Rather than an ad campaign, this is more a promotion, so instead of just being given the cash, you need to find the “laptop hunter” by following clues given on Nova’s breakfast radio program. It’s happening in Sydney and Melbourne this week, ending on Friday June 12, while Brisbane’s version runs all next week.

Considering just how geeky you guys all are (in a good way) I can’t see $1,300 going far enough to get you the kind of PC (or Mac) you’d be happy buying. Still, once you sell that $1,300 PC on eBay, you’ll be most of the way towards getting a laptop you might actually find practical.

Based on the successful PC Hunter campaign in the United States, people in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will have the opportunity to score A$1300 to buy a new Windows Laptop. The challenge requires participants to follow clues to locate the ‘Laptop Hunter’ – who guards the cash while blending into the busy CBD crowd – before embarking on a quest to find the best high performance Laptop their newly acquired money can buy.

The campaign starts in Sydney and Melbourne today and runs until Friday 12 June, with one person winning cash to buy a new Windows Laptop each day in each centre. Brisbane’s competition will run next week from Tuesday 16 June to Friday 20 June, with one person winning cash to buy a new Windows Laptop each day.

Clues on how to find the ‘Laptop Hunter’ will be broadcast during the Nova breakfast program at around 8.30am each morning of the campaign. Clues will also be distributed via Windows Instant Messenger, Twitter and email.

Microsoft’s ‘Laptop Hunter’ partnership with Nova is part of a wider communication initiative to share with Australian consumers the excellent value and performance of Windows PCs.

[Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane Nova]

Then again, maybe I’m just old fashioned – kids today do the craziest things with their technology.

Full press release is below:

MEDIA RELEASE:

TiVo launches new podcast service with Nova & Vega radio

Inaugural event…radio on television brought to life with the new podcast service on TiVo

Sydney, Australia, 15th May, 2009 – Hybrid Television Services (ANZ) Pty Ltd, the exclusive licensee of TiVo® products in Australia and New Zealand, today announced that from Monday Hybrid TV will launch a new podcast service. The service goes live with breakfast and drive time podcasts from both Nova and Vega radio stations nationally, through a deal struck between Hybrid TV and dmg Radio Australia back in December 2008.

From Monday 18th May, all TiVo users in Australia will automatically receive the new service on their TiVo media device at no additional fee. This new service provides highlights of all seven Nova and Vega regional breakfast and drive time shows updated on a daily basis. Podcasts will stream “on demand”, which means they start playing immediately on the TiVo without any need to download the content. Broadband data usage for the service varies between 1 and 30MB, depending on the length of the podcast and the listening time. Customers who have an internet service with Hybrid TV’s unmetered partners. Internode or Primus (from 1 June), will be able to stream the podcasts without incurring any additional data charges with their ISP.

Robbee Minicola, CEO of Hybrid TV commented; “Radio is loved by Australians and until now the radio experience has been quite separate from the TV experience. This new podcast service is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how we want to bring radio into the home…both on the TV and more importantly played through TV sound system. dmg took a chance with us to experiment and deliver this service, that’s what this new world is all about – partnerships that let the consumer win. This new service is just another surprise for our customers when they turn on their TiVo…automatic, free and no worries about subscription.”

Cath O’Connor, CEO of dmg Radio Australia added; “The TiVo media device provides a new platform for dmg Radio as a content owner. Launching Nova and Vega podcasts through the TiVo is another exciting example of the broadening opportunities that we see to have our content reach beyond broadcasting to other platforms. Initiatives such as this allow us to capitalise on the growing interest in radio podcasts, which can now be offered from the central screen.”

It transcends what a mobile device should feel like. It’s smooth but also tough enough to feel like you’re using something that’s going to last. I really like how the back of the slider is reflective like an iPod touch (might be good for the ladies and their make-up too).

The display looks richer in colour gamut than any handset I’ve ever seen (almost like a mini Cinema Display). The GUI seems fluid enough so that it’s not overtly cheesy and plasticky looking (transitions are still rough around the edges sometimes and not always as snappy as you’d like.) Speakerphone seems more than adequate for being Monophonic (totally usable for listening to music/calls.)

This is just like OS X, Expose, Spaces, Spotlight—uninterrupted multitasking. Even the cal is like iCal—on the desktop OS. When you get a call, the OS puts what you’re doing down at the bottom, instead of dumping it like on iPhone. [Palm Pre Details]

It has Sprint EVDO rev. A, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a gesture area on the screen for navigation and use, a removable battery, micro USB, USB mass storage support, a 3.5mm Headphone Jack.

The phone is all touchscreen on the front, but it slides open vertically to reveal a keyboard that slides on a curve, kind of like the Xperia. It weighs 136 grams and can be used easily with one hand. The phone runs on a new platform named Web OS, which is designed to seamlessly integrate all your web content into one interface.

The phone itself reminds me of the Treo 680 in shape, except all there is on the front is a screen and a button.

One of the big new features is something called Synergy, which can pull contacts from all your sites (Facebook, Gmail, AIM, etc…), gather and organise them into one coherent list on the Palm Pre. It has dupe checking so you don’t have the same contacts listed multiple times. It does the same thing for calendar events.

Web OS has been designed to work with your finger. All the demos are being done without a keyboard and stylus. Synergy can easily go from checking email, to scheduling meetings in a calendar, to IMing someone in your contact list.

