The iPad's pre-orders have been strong enough that they could outrun even the original iPhone launch, according to a new slip of details from the company. Pre-orders have already reached into the "hundreds of thousands" in the past week and are predicted by WSJ sources to be strong enough that there could be more iPads sold in the first quarter of sales than the 1.12 million the iPhone managed in its own first full quarter in 2007. Unofficial estimates have already put Apple's pre-order tally at 200,000 units, not including in-store pickups....

CAMBIO / VENDO SEAT LEON 140CV 2.0T DI DEL 2007 El coche es de julio del 2007, tiene apenas 53500km hechos casi todos por carretera, Navegador totalmente actualizado con mapas de...

Cette mère âgée de 38 ans, «réservée», «introvertie» et apparemment sans histoire, était accusée d'avoir étouffé ou étranglé six de ses nouveau-nés entre 2000 et 2007 à Valognes, dans la Manche.

Cette mère âgée de 38 ans, «réservée», «introvertie» et apparemment sans histoire, était accusée d'avoir étouffé ou étranglé six de ses nouveau-nés entre 2000 et 2007 à Valognes, dans la Manche.

Cette mère âgée de 38 ans, «réservée», «introvertie» et apparemment sans histoire, était accusée d'avoir étouffé ou étranglé six de ses nouveau-nés entre 2000 et 2007 à Valognes, dans la Manche.

Cette mère âgée de 38 ans, «réservée», «introvertie» et apparemment sans histoire, était accusée d'avoir étouffé ou étranglé six de ses nouveau-nés entre 2000 et 2007 à Valognes, dans la Manche.

Cette mère âgée de 38 ans, «réservée», «introvertie» et apparemment sans histoire, était accusée d'avoir étouffé ou étranglé six de ses nouveau-nés entre 2000 et 2007 à Valognes, dans la Manche.

About a year before filing a $1 billion copyright claim against Google and YouTube in 2007, Viacom tried to buy the popular video hosting site, court documents that were made public on Thursday reveal. Viacom owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, among other networks, and Google is accusing it of having continued to secretly upload its videos to the site even after filing the lawsuit....

The iPad's pre-orders have been strong enough that they could outrun even the original iPhone launch, according to a new slip of details from the company. Pre-orders have already reached into the "hundreds of thousands" in the past week and are predicted by WSJ sources to be strong enough that there could be more iPads sold in the first quarter of sales than the 1.12 million the iPhone managed in its own first full quarter in 2007. Unofficial estimates have already put Apple's pre-order tally at 200,000 units, not including in-store pickups....

Reuters reports:

President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday announced that Russia would build a high-tech hub near Moscow to spur modernization of the economy and reduce its dependence on oil and gas.

The center, designed to develop five priority sectors -- energy, IT, telecommunications, bio-medical and atomic technologies -- will be built near Skolkovo, a new private-sector business school in the Moscow region.

(It would be tempting to call it "Silicon Steppes" if it were in Asiatic Russia...)

I had a very small part to play in this story. In late 2007 I met with a large Russian delegation that had come over to Silicon Valley to learn some of its lessons. Their goal was to use Russian oil money to establish several Silicon Valley-like regions.

They asked me lots of good questions. They made it clear that they did not want to replicate Silicon Valley, they wanted just the best bits.

I told them I would tell them the secret of Silicon Valley's success. They went silent, and leaned in closer to hear what I had to say. "Failure."

(This was before the EPIC Fail craze of recent times...)

Silicon Valley tolerates, and funds, massive amounts of failure. Only about one out of twenty startups succeed.

Probably no other culture allows people to fail as many times as Silicon Valley. Inside every successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur is a failed entrepreneur.

No other culture in the world, (except for maybe Las Vegas), tolerates and celebrates as much failure as Silicon Valley. This is the "best bit" of Silicon Valley, and its also the part that can't be exported.

They nodded. And they made some notes.

I asked them about how they would structure their VC funds, and about the Russian entrepreneurs that they hoped to attract.

One of them, the head of a quasi public/private VC fund, said that they had a problem finding and funding startups. It was an exasperating problem. The Russian entrepreneurs won't tell them about their business ideas.

They don't trust them. "I'm running a VC fund, I'm not going to run off with their business idea!"

- - -

By the way, did you know that Tim Draper, one of our most successful VCs, penned a song called "RiskMaster" to welcome the Russian delegation?

I have no idea what the tune is, obviously something stirring, I can imagine something between Red Army choir and Welsh choir:

Hey! You want to start a business?
Russia seems to show some promise
While weighing all your choices
"Go to Moscow!" you hear voices
Google founder came from Russia
Parametric? - Not from Prussia!
Genesis and PayPal too

SVOD and what is new?
With luck you'll become a
Master!

From Soviet biology
Comes really cool technology
Software immunology
From Nukes we get ecology
Ukraine's Orange Revolution
Good for all-freedom solution
And then political pollution
Now it's all in execution


Chorus:
With luck you'll become a
RiskMaster!

All you need is a faster chip
A million rubles
A couple of engineers
RiskMaster!

- - -

Please see: Turning Oil Into Innovation: Russian Delegation Seeks Silicon Valley's Lessons - SVW

Though Apple both publicly and privately warned smartphone makers that it wouldn't tolerate its intellectual property being infringed upon, the company made its first move against Taiwan-based HTC earlier this month with a federal lawsuit and a complaint to the International Trade Commission. HTC says it doesn't plan to give up without a fight.

"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself," HTC Corporation CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. "HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible."

