Daily Marauder

WIRELESS

Sending in your old phone or iPod for money isn’t anything new, but I recently found Flipswap and they’re a little bit different than other services out there. For one thing, everything is free and they even pay for your shipping costs. I’m not sure how their algorithm works, but they claim to give the highest trade-in value for your phone. Simply input your info, answer a few questions about the device and the phone’s IMEI and they’ll give you an estimate of your device and send the check right out. First gen iPhones are currently fetching around $190. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/29/stuck-with-a-gen-1-iphone-flipswap-it 6/29)

I just tried it out and found my 4GB iPhone (at fair condition) is worth about $100.  I also love that the site allows you to donate to a list of charities if you so choose.  Perhaps that iPhone case wasn’t such a great investment in this situation.  My incase looks fly but undoubtedly scratches the phone when particles get lodged between the case and the phone.  Sigh.

OpenTable, the web-enabled restaurant management provider, has introduced a new mobile feature that lets users make restaurant reservations from their from their phone’s browser. The new site, which is available here, supports the 8,000 OpenTable restaurants scattered across the country. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/29/book-restaurant-reservations-on-the-go-with-opentable 6/29)