Rajiv Dube, the mind behind Tata Motors‘ move into the passenger car world, has decided to part ways with the company after 27 years. Dube joined Tata way back in 1983, and neither he nor the company are saying exactly why the long-standing exec decided to move on. Our guess is that after 20 years, retirement was sounding plenty tasty. Cars like the Nano and Indica hatchback can all pledge their allegiance to Dube’s market-minded approach to the automobile.
According to Automotive News, Dube’s position will be filled internally. S. Krishnan will now helm the premier car division while Girish Wagh will take on both small-car and passenger-car operations.
We’ve written about Wynn Resorts (WYNN) before, both in this space and elsewhere. When we do, it always seems to have something to do with cheap or free housing.
Now along comes Linda C. Chen, Wynn’s newly minted chief operating officer for Wynn Resorts (Macau) S.A. We imagine it’s a pretty glamorous job, what with the grand opening of the Encore Macau, the company’s new all-suites hotel and casino. (Read Robin Leach’s take in the Las Vegas Sun.)
So perhaps it’s no surprise that Wynn is willing to guarantee Chen a salary of at least $1.5 million a year — for 10 years. Performance reviews, Chen’s employment agreement tells us, can increase her salary, but can’t reduce it. She also gets use of a car while posted in China’s special administrative gambling region. If she’s fired without cause, she gets up to four years’ salary (which would be a minimum of $6 million).
And then there’s the house:
“Wynn Macau has agreed to purchase Ms. Chen a home in Macau costing approximately $5.4 million (US) (the “Macau House”).”
We haven’t done much house-hunting in Macau, nor do we know just which house Chen is getting, but that sounds like a pretty nice place, to judge by what’s online. Even nicer — and not mentioned in the 8-K summary that accompanied Chen’s contract when it was filed on Monday — “Wynn Macau shall provide improvements to the Macau House as approved by the President of [Worldwide Wynn],” the subsidiary of Wynn Resorts that employs Chen.
And then the truly nice part: If Chen plays her cards right, the house is hers free of charge, or awfully close to it.
If she’s fired without cause, for example, or leaves for any of a list of “good” reasons after a change in control, she gets the house for a buck. That’s $1 U.S. (Good reason, it’s worth noting, includes a reduction in her salary.)
Otherwise, she pretty much has the option to buy the house at an attractive discount to fair market value: Wynn gets the house appraised, and she gets to knock 10% off that price for each year she’s worked under her contract. Yes, if she makes it the end of the 10-year contract, that means she gets the house for nothing. Or, as the contract puts it:
“On February 25, 2020, Employee shall have the right to purchase the Macau House for the Purchase Price (defined below); provided that the Employee is still employed with Employer (it is expected that the Purchase Price on such date will be $0 (US)) …”
There is a flip side to this homey arrangement, however. If Chen is fired for cause — which includes committing a felony or “the willful destruction by Employee of the property of Employer … having a material value” — Wynn can essentially put the house to her, forcing her to buy it and deducting the cost from severance or other amounts it owes her.
Even then, she gets the 10%-a-year discount. With a deal like that — if we were the betting sort — we’d put money on Chen for the finish.
So you dropped somewhere north of $90,000 for your new 2011 BMW X6 M but want it to look a little more aggressive than it does so you can stand out from the crowd. Well, AC Schnitzer is here to help.
The BMW tuner is offering a bunch carbon fiber modifications ranging from a front spoiler, rear roof spoiler, rear wing, and rear diffuser. You can also get extra design elements for the front skirt and a chromed front grille, carbon Bonnet Vents (Buick style) with a chromed centre web. AC Schnitzer is also offering its Bonnet Top of made of carbon with a plexiglas panoramic window through which you can see your engine.
When it comes to wheels for your X6 M, AC Schnitzer is offering its long range of shoes ranging from 20-inches to 23-inches.
AC Schnitzer says that it is currently working on performance upgrades with a delimiting the Vmax and a sports exhaust and will provide more details on that soon.
Click through for the press release and the high-res image gallery.
AC Schnitzer BMW X6 M:
Press Release:
Powerful and sporting:
The X6 M by AC Schnitzer with “Motorsport Genes”
Pure dynamism with powerful lines – unmistakeably the “motorsport gene”: evident at first sight in the BMW X6 M. And the X6 M by AC Schnitzer is even more powerful and sporting.
