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Snooki’s headed back to the beach — Virginia Beach that is. The star of MTV’s Jersey Shore star is being paid two thousand smacks to help a Valentine’s Day bash inspired by her television trainwreck at Peabody’s Virginia Beach Feb. 12.

Local party promoters Justin Ballard and George Fox are fronting the four-figure appearance fee, plus the cost of hotel accommodations and travel expenses, to bring Snooks to the Southern resort city.

“We wanted to do a Jersey Shore party. We had the idea that we needed to get some sort of celebrity to bring more folks in. We found out you can rent Snooki,” Ballard told Life & Style Tuesday. “She’s pretty high maintenance,” the promoter added. “She wanted to fly first class.”

It sure sounds like a lot of folks are “Snookin’ For Love.” Within 24 hours of posting the invite on Facebook, Ballard and Fox already have over 200 confirmed guests. The pro cheerleader and aspiring vet tech’s duties will include mingling and taking photos with fans. The party is open to the public. The price of admission is $10 and drink specials will run all night.

Last weekend, Snooki was paid $10,000 to host a “Fist-Pumping Contest” at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is Seminole, Florida.

The BGR has been tipped of to T-Mobile USA’s HTC line up for 2010, and apparently 8 different SKU’s will be coming to the US carrier, half of them Windows Mobile.

We have seen some of the European T-Mobile line-up, and its likely the same handsets will be coming to the US branch also. This should be good news for US readers lusting after an HTC Trophy for example.

Read more at BGR here.

There’s nothing like the launching a company from your college dorm room that achieves global Internet hegemony within a few years to make you think you can offer royal pronouncements about how the world has changed.

OK, so that was a bit melodramatic. But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earned some howls and guffaws in the last few days over his statements saying that, in a nutshell, people aren’t terribly interested in privacy anymore. Specifically, he said:

“In the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that’s evolved over time.”

Some have interpreted his comments as an indication that he thinks that privacy is over and that the depth of privacy you might have expected, say, five years ago is very different to that you should expect today [BBC News]. The privacy changes that Facebook recently made—changes that ruffled plenty of feathers—seem to be in line with Zuckerberg’s statement. From last December onwards, all Facebook users’ status updates are made publicly available unless the user actively opts to change the settings and make [it] private. Users were alerted to changes via a ‘Notification’ posted in the bottom right hand corner of the site [The Telegraph].

The self-serving element of Zuckerberg’s statements wasn’t lost on some commenters, either. The more information that Facebook users share, the more information Facebook can vacuum into whatever ad-based revenue stream they’re debuting this quarter [The Atlantic].

Not everyone, though, was mocking the baby-faced CEO. Social networking is, by nature, anything but private. The fact is that if Facebook restricted and controlled the sharing of data the way some privacy groups would like, it wouldn’t really be a social networking site and it wouldn’t have over 350 million users willingly sharing information with each other. Joining a “social” networking site and then complaining that your information is being shared is like buying an ice cream sundae and complaining that it’s cold [PC World].

And as TechCrunch points out, credit-rating agencies have been making money by gathering an enormous database of personal information since long before Facebook existed. “Honestly, a picture of you taking a bong hit in college is mice nuts compared to the mountain of data that is gathered and exploited about every single one of us every single day. You just don’t really see that other stuff because those companies don’t like to talk about the data their gathering” [TechCrunch].

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Image: flickr / benstein

Look at your hand for a second. No, closer than that. Really close – like an inch for your face. Okay, now lick your hand.

Didn’t do it? Good. Because your hands are friggin’ disgusting. All of our hands are. I feel like I brought half of Vegas back with me from CES underneath my fingernails.

Looking to help cut down on the amount of nasty that transfers from your hand to your iPhone — or perhaps just lookin’ to make some cash off of the mysophobiac crowd –cell phone accessory manufacturer Proporta has the SteriTouch Antimicrobial iPhone case. As the name implies, this thing wraps the back of your iPhone edge to edge in a germ-killing antimicrobial surface, protecting it from all the nasty bacteria (and little tumbles) you can throw at it.

You can get it for £14.95 from Proporta if you’re in the UK – if you’re stateside, you’ll have to go hunt one down on the ol’ Googlenets.

