Author: Serkadis

Yahoo is taking the first step in the integration of its services with those of Arab portal Maktoob which it acquired last summer. Yahoo Search is now live on Maktoob.com and the entire site got a Yahoo (read ‘purple’) make-over. There is also a dedicated Yahoo Search page that is more spartan than the regular Yahoo Search, which in turn takes mo… (read more)

A couple of hours ago, Ferrari Formula One Team unveiled the first pictures of their 2010 challenger on their official website. This was practically the first team in F1 to show real pictures of their new car to their fans, as Mercedes GP’s launch earlier this week included only their new livery, painted on their 2009 machine.

That being said, Ferrari also disclosed the technical specifications of their new car. While the car obviously benefits from some new aerodynamic cues as compared to it… (read more)

Sense UI, is one of the more popular user interfaces in our world of endless possibilities, and that is what has brought us to this not so new tweak list. A member over in our world of XDA has made a list of all the good things that you could do to your Sense 2.5 powered device, and it just got some new updated tweaks. The list been in existence for as long as the user interface it self has been, and if you are currently running this on your phone, they list is there for your convince. Head over there and take a look at them all., there might be something for you.

Check it out:Xda

Article Tags: ClimateGate, James Delingpole

The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia is under government investigation for fraud, data manipulation and withholding or destroying scientific data in defiance of freedom of information requests. Many of the disgraced scientists working at the CRU were closely involved in putting together the now ferociously suspect Fourth Assessment Report for the notoriously unreliable Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) headed by the lethally compromised Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

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Ozzy Osbourne isn’t giving up on his dream of having Oscar-nominated actor Johnny Depp play him in a big screen biopic. The Black Sabbath legend is hoping to have his new memoir — I Am Ozzy — turned into a film and the singer wants Johnny Depp to play the lead.

“People are working on scripts right now,” says The Price of Darkness, now 61. When asked what actor he would like to have turn his life story into an Oscar contender, Ozzy named Johnny.

“He’s one of the few actors who knows about rock ‘n’ roll who does a really good English accent,” he explained.

Ozzy also singled out Johnny as his ultimate alter-ego when quizzed on the topic last October.

Things looked positively awful a year ago in medialand. So when prognosticators say things are improving, it’s important to remember that it’s all relative.

Still, if you’re someone who, say, makes their living working for an ad-supported media outlet, it sure is nice to see this sort of thing: Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente jacking up his 2010 U.S. ad market estimates from no growth to a 3.5 percent bump.

That’s a reflection of an “incrementally buoyant picture,” DiClemente says in perfect Wall Street deadpan. Why the muted optimism? “we believe corporate America must and will return to market its products and services.”

Interestingly, DiClemente sees the largest increase coming not from Web advertising, but traditional TV ads, pushed up in part because of the summer Olympics and next fall’s election season. Last week’s Supreme Court decision didn’t hurt either.

That helps explain why DiClemente has also raised his price targets for Viacom (VIA) and News Corp. (NWS), which owns this Web site. Click on the chart below to see a full breakdown of his predictions:

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With the Indianapolis Colts heading to the Super Bowl it’s good to keep in mind that quarterback Peyton Manning is not always the nice guy he’s made out to be. In this clip from a Monday night game against the Rams, Manning gets in the face of Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday. It’s nice to see that Peyton has balls enough to go up against a dude twice his size.

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It’s no wonder that Greece is such a financial disaster — hardly anyone pays taxes.

It’s one of the most corrupt countries in Europe according to report by Transparency International, on par with ‘cocaine-infested Columbia’.

Thus it’s pretty hard to fund the country’s expenses:

Bloomberg: So many Greek companies and employees cheat on their taxes that a third of all economic activity delivers no revenue to the government, the Finance Ministry says. Some Greeks say tax evasion is rooted in the Ottoman Empire’s control of the country for centuries until the 1820s. “We very much lack a tax conscience,” says Ilias Plaskovitis, the Finance Ministry’s general secretary. “Some trace it back to the Ottoman Empire, when tax evasion was resistance to foreign powers.”