The Aachen-based tuning specialist is currently working on a performance upgrade which, in combination with delimiting the Vmax and a sports exhaust, will bring a further perceptible increase in the power of the X6 M. And if that’s not enough, you can also opt for the carbon fibre AC Schnitzer engine styling. Even without a performance upgrade, the acoustic and visual attraction will be enhanced by the AC Schnitzer sports rear silencer with two chromed “Sports Trim” tailpipe trims in right/left combination.
AC Schnitzer not only gives the BMW X6 M more power, but also a tailored race outfit of carbon. Front spoiler, rear roof spoiler, rear wing, rear diffuser and design elements for the front skirt and chromed front grille give the X6 M an impressive and muscular appearance. As an option, the carbon Bonnet Vents with chromed centre web complete the sporting look.
A real highlight is the new AC Schnitzer Bonnet Top of carbon with plexiglas panoramic window through which the engine is permanently visible.
For the X6 M – 1.98 metres wide as standard – AC Schnitzer has adapted the FALCON wheel arch extensions so that the BMW body gains an extra 40 mm width each side.
The already sporting interior ambience of the BMW X6 M has been refined further in the Aachen works. The instrument panel conversion – speedo and rev counter with AC Schnitzer logo, white dials, red pointers and red lighting – gives the X6 M a speedometer display up to 360 km/h. The carbon interior trim and the AC Schnitzer steering wheel spokes in new “black Exclusiv” design and the AC Schnitzer aluminium cover for the i-Drive system controller, aluminium footrest and pedal set, and velour foot mats, round off the interior package.
The wheelarches of the X6 M by AC Schnitzer can be filled with 20″, 22″ or imposing 23″ AC Schnitzer wheels in Type IV BiColor, Type VII silver, black or BiColor, or the AC Schnitzer forged alloys Type V or forged racing rims Type VIII BiColor. In combination with the 275, 315, 295 or 335 tyres, it’s easy for the driver in the cockpit to transfer the engine power to the track, and at the same time provide external evidence of the “motorsport gene” of the X6 M by AC Schnitzer even when stationary.Overview for Press Release No. 05/2010
X6 M by AC Schnitzer (E71)
Basic car: BMW X6 M
Engine: AC Schnitzer carbon engine styling optic
Exhaust: AC Schnitzer sports rear silencer with chromed “Sports Trim”
tailtrims (left / right)
Aerodynamics:
AC Schnitzer front spoiler, carbon
AC Schnitzer design elements for front skirt, carbon
AC Schnitzer front grille, chromed
AC Schnitzer bonnet top, carbon with acrylic glass panorama window
AC Schnitzer bonnet vents, carbon
AC Schnitzer chromed centre bar for bonnet vents
AC Schnitzer wheel arch extensions
AC Schnitzer rear roof wing, carbon
AC Schnitzer rear wing, carbon
AC Schnitzer rear diffuser, carbon
Interior:
AC Schnitzer instrument displays
speedometer conversion up to 360km/h, rev counter both with
AC Schnitzer Logo on tachometer, white background – black disposed,
red needles, red illuminated
AC Schnitzer carbon interior “black Exclusiv”
AC Schnitzer steering wheel insert, carbon “black Exclusiv”
AC Schnitzer carbon cover for automatic gear knob
AC Schnitzer aluminium cover for i-Drive system controller
AC Schnitzer aluminium foot rest and pedal set
AC Schnitzer velours floor mats
Wheel/Tyre sets
FALCON: AC Schnitzer Lightweight Forged Wheels Type V
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 22 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 10,0J x 22″ offset -10 with tyres 335/25 R 22
AC Schnitzer Wheels Type VII silver, black and BiColor
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 20 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 11,5J x 22″ offset -10 with tyres 335/25 R 22
AC Schnitzer Racing Forged Wheels Type VIII BiColor
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 20,5 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 11,5J x 22″ offset -10 with tyres 335/25 R 22
front: 11,0J x 23″ offset 30 with tyres 315/25 R 23
rear: 12,0J x 23″ offset -12 with tyres 315/25 R 23
Wheel/Tyre sets: AC Schnitzer Wheels Type IV BiColor
front: 10,0J x 20″ offset 34 with tyres 275/40 R 20
rear: 10,0J x 20″ offset 15 with tyres 275/40 R 20
front: 10,0J x 20″ offset 34 with tyres 275/40 R 20
rear: 11,5J x 20″ offset 22 with tyres 315/35 R 20
AC Schnitzer Wheels Type VII silver, black and BiColor
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 30 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 10,0J x 22″ offset 5 with tyres 295/30 R 22
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 30 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 11,5J x 22″ offset 23 with tyres 335/25 R 22
AC Schnitzer Lighweight Forged Wheels Type V
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 31 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 10,0J x 22″ offset 3 with tyres 295/30 R 22
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 31 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 11,5J x 22″ offset 23 with tyres 335/25 R 22
AC Schnitzer Racing Forged Wheels Type VIII BiColor
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 29,5 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 10,0J x 22″ offset 8,5 with tyres 295/30 R 22
front: 10,0J x 22″ offset 29,5 with tyres 295/30 R 22
rear: 11,5J x 22″ offset 23 with tyres 335/25 R 22
front: 11,0J x 23″ offset 35,5 with tyres 315/25 R 23
rear: 12,0J x 23″ offset 33,5 with tyres 315/25 R 23
Afghan insurgents attacked today the U.S. Central Command base in the prison of Bagram, which left five soldiers wounded, NATO sources reported.