[Via PhoneArena]

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Google just launched an updated version of Google Flu Trends, a service that predicts flu trends by tracking flu-related queries on the company’s search engine. Until now, Google only showed aggregate data for states in the United States. Starting today, Flu Trends will show data down to the city level for 121 cities. As Google notes in today’s announcement, this update was timed to coincide with National Influenza Vaccination Week.

Sponsor

Google also offers Flu Trends data on a country level for Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and most of Western Europe. Data on Flu Trends is updated daily.

By tracking flu-related queries, Google has already proven to be able to accurately predict the flu levels on a state and country level. It looks like Google now feels like its algorithms are accurate enough to predict influenza trends on a more granular level. Until Google is able to validate this data, however, the company is labeling the city level estimates as “experimental.”

Google and Google.org – Google’s non profit foundation – sponsor a number of influenza-related projects. Google, for example, now offers a vaccine-finding map and the company is working with the Public Library of Science (PLoS) to to give give scientists a place to collaborate and share research on influenza research on Google Knol.

Discuss

Environmental advocates were disappointed last month when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that her agency would miss the promised end-of-the-year deadline to release a proposed regulation of coal ash.

She blamed the delay on “the complexity of the analysis” — but new details are emerging about the intense lobbying campaign the utility industry is engaged in to protect its financial interests.

The Wall Street Journal reported this past weekend on what it called a “flurry of industry meetings” held within the White House in an effort to fight back against regulations that would create logistical problems and potentially limit so-called “beneficial” uses of coal ash:

The office of President Barack Obama’s regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, has held nearly 20 meetings with industry groups since October to discuss the potential impact of proposed EPA rules to treat coal ash and other coal byproducts as hazardous waste, according to White House records. Mr. Sunstein directs the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Watchdog groups say it is unusual for the OMB to insert itself so prominently, and so early, into the process. In this case, the EPA has yet to publish its proposed new regulations for coal ash, a step that would then open the door to public comment and hearings.

Utility executives are concerned that new rules designating coal ash as hazardous waste could add billions of dollars in new costs, as companies would be required to find safer ways to store the material than dangerous surface impoundments like the one that collapsed at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal plant in eastern Tennessee a little over a year ago — a disaster that put coal ash regulation on the national agenda.

Besides presenting a physical hazard to communities because of the way it’s stored, coal ash contains toxic metals including arsenic as well as radioactive elements and cancer-causing combustion byproducts that can leach out of impoundments and landfills and contaminate water supplies. A 2007 EPA report documented dozens of places nationwide where environmental damage from coal ash has been proven and identified scores of other potential damage cases.

It’s not only the way that utilities store coal ash that’s at stake in the rule-making. Should the new regulation broadly define coal ash as hazardous waste, it could put a crimp in utilities’ efforts to promote so-called “beneficial uses” of the material in consumer products like wallboard, as structural fill for construction projects and as a soil amendment for farm crops — all uses that are currently permitted and even encouraged under federal law.

Of the 131 million tons of coal combustion waste generated by U.S. utilities in 2007, about 40% went toward so-called “beneficial uses” and the rest into surface impoundments and landfills, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.

There is currently no federal standard regulating storage and use of coal ash. Depending on how far-reaching the proposed rule is, a spokesperson for the industry group Electric Power Research Institute told the Wall Street Journal, as many as 250 to 350 coal units could be shut down. However, environmentalists say such dramatic claims are scare tactics aimed at discouraging the Obama administration from taking needed steps to protect the public.

(Aerial photo of Kingston coal ash spill from SkyTruth.)

Jim Skinner, Chief Executive Officer of McDonald’s Corporation, today announced that Don Thompson, currently President of McDonald USA, has been elected to the role of President and Chief Operating Officer, with oversight responsibility for the company’s 32,000 restaurants worldwide.

At the same time, Skinner and Thompson jointly announced the promotions of Jan Fields, currently Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for McDonald’s USA, to succeed Thompson as President of McDonald’s USA, and Jim Johannesen, currently U.S. Division President–Central Division, to succeed Fields as Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for McDonald’s USA.

Thompson, Fields and Johannesen were elected by the McDonald’s Board of Directors today, and assume their new duties immediately.