Today, Greeks routinely pay cash for a wide range of services, from plumbing to medical visits, without demanding a receipt, allowing the providers to forgo declaring the income to tax authorities. The government projected in January that its crackdown will generate 1.2 billion euros in additional income this year.

Read more here >

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See Also:

• Roubini At Davos: Greece Is Obviously Bankrupt
• Morgan Stanley: Greek Debt Panic Way Overdone In Emerging Markets
• EU Privately Freaking Out About Greece And The PIIGS Breaking Apart The Union

After getting a serious beating from Peugeot in last year’s 24 Hour Race at Le Mans, Audi decided to make serious changes as it probably misses the first place and the marketing opportunities it offers.

So in order to be able to write Audi TDI – Le Mans Winner Technology on posters trying to sell a 140 bhp A4, the Germans not only tried to update the technology present on the Audi R15 TDI, but also extended their drivers line-up for the 2010 race. The three new drivers who will share the cock… (read more)

Article Tags: You could not make it up

For Britain’s climate science community, the past few months have come as a profound shock.

It all makes a profound contrast to the situation up until last November when the global consensus on climate change science seemed stronger than ever. For scientists, climate research was based on powerful computer models backed by a wealth of real-world evidence. Nothing was certain — in science it seldom is. But we could say with a high degree of certainty — and people believed us when we said it — that the world was warming and the consequences were likely to be serious.

Source: timesonline.co.uk

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Earlier today we reported that VW is establishing its own R performance division. But the announcement won’t be made official until the Geneva Auto Show in March. Until the division becomes operative, we’ll have to make due with the current R line-up.

However, for those who feel that the 270 HP Golf R isn’t enough, Volkswagen Group specializes tuner B&B now offers 3 solutions, depending on the level of lunacy desired, as automobilesreview reports.

B&B has prepared a tuning program for the … (read more)

At first it looked as though global stocks, as represented by the MSCI World Index had reversed what was until now a horrendous losing streak.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s optimistic words on the U.S. economy appeared to have brought back some semblance of animal spirits and markets were in the green.

Yet the rally quickly lost steam. The MSCI World is down as of current trading. Asian markets managed to close in the green nonetheless and commodities are up slightly with gold at $1,091.

On the currency front, the U.S. dollar has hit $1.40 vs. the Euro which must have technical traders excited.

Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve panel in charge of interest rates declared for the first time the U.S. economy is in “recovery” and took several steps to prepare investors for the removal of aggressive monetary stimulus. The Federal Open Market Committee yesterday upgraded its economic outlook, reaffirmed it will end liquidity backstops and a $1.25 trillion program to buy mortgage-backed securities and expressed less confidence inflation will remain “subdued.”

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Bernanke Gets The Roubini Endorsement
• Three Reasons To Fear A Bernanke Reappointment
• Bernanke Versus Geithner: Who Goes First?

Twitter doesn’t really play on the same level as Google but says it admires the tech giant for its stance on China. The microblogging service is all about open communications, not the biggest topic on China’s agenda, or at least that what cofounder and CEO Evan Williams is saying. As such, the company is looking at ways Twitter can… (read more)

Startup incubators such as Founders Institute and TechStars, are popping up outposts in various metropolises in the U.S. and even in internationally. Today, VC firm DFJ Frontier, an affiliate of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and the City of Ventura, California, are partnering to launch a new incubator in the region, the Ventura Ventures Technology Center.

Designed to help encourage technology startups to base or relocate their companies in the Southern California region, the fund will invest anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million in each startup. The venture will not be limited to investing in a particular sector . As a condition of the investment, the companies have to be based in Ventura. In return, the incubator has set up a technology-centric office center for startups that offer steeply discounted rents.

Of course, the Ventura Ventures incubator has a different model than many of the startup incubators that have emerged such as Y Combinator, TechStars or Founders Institute. Unlike these three organizations, the Ventura Ventures Technology Center doesn’t have the established education, guidance and mentoring curriculum that many of these incubators have received acclaim for. Though framed as an incubator, the SoCal-based program is more of a venture fund than an actual incubator. But the venture is still young and may add a curriculum-type program in the future. And the startups that the new fund is investing in seem to be later stage than those who join the other incubators.

