PCMag.com’s Tim Bajarin predicts that “weak markets” will mean “big tech bargains.”  This is because, according to Bajarin, people stay in more during economic downturns, meaning that they will be more willing to buy home entertainment products such as HDTVs and gaming systems and software.  “With that in mind,” Bajarin writes, “I suspect that that PC vendors as well as retailers are going to be very aggressive in pricing tech products over the holidays simply to move inventory. I predict that Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) may have some blockbuster sales—even mainstream laptops selling for as low as $300. If consumers have any extra cash on hand, the tech bargains this fall will probably be the best we have ever seen.”

Download Squad reports on a very cool new website launched today by Microsoft which tracks popular political news stories and blog posts.  As Download Squad points out, “Political Streams works a bit like a news aggregation service like Techmeme. But the layout is unique.  Items are listed either in the News or Blogs category based on the source. Scrolling over those colorful bars brings up the number of blogs or news sites writing about the main item. There’s also information about related people and places. And if you click a headline you’ll be taken to a sub-page with an excerpt from the article and links to related sources.”

BBC News warns that “high-tech fraudsters are taking advantage of the global financial turmoil

[…] to extract valuable information from consumers.”  According to a recent Consumer Alert by the US Federal Trade Commission, “current rapid changes in the banking world, where many institutions suddenly had new owners, [can] only help fraudsters keen to steal login and other personal details.”  The FTC “said it expected fraudsters to pose as the new owners of banks or the federal agencies charged with oversight of struggling institutions.  The FTC urged consumers to be wary and not reply to e-mail messages or pop-ups that ask for personal or financial information even if they appeared to come from a bank. Consumers should also scrutinize bank and credit card statements for unauthorized withdrawals or transfers.”

ZDNetNews.com writes that “[a] Wall Street investor has suggested that the stars may be aligned just right for Microsoft to make another run at Yahoo, this time for $22 per share. Investment fund Mithras Capital, which owns more than 1.9 million shares, or 0.14 percent, of Yahoo, said Microsoft has a window of opportunity to act  1) while the ad deal between Yahoo and Google is on hold for further regulatory reviews, 2) while Yahoo’s stock is reaching new five-year-lows daily, plunging to $12.65 this week, a far cry from Microsoft’s original $31 per share offer, and 3) before Yahoo cuts a deal with Time Warner to acquire AOL.  ‘It is imperative for the Yahoo board to embrace this proposal as the best outcome for long-suffering Yahoo shareholders,’ Mithras Capital partner Mark Nelson said in a news release.”

CNetNews.com reports that Google this week “launched Advanced IMAP Controls in Gmail Labs, a feature that lets users fine-tune the behavior of the IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) technology that outside e-mail services or software can use to access Gmail accounts.  For example, you can limit which of your mail labels are exposed as folders to outside e-mail clients to improve performance. That’s useful, according to the Gmail blog posting, ‘if you find your mail client choking on a big All Mail folder,’ the often-overstuffed location where Gmail messages are archived so they’re still available but not in the way.  Of course, technically savvy folks might enjoy this option. But the bigger reason this is interesting is it shows how flexible an infrastructure Google has built under Gmail. That’s powerful because the company can monitor how often people use the options, and how that affects Gmail’s performance and utility.”