Spokesmen of the Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) explained to reporters in Kabul that the rebels used rocket launchers, grenades and automatic weapons against the giant military installation, about 45 miles north of Baghdad.
Bagram base also serves on the Pentagon as a center of torture and imprisonment of suspects since November 2001.
According to the official, five soldiers were wounded and seven insurgents were killed during the attack on Bagram, whose enormous airport is used by aircraft of the United States and NATO.
The assault continued with sporadic firing of rockets and light weapons outside the base.
One missile hit inside the base, causing minor damage but no insurgency broke into Bagram, according to NATO. Helicopter gunships flew over the base.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, reported that 20 of their fighters attacked the base on the east and west flanks and four of them detonated explosives belts in front of the enclave.
That attack came just hours after the United States and NATO register a black day yesterday with the death of eight soldiers.
Six soldiers, five Americans and one Canadian, were killed in a car bomb attack claimed by rebels caused a total of 18 killed in Kabul.
Two other soldiers were also killed in the restive southern territory, which rose to 210, including 130 Americans, the number of occupants killed since the beginning of the year in Afghanistan, according to a count of the independent website icasualties.org.
KNOXVILLE — Do you know what is in your drinking water? A study by a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, professor may have you thinking twice the next time you fill up that glass of tap water.
Larry McKay, an earth and planetary sciences professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, sampled eight community water supply sources in East Tennessee and found concentrations of viruses and bacteria linked to human feces that could potentially cause waterborne disease.
The study, “Viruses and Bacteria in Karst and Fractured Rock Aquifers in East Tennessee, USA” is published in the electronic version of “Ground Water” and will appear in a special edition of the journal, “Pathogens and Fecal Indicators in Ground Water” later this year.
McKay surveyed samples of raw water from eight wells or springs throughout East Tennessee. Half of the water sources were considered high-risk for fecal contamination and the other were considered low-risk, based on previous data. McKay primarily sampled wells and springs in karst aquifers, which are made of limestone, because they are commonly used as water sources in the region and have a reputation for carrying bacteria.
“Karst aquifers have long been recognized as having high susceptibility to fecal contamination because they have features, such as sinkholes and caverns, which act as pathways for rapid flow and transport of contaminants,” McKay said.
The water samples were analyzed for fecal bacteria, E.coli and coliforms, Bacteroides and infectious viruses.
All of the high-risk water sources contained E.coli, coliforms, Bacteroides and infectious viruses. One of the low-risk water sources had E.coli and coliforms; half had Bacteroides; and three-quarters had infectious viruses. All of the wells and springs sampled in the study are used for public water supply, but the water is treated before being distributed, so the contamination measured in the study doesn’t represent a direct risk to consumers. However, these results shed light on a potential health hazard for part of the Tennessee population.
“The real concern is for the numerous small non-community water systems and household wells, where local residents typically drink groundwater that hasn’t been filtered or disinfected,” McKay said. “It’s likely that many of these residents are being exposed to waterborne fecal contamination, both bacterial and viral, but it isn’t clear how big a health risk this represents. Local and regional research is needed to assess the health impacts.”
McKay noted waterborne fecal contamination affects people in varying degrees; some people may have no symptoms while others may become seriously ill or even die.
McKay worked with Alice Layton, Gary Sayler and Dan Williams from the UT Center for Environmental Biotechnology on the East Tennessee water quality study, which has ended. The group currently is involved in a large, multi-university study that investigates the links between contaminated water and disease occurrence in rural villages in Bangladesh. The researchers hope to take some of what is learned in Bangladesh and apply it to problems in Tennessee.