One of the first startups to be funded by the new program is Lottay, a 2009 TechCrunch50 demopit company that lets you create an online gift that people can put money towards. Lottay, which received $475,000 in November 2009 from DFJ Frontier to open their Series A round, just received another $180,000 from the Ventura Ventures incubator. Lottay uses PayPal’s newly released Adaptive Payments API, to let anyone create gift pages with detailed descriptions and pictures of a particular goal or gift and then friends can contribute to the site via PayPal. The gift is sent instantly and securely, delivered as a surprise via email and Facebook. Givers can specify the gift they would like the money to buy – from a cup of coffee to a Caribbean cruise and beyond – while receivers are free to use the money to buy the intended gift or anything else they want.

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Just like a virus, the accelerator nightmare Japanese carmaker Toyota is engulfed in for months now has gone global, after rumors began surfacing models in Europe and, more recently, China, will be sent back into service for repairs. Although no official statement made by Toyota confirmed the rumors, unofficially the carmaker admitted an official recall will follow in Europe.

According to the carmaker’s European spokesman Paul Nolasco, the recall is not yet official because Toyota doesn’t kn… (read more)

Apple Australia just became one of the first international sites to introduce the iPad to its pages. That gives us a pretty good indication of Apple’s plans for a global launch: same “late March” ship for Wi-Fi only models and April for 3G models (carrier yet to be announced). Fine, but it’s not what we see that has us intrigued so much as what’s missing: the iBookstore and any indication of the iBooks app. This doesn’t look like an oversight but rather its purposeful removal from any images or feature lists. Guess we shouldn’t be too surprised; going back to the press release we see the following: “iBookstore will be available in the US at launch.” Seems Apple meant to say, only in the US, eh? Rest easy Bezos, the iPad has a long way to go before it’s any competition to the Kindle.

[Thanks, Robert S.]

iPad iBooks will be US only at launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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50 seems to be a pretty trendy number right now, what with Palm’s Pre Plus and Samsung’s i8910 HD both showing off the ability to run more than 49 concurrent processes. Joining that number party, albeit in a different fashion, is this video demonstrating 50 games running smooth as butter on a Motorola Droid handset. If you thought you had to have a Zune HD, iPod touch or one of them webOS thingies to get your mobile gaming on, maybe this will serve as a competent dissuader. See it after the break.

Continue reading 50 Android games demonstrated in one video — who says Android can’t game?

50 Android games demonstrated in one video — who says Android can’t game? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You didn’t hear it from us, but word is Lady Gaga will take the stage with “Rocket Man” Elton John at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards — celebrating the year’s best in music — this Sunday night in Los Angeles.

Elton stunned Grammy fans when he performed the hit single “Stan” with profane rap star Eminem during the 2001 ceremony.

Ferrari Formula One team will have a new partner as of 2010. Starting this upcoming campaign of F1, the Prancing Horse will officially join efforts with the well-known Italian project of Telethon.

As of the upcoming season the logo of Telethon, the Foundation financing research projects in the areas of muscular dystrophy and other genetic diseases, will be present on the overalls of the Scuderia Ferrari drivers, announced Ferrari, via a press release.

For those of you who are not very fami… (read more)

A woman can tell if you are attracted to them by the smell of your sweat, according to a new study. A man’s sweat smells differently depending on what mood he is in and women can sense these changes.

In the study conducted at Rice University in Texas, two types of sweat was collected from a group of men: one was called “normal” and the other was called “sexual.” The “normal” sweat was gathered while the guys watched an educational video while the “sexual” sweat was gathered while watching erotic videos.

19 lucky women were then asked to smell the two types sweat while being monitored for brain activity. The women’s brains not only recognized the different scents, but also responded to them. The “sexual” sweat lit up a different part of the women’s brains.

The Rice researchers next plan to see how these scents actually impact the behavior of men and women towards each other.

[via Telegraph.co.uk]

photo credit: Phil Scoville

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