The tax becomes effective technology in Argentina

The new tax became effective technology today throughout Argentina.

While for months being discussed, and it was during November that 26,539 law became official, the new governing amendments from today, according to Article 4 of the Act.

What changes introduced by this law? The effect varies from product to product. In the worst case, there will be teams that will lose its promotional aliquot of VAT (10.5% to pay now pay 21%) and shall be taxed at the Internal Revenue by 17%. This applies to all electronic products not manufactured in the province of Tierra del Fuego.

What this law will achieve? Since the government say will result in import substitution process that will achieve increased use of Argentina. According to critics, the increase will meet the end user will be between 30 and 37%.

Many electronic equipment sold in Argentina and were more expensive than elsewhere in the region. From today, the gap increased. This will mean less access to technology for end users, educational institutions and businesses. It is very striking that such a law has been adopted with 126 votes positive, 7 negative and 54 abstentions.

The Haiseiden for Matsuo Basho

Traveling to Japan? If you’re in Iga Ueno, between Osaka and Nagoya in Mie prefecture, visit the The Haiseiden (Poet’s Memorial Hall), a Hakkakudo (an octagonal circular hall) and shrine constructed in 1942 commemorating the 300th anniversary of the haiku poet Matsuo Basho.

Basho, born in 1644, is famous for having established the highly artistic Japanese poetry (haiku) and traveling around whole country. An Igayaki life-size seated figure of the Basho is enshrined in the hall and is open to public only on Basho Festival which has been held yearly on October 12, Basho’s death anniversary.

Pidgin 2.6.4

A couple of days, Pidgin has released a new version (2.6.4) of its popular instant messaging software.

Today thanks to the work of people getdeb, we have packages available for install Karmic.

For a list of changes in this version you can visit this link.

Thunderbird 3

Its Web-browsing vulpine sibling may get all the attention, but Mozilla's other product, the Thunderbird open-source e-mail client, has its own devout following, and has now taken flight with a new version. Thunderbird 2 was strictly for power users, but version 3 changes all that. It's as simple as pie, having cut down on the number of toolbar options and simplified mail account setup. It also adds tabs and archiving. Based on the same code platform as Firefox, Thunderbird also boasts a wealth of add-ins to customize and extend its capabilities. Unfortunately, it still leaves business users out in the cold, as it lacks Exchange support—something that even Apple's new OS, Snow Leopard, offers.

Nvidia Ion-powered Asus EEE PC 1201N

Although it’s not set to go on sale in the UK until early next year, Electric Pig managed to get their hands on the higly-anticipated Asus Eee PC 1201N.

As Electric Pig notes, the 1201N is somewhat of a beefed-up 1005HA. It sports a larger 6 cell, 5200mAh battery, HDMI output, and a 12″ 1366×768 display. In their initial handling, the 1201N didn’t disappoint – not surprising with the dual-core Atom 330 and Nvidia ION internals.

Check out the full unboxing photos at Electric Pig!