Stand Up To Cancer, a 2008 multichannel TV fundraiser that helped raise more than $100 million for cancer research, returns in September.
Evening news anchors Katie Couric (CBS Evening News), Diane Sawyer (ABC World News Tonight), and Brian Williams (NBC Nightly News) are coming together for the third annual Stand Up to Cancer Tele-A-Thon to raise money and awareness for a new model of cancer research.
The star-studded show will air at 8 PM ET/PT Sept. 10 on ABC, CBS NBC, HBO, Discovery Health, E!, MLB Networks, and The Style Network.
Now that the whole controversy has blown over, Tiger Woods has made his comeback. EA Sports really stood by their man (qjnet/news/tiger-finds-a-true-bff-in-ea-sports-tiger-woods-pga-tour-online-game-to-push-through.html) in his time of crisis, so now, the PGA hotshot can go back from
We’ve all had plenty of time to digest the iPad and all its magical wonders and in the few months we’ve had it it has sold over a million units. But that just means another few billion people are still on the fence about it! Here are a few things I’ve discovered about the iPad in my travels thus far and I hope will help you make your iPad buying decision.
1. It’s a great e-reader The iPad is a great ereader. It’s easy to find books on any one of the various stores available to you – Kindle, Nook, and iBooks – and the screen is clear, bright, and eminently readable. It’s great on the train or plane – just get a case and hold it in one hand. You can also grab formatted text like PDFs and open it in GoodReader. There is one caveat, however, which we’ll discuss later.
2. It’s great for games The games made specifically for the iPad are great. Civilization Revolution is my favorite by far (except when it crashes constantly) but, contrary to my earlier assessment, Plants v. Zombies is fun as well. As Nicholas noted, Nintendo should be scared.
3. It’s a great netbook replacement Throw away your old netbook. This is the new hotness. Don’t worry about the keyboard. It works fine as long as you have a box of baby wipes handy to clean the screen.
4. It’s a great couch-surfing device Picture this: you’re watching TV. The iPad is on your coffee table. Don’t pick it up or you won’t be able to put it down. While we really shouldn’t be spreading our attention so thin, do you really need to dedicated every single one of your neurons to Modern Family? It’s a good show, but there’s Twitterin’ to be done!
5. The 3G model is probably your best bet This kind of doesn’t fit in this list, but if you’re up in the air I think the 3G model is the best. While you can turn off the 3G, you’re going to want to use it on the road and, barring the chance of download of 800MB of data and getting a $18,000 bill, you’ll find it very useful.
Incidentally, carriers suck. If you do start running up your bill you’ll get an SMS notifying you that you may want to slow down but they won’t cap you. They’ll keep pounding out data until you run up $1,000 or more for looking at maps of Paris.
6. It’s excellent for movies If there’s any reason to get Apple’s iPad stand – or the Joule iPad stand for that matter – it’s so you can watch Netflix and movies on it. This is, literally, Apple’s new Apple TV. It’s a little TV. It’s great.
7. It’s great for photographers If you’re a photographer, grab one of these. You can sit there and show off your portfolio with a few flicks of your finger. You can even run presentations so you can add music and animations.
8. It will be great for restaurants and fancypants hotels You just know that next wine bar, probably called iWine, will have iPads available for folks to place their order. It will also be funny when those things shatter at a rate of one per day.
9. It’s fun for kids – but be careful As we note below, the iPad seems fragile but kids love it. My 18 month old slaps through the pages and tries out apps while my four-year-old is a champ at almost all the games. Kids love it and you can read from it to them although – and this is a big thing with me for some reason – I don’t like reading bedtime stories on it mostly because you’re dealing with a brightly lit screen and an antsy toddler.
10. It’s a great primary travel computer If you’re going on to a meeting in another city or country and you don’t need to run much of anything except email, a little note-taking, and some movie watching, take the iPad. You can do all of this – and more. Would I say the same thing about the iPod Touch or iPhone. I don’t know. The iPad is more comfortable for all of these things and makes for a good hotel room companion. Don’t take my word for it, though. Talk to Joel Johnson. He knows.
Now for the bad news…
1. It’s not a good bedside email companion For some reason I still use my iPhone or Blackberry to check email when I wake up. The fact that I’m reading email when I wake up is a different problem entirely. I should take up smoking.
2. It’s not the best device for writing longer documents I really tried to edit a huge document using Pages and other editors but it just didn’t work. Pages is still too nascent to work well for folks who want to write the Great Armenian Novel, Իմ Մայրս, Իմ այծ նախիր.