In making the announcement, CEO Skinner said, “Don Thompson has done an outstanding job leading our U.S. business, and I am confident he will bring the same energy and innovative thinking to his new global role as President and Chief Operating Officer.

I also know he will hit the ground running, having worked collaboratively for many years with our Area of the World leadership teams to share strategic solutions and execute our successful Plan to Win.

Don’s U.S. leadership experience, combined with the great record he had as Executive Vice President of our global Restaurant Systems group, uniquely qualifies him for this next important responsibility at McDonald’s.”

Andy McKenna, Chairman of McDonald’s Board, said, “Don is a great example of McDonald’s remarkable ability to develop leaders who are immediately prepared to step up to the next level of executive responsibilities.

The Board is confident that Jim, Don and the entire senior management team will work together to continue McDonald’s worldwide business success.”

Skinner noted that the promotions of Thompson, Fields and Johannesen reflect the company’s deep bench of talented and experienced executives.

“Seamless management change is a by-product of McDonald’s commitment to leadership development and talent management,” Skinner said.

“Together with our Board of Directors, we have made succession planning a competitive advantage for our company worldwide.”

“I’m confident our positive momentum and business performance in the U.S. will continue under Jan Fields and Jim Johannesen,” Thompson said.

“Jan has been my trusted colleague in leading our U.S. system, and I know she has the complete respect and total support of our owner-operators, suppliers and staff. Jan epitomizes the very best values of our system–a commitment to franchising, continuous improvement, and putting our customers at the center of everything we do.

With the support of Jim Johannesen, she will continue to drive customer satisfaction and value.”

Thompson, 46, began his McDonald’s career in 1990 as an engineer in the Restaurant Systems Group. He moved into restaurant operations four years later, and rose quickly through the operations ranks.

He was named Regional Manager of the San Diego Region in 1998, and was promoted to Regional Vice President a year later.

In 2000 he was named President of the Midwest Division of McDonald’s USA, and in 2001 was appointed President of the company’s West Division.

In 2004, he returned to Oak Brook as Executive Vice President of McDonald’s Restaurant Systems Group. A year later he was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for McDonald’s USA, and in 2006 was named President of McDonald’s USA.

Fields, 54, began her McDonald’s career as a crew person for a McDonald’s owner-operator, and joined McDonald’s Corporation in 1978 as a Restaurant Manager Trainee.

She moved through McDonald’s operations career path as an Area Supervisor, Field Consultant, Operations Manager, and Director of Operations. In 1994, she was promoted to Regional Manager of the Pittsburgh Region.

In 2000, Fields was promoted to U.S. Senior Vice President and Central Division Support Officer.

Three years later, she was named U.S. Division President for the Central Division, and in 2006 she was named to her current role as Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, McDonald’s USA.

Johannesen, 55, joined McDonald’s in 1979 as an attorney in the Corporate Legal Department. In 1986, he was named Director for McDonald’s Business Affairs group, and in 1992 he became an Assistant Vice President within the U.S. Restaurant Development Department.

In 1998, Johannesen moved into restaurant operations as Regional Vice President of the Phoenix Region. Three years later he was named Vice President and General Manager of the Chicago Region.

In 2002 he was promoted to U.S. Senior Vice President and Chief Support Officer for McDonald’s USA.

In 2006, he was promoted to his current role as President of the Central Division.

Complete biographical information for Thompson, Fields and Johannesen is available through McDonald’s Corporate Media Relations Department at aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/bios.html.

McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice retailer with more than 32,000 local restaurants in more than 100 countries. About 80% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by franchisees.

Please visit our Web site at aboutmcdonalds.com to learn more about the Company.

Filed under: Detroit Auto Show, Coupe, Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen

If you’re wondering what the likelihood of Audi building a production version of its new e-tron Detroit Concept Car (yes, that’s really its official designation), our sources at Audi indicate that a version of the coupe is likely to go into serial production as the oft-rumored R4.

The German automaker is apparently looking to design a smaller modular platform leveraging the expertise it used to develop the front-engine sedan platform that underpins the new A8 and forthcoming A7, among others. The new mid-engine architecture will likely find homes in a number of Volkswagen Group properties, including a production version of the Concept BlueSport, and perhaps even the next-generation Porsche Boxster/Cayman.