It’s a lot for them to live up to, but we’re resetting our expectations and approaching the lagging company’s new model line with an open mind.

We’re guessing we’ll see a brand new phone, perhaps running the new OS, but who knows. What we do know so far is that Palm is rumoured to announce a touchscreen slider running the Nova operating system, that according to descriptions, is squarish in appearance.

Palm first announced plans to release a new operating system back in May 2007, but they’ve delayed it so many times, I’m halfway convinced this event is just to announce they’re delaying it again.

10:40 AM: This event has a more epic feel than the average CES press conference. I’ve already seen a lot of recognisable faces around here, including the omnipresent Robert Scoble. As someone said nearby, “it feels Apple-y.”

10:45 AM: I’m getting the feeling that Palm is trying to seduce us with the romantic mood lighting, mellow music, and abundance of Vitamin Water. Is this their attempt at a reality distortion field?

10:55 AM: Not a lot going on right now, but Palm’s product marketing manager is talking big game about the upcoming announcements (in vague terms, of course). She says we should be pleased.

11:01 AM: Event starting. Jon Rubenstein is talking about how he used to work at Apple. Then he packed up and moved to Mexico.

11:04 AM: Rubenstein says that mobile devices are the next wave of technology. This might be the obvious statement of the day.

11:06 AM: Jon Rubenstein has just brought Palm CEO Ed Colligan up to the stage.

11:07 AM: Colligan says lifestyle and usability is more important to Palm than raw features and “buttons”. Talking about the instant on capability of the original Palm Pilot as an example. He wants to try and make the technology “invisible”.

“Mobile is in our DNA. We don’t do computers, we don’t do refrigerators or set top boxes. We do mobile.”

11:08 AM: It’s interesting how Palm has to resell itself today, but is reaching back to its roots. In contrast, Jobs believes that looking back means being crushed.

11:10 AM: Colligan says he has a new twist on the same product. Talking about how we use so many websites and our data is all over the place. Smartphones let you browse that information, but they don’t make it easy to access it. Simplicity seems to be the overarching theme here.

Colligan suggests it would be cool if we could seamlessly have our images from Facebook show up in the same place as our email and calendars.

11:14 AM: The whole new Palm OS is built with developers in mind. Developing apps, Colligan claims, is so easy.

New device coming now!! It’s called the Palm Pre.

They say that the Nova OS is “amazing” and will have an app store at launch. And it’ll have media playback (uh, kinda like every other smartphone OS). The touchscreen is portrait-oriented—CrunchGear calls it “large,” but a screen that’s large for Palm and for everybody else has historically been fairly divergent. That said, it’s being sourced to HTC, so maybe it’ll be legitimately biggie-sized, at least 480ishx600ish. The more life-like mockup comes from Rob at BoingBoing Gadgets, created “assuming that Palm has no imagination.”

I’m hoping it really is amazing, but I guess we’ll see on Thursday. [CrunchGear]

• “the goal is to create products that bridge the gap between Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry devices, oriented to work and e-mail, and Apple’s iPhone, oriented to fun.”
• The article implies that the platform would be capable of acting as an OS for not only smartphones, but gameboy like consoles and e-book readers.
• Palm believes they can grab 2% of the market; that RIM will dominate the majority of share and the iPhone will have 10%.
• The OS would also help phones make “smarter use of data about you. For example, your smartphone could send you an e-mail the day before your next business trip, advising you on the weather conditions in your destination city.”

[Businessweek via Engadget]

Radio and TiVo doesn’t seem the most natural of partnerships, since one relies on a screen and the other, well… doesn’t. But according to DMG’s Cathy O’Connor the fit is a good one, with plans to use the screen first as a menu and ultimately for branding related images.

When asked if there were plans to incorporate more radio stations into their growing empire, TiVo were typically tight lipped. However, they did indicate they were considering generic radio options overseas, with views to possibly launch kids’ radio within the service.

TiVo® tunes into Nova and Vega

Alliance with DMG Radio brings the best of the Nova and Vega brands to the
TiVo® media device

Sydney, Australia, Wednesday 3 December 2008 – Hybrid Television
Services (ANZ) Pty Ltd, the exclusive licensee of TiVo® products in Australia
and New Zealand, has today announced an alliance with DMG Radio to bring
Nova and Vega content to TiVo users in Australia from Q1 2009.

DMG’s national Nova network holds the position of number one radio network
in Australia for listeners aged 18-29, while Vega caters for the 40-54 market
with music from the 70s and 80s mixed with the best new songs. This is the
first radio content deal for the TiVo platform in Australia and is an innovative
addition to the fast growing list of popular broadband content and services
available on the media device.

Hybrid TV CEO, Robbee Minicola, commented: “Australians love
entertainment – whether it is on TV or through their radio. The TiVo media
device allows us to merge the two into one platform strengthening the brand
proposition through outstanding talent available across multiple platforms.
When we launched in July of this year we talked about ‘TiVo, TV Your Way’,
but we are now proving that TiVo has plenty more to offer than outstanding
digital free-to-air television.”

Cathy O’Connor, CEO of DMG added, “Since we launched Nova back in 2001
our aim has been to break new ground in radio in Australia – whether that be
through playing more new music, having unique presenters or our policy of
playing never more than two ads in a row. TiVo is an exciting next step for us,
providing us with the opportunity to deliver our brands directly into the living
room on the central screen in the home.”

Full service details will be announced in the new year.

-ends-