3. It’s no Kindle/Nook The iPad sucks in sunlight. There’s no two ways about it. If you plan to read your ebooks out on the veranda with a mint julep, you’d better get a tent.
4. It’s doesn’t make a good tennis racket When you first get the iPad you’ll be amazed by its size – it’s amazingly skinny and light. Then, when you have it for a few days, you realize you’re holding a big piece of glass. While this may my useful in a bar fight, it’s going to freak you out to use the iPad without a case. It’s like you want to cover this delicate creature in a second skin.
5. It won’t make you popular on the train/plane/bus/boat Contrary to popular belief, the ladies and men of mass transit won’t notice your iPad. The Kindle has spoiled that approach for PUA nerds as many ignore the device and think it’s just an old, boring ereader. Note: this may work in places where the Great Urban Aloofness Field has not penetrated, like your nearest retirement home.
If you’re a developer in the Baltimore and Washington DC area, then you’ll be delighted to know that the second annual preDevCamp in your area is scheduled for June 5th. It’s not looking like the event will be as widespread in 2010 as it was last year, with the Baltimore folks so far being the only ones to put one together, but this time around developers will be armed with a vastly more mature SDK, a PDK, and an much improved toolkit (Project Ares, anyone?). They’ve officially opened up registration, and the organizer of the event can be reached by way of Twitter @webos_baltimore.
Alarmed by the state of the digital market, media and state of its citizens, the EU panned out a group of initiatives for their members and agencies to follow in the next five years. These initiatives have been grouped in a document called the Digital Agenda.
The EU, represented through Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission, r… (read more)
The Boston Celtics won over the Orlando Magic and took a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals last night. Sweeping the Magic is not yet sure even if the Celtics had taken over the lead and are 32-0 in the playoffs. Apparently, Boston star Paul Pierce was thinking sweep after the game because his PaulPierce34 twitter account said: “Anybody got a BROOM?”
Pierce’s online representatives are saying the account was hacked. According to Pro Basketball Talk, Paul Pierce’s Twitter updates mostly come from the web or via SMS. However, the “anybody got a BROOM?” tweet was generated through the twitterific platform.
Meanwhile, other people saw Paul Pierce talking with reporters when the tweet appeared. Someone tweeted: “RT @taramanis @athleteint I saw [Paul Pierce] talking to other reporters when these were sent… no cell in hand.”
The said tweet came after Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. Paul Pierce’s twitter account is verified so there is no question about the authenticity of Paul Pierce’s Twitter profile.
The tweet sent the media into a frenzy and they even asked Dwight Howard for a comment. When asked about what he thought about the tweet, Howard said, “No comment,” then “pride come before a fall.”
The trash-talking tweets have already been removed from his profile.
NTE Energy, which last month entered into a joint venture last month with Energy Investors Funds (EIF) to develop hybrid gas/solar power plants, has hired Mark Daley, director of strategic origination at Independent Power Producer Calpine, as executive vice president, power marketing. Prior to Calpine Daley worked for Florida Power Corporation, which is now known as Progress Energy Florida.
Tim Eves has also joined NTE Energy as executive vice president in charge of project development. Eves joins NTE Energy from Vercipia, a developer of cellulosic ethanol production technology. Eve also worked at Calpine where he was a project developer.
Michael Rice and Cameron Dix are joining NTE Energy as project developers.
Among the many announcements expected at this year’s Google I/O developer conference starting later today, one is of particular interest for HTML5 video. The tech company is rumored to open-source the VP8 codec created by On2, a company acquired by Google earlier in the year. New details are starting to pop up and one is the p… (read more)
Katie Couric visits Sanford “Sandy” Markowitz, MD, PhD, and his research team
Katie Couric visited Sanford “Sandy” Markowitz, MD, PhD, professor and researcher of cancer and genetics, and his research team in his lab Saturday before Commencement to gain a better understanding of the day-to-day research necessary for advancements in colon cancer.
The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric anchor and managing editor received a warm welcome from the researchers, who provided Couric with hands-on training. They also informed her of the various research projects being conducted in the Markowitz lab at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Watch the video of Couric’s lab tour.
The touching visit brought together Couric and Markowitz, who have been working together for years to improve colon cancer screening, and ultimately the disease. Couric’s late husband, Jay Monahan, succumbed to the disease in 1998.
Couric went on to help co-found The Entertainment Industry Foundation’s National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, which has raised awareness and funding for colon cancer research.