While the e-tron show car is a battery-powered electric vehicle, the production model is likely to be available with either an electric motor or conventional internal-combustion four-cylinder variants.

Given the fact that VW intimated last year that a production BlueSport could be produced at around $25,000, we’re anticipating that the Audi R4 will slot in under the TT in the low-$30,000 range, as the 2010 TT presently starts at $37,800.

Detroit 2010: Audi e-tron Detroit Concept presages production R4 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Individual biofuels — algae fuel, cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, corn ethanol — have all had their day in the sun over the past few years. Is it time for everyone to cheer for the alternative version of butanol, biobutanol? This morning Mountain View, Calif.-based startup Cobalt Biofuels, which produces biobutanol, opened up its first pilot plant […]

Charles Rosen

Isaiah Berlin, Oxford, 1969; photograph by Dominique Nabokov

The hostile review of Isaiah Berlin’s correspondence by A.N. Wilson in the TLS—which has set off a heated controversy about Berlin and his reputation—exhibited a misunderstanding of university life as well as of the nature of Sir Isaiah’s career. Wilson was unappreciative of Berlin as a historian, comparing him unfavorably with his close contemporary, the Oxford historian A.L. Rowse. Neither were truly major historians but Berlin was not really a historian at all, in the full sense of that word, nor was he exactly a philosopher. His field, largely untrodden and little understood, was the intersection of philosophy, aesthetics and history: in this, his achievement was very great, above all in his profound elucidation of the way that ideas like freedom, enlightenment and nationalism could appear, develop and be challenged in the politics and art from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

He never aspired to be a historian of ideas in the grand general sense—that is, to give a complete intellectual image of any era, but only to reveal the contradictions and paradoxes in the historical development of ideas that we still grapple with today. Even though it is true that his conversation, at least in my own acquaintance with him, was even more brilliant than his writing, the essays on Johann Georg Hamann, Johann Gottfried Herder, Joseph de Maistre, Alexander Herzen, and others will retain their interest and value for a long time to come.

Wilson’s main complaint about Berlin’s letters is the frequently malicious comments about life in Oxford. Not that malice is absent from Wilson’s review. In his case, however, it is often inexplicable. The review is entitled “The Dictaphone Don,” and this is surely intended to have a pejorative edge to it. But it is not clear to me why Berlin’s habit of speaking his letters into a dictaphone is more shameful than writing on a computer or with a goose-quill. On Berlin’s account of his meeting with Greta Garbo, Wilson complains “he has not spotted her lesbianism.” Should he have? Did she give herself away, dressing in men’s clothes like Queen Christine?

The petty aspects of Wilson’s review are overshadowed when Wilson is shocked that the letters “are peppered with malice about poor A. L. Rowse” while Berlin was personally cordial to him. The open cordiality to Rowse that Wilson characterizes as “treachery” is simply a frank letter of refusal to support Rowse’s failed campaign to be elected warden of All Souls College, a refusal couched in the kindest possible language. Wilson’s claim that Rowse was “ultimately more intellectually distinguished” than Berlin is simply ludicrous. The right description for Rowse’s historical work is well put a few sentences later by Wilson, “readable, well-researched volumes,” while most authorities consider that Rowse’s writing on Shakespeare, of which he was so vain, is simply risible.

When I was Eastman Professor at Oxford for one year a long time ago (an American is chosen annually), humorous stories about Rowse circulated frequently, as his pride in his humble Cornish origins and his subsequent intellectual renown were legendary. Both Berlin and Rowse were fellows at All Souls, a college where there are zero students (like the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study), and where the fellows are lodged and have breakfast and dinner together. In such a situation, a certain amount of malice behind the back of colleagues who are competent and useful but personally difficult to support is a necessary and legitimate safety valve: it is certainly a fact of life in every university where I have worked, however briefly.

