users logon to their website at parkingpanda.com and they can browse the available parking spots in the city they are looking at. The spots are a variety of vacant spots in parking garages and also individual driveways and business lots.

The user can pay for the current day, a future date or a range of dates. They prepay using their credit card and are guaranteed a parking spot in the facility  they selected. Parking spots range anywhere from $5.00 on up.

Parkingpanda goes one step further and lets users know what the parking spot they are looking at is near. In Washington DC Parkingpanda tells the user the nearby attractions like museums and metro routes.  In Baltimore, Miller reports that a lot of people are renting their driveways on Ravens and Orioles game days.

There’s been no date announced for the expansion but it looks like it will be sooner rather than later. Miller told BmoreMedia that they are working on finding the parking spaces in both Philly and San Francisco.

Linkage:

Check out ParkingPanda here

Source: BmoreMedia

Nibletz is the voice of #startups “everywhere else” check out these new stories

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide road trip, check it out and support us here 

Top 10 Reasons To Pick The STL Over SF For Your Next Startup

This is a repost from a Tech.li article with their permission with a link a bottom of article.

1.St. Louis is Cool

If you like sports, St. Louis is your kind of town. If you like eating, restaurants abound and if Mardi Gras is your type of thing, try checking out the nation’s biggest Mardi Gras celebration outside of New Orleans in the French District. In a city dripping with history, there is plenty of culture to keep anyone satiated, if/when you ever take a day off from growing the business, of course.

Read More…

Print Your Instagram Pics To Posters, Stickers And More With Prinstagr.am

Social Print Studio, a San Francisco based company, that specializes in making apps that print photos from social networking sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter to stickers, posters and other printables. They’ve just announced their most recent endeavor surrounded by the phenomenon we all know as Instagr.am.

Now your favorite Instagram photos with their glorious filters can be captured in real life non virtual goodness. Sometimes the memories you’ve created need to be shared outside of the online world and that’s where Prinstagr.am fits in.

For $25 you can have between 50-400 of your favorite Instagram pics made into a 40 inch poster with all the photos laid out on a grid. That cute picture of your kid that got 400 likes on Instagram can now be made into 48 miniprints and shared with your entire neighborhood for just $12.

In all seriousness though with more and more people using photo apps and camera phones, and of course digital cameras less and less pictures are printed out. Taking your USB stick to Walmart or Target for that special photo novelty is time consuming and cumbersome and sometimes doesn’t even turn out right. With Prinstagr.am you’re not going to have that problem.

Check it out for yourself right here.

Source: Gizmodo

Furniture Deals Site Deal Decor Raising $1.2 Million Funding Round

Craig Sakuma and Gregory Lok’s Dealdecor.com is a new web based start up bringing daily deals to those looking for furniture. In fact TNW’s Robin Wauter’s called Dealdecor.com “Groupon For Furniture”.

The San Francisco based startup is looking to secure $1.2 million in funding and according to a filing at the SEC they’ve already scored a cool million of that.

Dealdecor is hoping to become the go-to site for daily deals on furniture, garden products, home furnishings and other related merchandise. They are doing this by offering up to 70% off retail prices.

Both of the founders have a solid background in the home furnishings and home improvement industry. Both Sakuma and Lok had high ranking positions at the nation’s largest home improvement chain Home Depot.   The service is only available in the bay area but with this new funding we are confident it will open up to more of the country.

Dealdecor has several direct fulfillment deals with Asian and other overseas manufacturers. If you’re looking to save money through Dealdecor though it’s going to cost you one thing, time. Their website suggests a 4 week turnaround on most purchases including the overseas freight.

Check it out at: dealdecor.com

source: TNW