On Sunday, Couric delivered the Commencement convocation. More than 1,900 students graduated. Campus members can watch the speech online.
How about another story about just how quickly Android’s going? According to analyst Gartner, Android had a 1.9 percent worldwide smartphone market share in the first quarter of 2009. Fast forward to the first quarter of 2010, and that number has jumped to 9.6 percent. (Obviously the success of the Motorola Droid and its variants has had something to do with that, but other phones certainly have contributed, too.) The iPhone, meanwhile, climbed from 10.5 percent to 15.4 percent, giving the two operating systems 25 percent of the entire market. [Gartner]
Amazon will offer a lower-priced, less reliable tier of its popular Simple Storage Service, the retailer said today. The offering, called Reduced Redundancy Storage, is aimed at companies that wouldn’t be utterly bereft if the less reliable storage fails. From the Amazon release:
Amazon S3’s standard and reduced redundancy options both store data in multiple facilities and on multiple devices, but with RRS, data is replicated fewer times, so the cost is less. Once customer data is stored, Amazon S3 maintains durability by quickly detecting failed, corrupted, or unresponsive devices and restoring redundancy by re-replicating the data. Amazon S3 standard storage is designed to provide 99.999999999% durability and to sustain the concurrent loss of data in two facilities, while RRS is designed to provide 99.99% durability and to sustain the loss of data in a single facility.
As the market for infrastructure-as-a-service platforms grow, Amazon is trying to offer variations and services that distinguish its compute and storage cloud from those of Rackspace and Verizon and from platforms such as Microsoft’s Azure or VMforce. Cheaper storage with a lower service level is one such way, and its spot pricing instances are another.
For more on the economics of cloud computing and how they will evolve, visit our Structure 2010 conference June 23 and 24 where Amazon CTO Werner Vogels will be a key note speaker.
Last Tuesday, Apple had just released the iPhone’s fourth beta of OS 4 to developers. Apple didn’t mention any details or specs that the latest beta has that make it better than the other OS. According to some reports, OS 4 is faster than the other OS and has added wallpaper options.
The first iPhone OS 4 was first shown to us by Apple in the early April. The OS features like the third part app multi-tasking, organize apps in groups, a box for emails, Bluetooth keyboard support and many more.
This coming summer, the iPhone OS 4.0 will be accessible and available for the iPod touch and iPhone but will be later for the iPad which will be available this coming fall. The beta of OS4 and the SDK which is used for developing iPhone OS 4 is already accessible to developers at the Apple Developer Web Site.
Will this iPhone OS be the answer to a better iPod touch and iPhone? There might be some of you who already have their hands on the OS. Can you please let us know what you think of the latest OS?
It’s been a long time coming, but it seems as though Sprint is finally ready to offer the official Android 2.1 update to Hero devices on their network. Although the actual download link isn’t live yet, the support page for the upgrade is available and can be seen here. As always, make sure to back up all of the important information on your phone before attempting the upgrade, which should give you something to pass the time while waiting for the official download link to go live on Sprint’s site. If you upgrade your Hero today, tell us how it goes below!
The Connecticut Senate race entered a new era this week. Rvelations that Democrat Richard Blumenthal embellished his military record on several occasions, his once-stratospheric public approval rating has taken a huge hit.
“The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Connecticut finds Blumenthal with just a three-point advantage over Linda McMahon, 48% to 45%,” Rasmussen states on its website. “Two weeks ago, he led the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment by 13 percentage points. The New York Times story broke late Monday; the survey was taken Tuesday evening.”
Blumenthal performs better against Republicans Rob Simmons and Peter Schiff, besting them by 11 and 16 percentage points respectively.
Rajiv Dube, the mind behind Tata Motors‘ move into the passenger car world, has decided to part ways with the company after 27 years. Dube joined Tata way back in 1983, and neither he nor the company are saying exactly why the long-standing exec decided to move on. Our guess is that after 20 years, retirement was sounding plenty tasty. Cars like the Nano and Indica hatchback can all pledge their allegiance to Dube’s market-minded approach to the automobile.
Alarmed by the state of the digital market, media and state of its citizens, the EU panned out a group of initiatives for their members and agencies to follow in the next five years. These initiatives have been grouped in a document called the Digital Agenda. 
Among the many announcements expected at this year’s Google I/O developer conference starting later today, one is of particular interest for HTML5 video. The tech company is rumored to open-source the VP8 codec created by On2, a company acquired by Google earlier in the year. New details are starting to pop up and one is the p… (