One story often told about Rowse is that he came down one day to breakfast at All Souls, fulminating about a bad review in The Times of his latest book, and said, “You see the way the upper class resent that I have been able to rise into their midst entirely by my own merit.” John Sparrow, then the Warden of All Souls (he had been elected in 1952 over Rowse), looked up from his breakfast and said, “Rowse, whatever gives you the impression that only the rich detest you?” I would think that malice behind someone’s back is preferable to such a frontal attack, but the story reminds me of Randall Jarrell’s remark that British manners are sometimes so frightening to Americans that they would prefer no manners at all. What appalled Berlin was not only Rowse’s egoism, but his writing letters to The Times “to say that education is bad for the poor, since most of them are incurably barbarous & do badly on a little knowledge.”

In any case, malicious gossip, whether treachery or simply letting off steam, is not merely a luxury of academic life but a useful way of keeping the peace. Isaiah Berlin’s employment of it was always private and tactful, and mild compared to that of other Oxford dons like Trevor-Roper, and certainly less vicious than that exhibited a short time ago in the campaign for the election of the Professor of Poetry.

Among the most aggressive and significant pages of this volume of letters is the controversy between Berlin and T.S. Eliot on Eliot’s anti-Semitism—particularly his statement that “reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable”—which Eliot insisted was not racial or even religious but cultural. Their correspondence is distinguished by courteous expressions of mutual esteem from both parties. I should think that “free-thinking Jews” should feel flattered and even pleased that Eliot considered too many of us to be a danger to his dream of a right-wing Anglo-Catholic society.

A few years later, the courtesy attains comic intensity in a contest of gracious manners when Eliot sent Berlin a book, and Berlin thanked him by writing:

I feel quite sure that, for all your disclaimers, your erudition, as well as your wisdom, are far profounder than mine will ever be. Not that it would take much to be that; but it is all I can offer, sincerely, in return, and I do offer it to you in all humility and admiration.”

Not to be outdone, Eliot replied:

I was already convinced that you are my superior in learning, profundity and eloquence. I am now of the opinion that you far surpass me in the art of flattery.

Berlin commented in a letter to a friend:

I have received a funny letter from T. S. Eliot, in which there is an ironical reference to me which he maintains … is a compliment. I do not know how to reply and therefore he wins.

Berlin’s courtesy and his malice were always civilized.

We’ve been highlighting how Nicolas Sarkozy — who was the original strong supporter of “three strikes” proposals to kick people off the internet based on accusations (not convictions) — and his political party have been caught time and time again infringing on the copyright of others. It looks like that’s happening again in an even more embarrassing fashion. The organization that’s been designated to deal with three strikes in France, Hadopi, unveiled a new logo… that used an unlicensed font, that had been created by France Telecom and had not been licensed for use by anyone else. Hadopi had to scramble and try to find a new font once called on this, and issued an “apology,” but will it allow those accused of infringement online the right to “apologize” as well?

These may seem like minor issues, but they’re actually quite instructive. The point is that due to the way copyright law is set up, people infringe unintentionally all the time. Even the biggest defenders of copyright do so. And that is the problem with any sort of system that punishes people for something as minor as three infringements — and it’s even worse when its three accusations of infringement, rather than actual convictions. It creates a massive liability for the way everyone — even copyright defenders — do things every day. But, of course, the big powerful folks — the ones who passed and support this law — can just apologize and ignore the consequences. Everyone else? Good luck.

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Since the birth of SharePoint, Microsoft has marketed it as an internal collaboration platform, during a period when Intranet managers increasingly see collaboration as a high-priority service. Now, players such as Google and HyperOffice are trying to repeat SharePoint’s success, using an on-again, off-again "SharePoint Killer" marketing tactic combined with the idea of creating a kind of Intranet-in-a-box alternative. However, technology buyers inevitably discover with any technology — from Redmond or any competitor — there’s usually a wide gulf between the marketing hype and the implementation reality.

Google’s announcement today that it will allow Docs users to store other files inspired a fresh round of speculation in twittersphere about competition with SharePoint. File-sharing is essential to the modern enterprise, but storage alone doth not a collaboration application make.

Before that, Google made a big media push to promote their Sites application. The resulting coverage brought another round of "SharePoint Killer" claims. Most of these claims have been effectively critiqued. As my colleague Alan Pelz-Sharpe points out, Sites is hardly a SharePoint killer and Adriaan Bloem gets deeper in discussing the broader application of Sites.

But let’s back up for a moment. The real issue at hand is not whether Sites or Docs or Wave or HyperOffice can kill SharePoint, but rather can these tools (SharePoint included) stand up to the demands for which software makers market them?

If you ask any three consultants, you’ll get five answers regarding the definition of an intranet. Most average folks in medium and large organizations could probably give you a quick definition that goes something like this: "an intranet is a place where employees go to get information and resources necessary to do their jobs." While this broad definition could be applied to many applications, you’ll typically see the following in a basic Intranet: forms for various benefits, links to key services (and applications), and places to store simpler organizational content (e.g., holiday schedules, policies and procedures, and so on). For these basic services, SharePoint Services/Foundation, Google Sites, and HyperOffice can meet many needs, especially among smaller enterprises. However, if this is all organizations needed for intranets, Microsoft, IBM and OpenText would not have spent billions on developing more enterprise-centric products.

To better understand the very broad and deep needs organizations have for employee productivity, look at Jane McConnell’s Global Intranet Trends Report and Nielson/Norman’s Intranet Design Report. Through the lens of both reports (and others), we begin to see what organizations are not only doing today, but will do in the next couple of years — and the vastness of that marketing/reality gulf becomes very apparent.

Some of the functionality available within SharePoint Server (forthcoming successor to MOSS), IBM WebSphere, and other large-scale portal offerings are unavailable in more basic solutions like SharePoint Foundation (free successor to WSS) or Google Sites. For example:

• Personal Sites/Spaces
  Some enterprises want to provide each employee with an individual space in an intranet. These spaces are usually controlled exclusively or semi-exclusively by the employee and mimic the personalization features we might see on the internet (think iGoogle).
• Business/Social Networking
  One key aspect of many intranets today is the ability to connect employees from across the organization together. IBM, Microsoft and others have invested in developing solutions that connect one employee to another. In SharePoint, there’s a feature that helps you connect with people within your own team (common manager), within the same distribution list (through Exchange) and through other contacts (like LinkedIn).
• Enterprisewide Search
  No one is happy with their Intranet search engine, but Google’s hosted services are no closer to solving this problem than the on-premise search tools of its enterprisey competitors.
• Composite Application Frameworks
  Beyond the ability to create "simple" sites that collect content and allow employees to share data, many vendors are investing in the ability to create composite applications. Composite applications are a collection of features or functions for more than one application in the enterprise, brought together in a singular interface. In Web 2.0 speak, you’d call them a “mashup,” but composite applications are becoming increasing important in organizations that want to give portions of enterprise applications to a much broad audience. For example, combining a product lookup from SAP with sales lead data from SaleForce.com.

Subscribers to our SharePoint Research will know that it’s only at the fee-based level (MOSS and Server 2010) where SharePoint can begin to satisfy broader organization needs. And even then, the results can be uneven. At the same time, products like Sites and HyperOffice, as well as SharePoint Services/Foundation, only touch a small percentage of an organization’s needs, let alone address concepts like governance, security, and collaboration. Small businesses can cobble together lightweight hosted services effectively. Larger enterprises need to take a more holistic view. Do you need an apple or an orange?

For those you who purchased a subsidized Nexus One  with T-Mobile and are thinking about canceling your contract you better listen up.  If you you cancel your contract after the 14-day trial, it’ll cost you between $50 and $200. In addition to this, Google will charge you an additional equipment recovery fee. of According to the Google Terms of Sale Google has the right to charge you up to $350 if you cancel before the 4 month mark, which is essentially their way of thwarting any plans you may have to sell a former contract phone for profit. Basically, Google will charge you whatever you didn’t pay for a Nexus One due to subsidies. In other words, you’d owe Google $350 if you bought a Nexus One for $180 through T-Mobile—which brings the cost of your Nexus One up to $530. Add on any fees from T-Mobile on top of that and your Nexus One is costing you more than a new one unlocked.

Source: Gizmodo

Dancing With the Stars will return for its tenth season this March, ABC confirmed on Tuesday.

A new edition of the hit reality dance competition will return to the small screen with a two-hour season premiere on Monday, March 22, ABC Entertainment Group President Stephen McPherson told reporters at the Television Critics Association Panel this morning.