HTC cited the company's numerous firsts to market as proof of its innovation, including selling the first Windows Mobile smartphone in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008. (It also lays claim to the "first gesture-based smartphone" released in June 2007, but that's also the same month that Apple released the original iPhone.) It also noted that Fast Company and MIT Technology Review has both recently named HTC as one of the top innovative companies globally.

The company is confident that its own patent portfolio will prove useful in its defense. "We've been in business since 1997 and a pioneer in the smart phone space," HTC America VP Jason Mackenzie told Forbes. "We absolutely have our share of patents."

However, Deutsche Banks analyst Chris Whitmore noted recently that Apple has amassed a much larger patent portfolio than HTC, or even Google, whose Andriod operating system is believed to be the real target of Apple's legal ire. Since 2000, Apple has been awarded over 3,000 patents, compared to Google's 316 and HTC's 58. Prior to the launch of the iPhone, HTC actually filed zero patents with USPTO. Sheer numbers don't guarantee a slam dunk for Apple, but they do certainly give Apple a much larger cache of ammunition to draw from.

Many have criticized Apple for "competition by litigation" by filing complaints against HTC, but as The New York Times recently reported, lawsuits not at all uncommon in the mobile space. Apple believes it has a right and duty to protect its own innovations, apparently just as other companies in the mobile space do. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said earlier this month.

Furthermore, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the lawsuits are merely a sign that the modern smartphone market is still in its early stages, and that this particular lawsuit won't stifle innovation as some believe. "The smartphone market is still in a nascent state; much innovation still lies ahead in this field," he wrote in an analysis of Apple's patent litigation. "In all nascent technology markets, there is a period early where IP rights will be sorted out."

Unless Apple and HTC come to an out-of-court settlement, we could be waiting until at least 2012 to hear a decisions from either the ITC or US district court on the matter. 

Read the comments on this post

Apple both publicly and privately warned smartphone makers that it wouldn't tolerate its intellectual property being infringed upon, and the company made its first move against Taiwan-based HTC earlier this month with a federal lawsuit and a complaint to the International Trade Commission. HTC says it doesn't plan to give up without a fight.

"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself," HTC Corporation CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. "HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible."

HTC cited the company's numerous firsts to market as proof of its innovation, including selling the first Windows Mobile smartphone in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008. (It also lays claim to the "first gesture-based smartphone" released in June 2007, but that's also the same month that Apple released the original iPhone.) It also noted that Fast Company and MIT Technology Review have both recently named HTC as one of the top innovative companies globally.

The company is confident that its own patent portfolio will prove useful in its defense. "We've been in business since 1997 and a pioneer in the smart phone space," HTC America VP Jason Mackenzie told Forbes. "We absolutely have our share of patents."

However, Deutsche Banks analyst Chris Whitmore noted recently that Apple has amassed a much larger patent portfolio than HTC, or even Google, whose Andriod operating system is believed to be the real target of Apple's legal ire. Since 2000, Apple has been awarded over 3,000 patents, compared to Google's 316 and HTC's 58. Prior to the launch of the iPhone, HTC actually filed zero patents with USPTO. Sheer numbers don't guarantee a slam dunk for Apple, but they do certainly give Apple a much larger cache of ammunition to draw from.

Many have criticized Apple for "competition by litigation" by filing complaints against HTC, but as The New York Times recently reported, lawsuits are not at all uncommon in the mobile space. Apple believes it has a right and duty to protect its own innovations, apparently just as other companies in the mobile market do. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said earlier this month.

Furthermore, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the lawsuits are merely a sign that the modern smartphone market is still in its early stages, and that this particular lawsuit won't stifle innovation as some believe. "The smartphone market is still in a nascent state; much innovation still lies ahead in this field," he wrote in an analysis of Apple's patent litigation. "In all nascent technology markets, there is a period early where IP rights will be sorted out."

Unless Apple and HTC come to an out-of-court settlement, we could be waiting until at least 2012 to hear a decision from either the ITC or US district court on the matter. 

Read the comments on this post

Céline Lesage, cette mère de famille de 38 ans jugée pour six infanticides commis entre août 2000 et septembre 2007 à Valognes (Manche), a été condamnée jeudi soir à 15 années de réclusion criminelle par la cour d'assises de la Manche. L'avocat général Eric Bouillard avait requis dans l'après-midi 16 ans de réclusion assortie d'une peine de sûreté de huit ans, ainsi que dix ans de suivi socio-judiciaire.

Apple both publicly and privately warned smartphone makers that it wouldn't tolerate its intellectual property being infringed upon, and the company made its first move against Taiwan-based HTC earlier this month with a federal lawsuit and a complaint to the International Trade Commission. HTC says it doesn't plan to give up without a fight.

"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself," HTC Corporation CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. "HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible."

HTC cited the company's numerous firsts to market as proof of its innovation, including selling the first Windows Mobile smartphone in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008. (It also lays claim to the "first gesture-based smartphone" released in June 2007, but that's also the same month that Apple released the original iPhone.) It also noted that Fast Company and MIT Technology Review have both recently named HTC as one of the top innovative companies globally.

The company is confident that its own patent portfolio will prove useful in its defense. "We've been in business since 1997 and a pioneer in the smart phone space," HTC America VP Jason Mackenzie told Forbes. "We absolutely have our share of patents."

However, Deutsche Banks analyst Chris Whitmore noted recently that Apple has amassed a much larger patent portfolio than HTC, or even Google, whose Andriod operating system is believed to be the real target of Apple's legal ire. Since 2000, Apple has been awarded over 3,000 patents, compared to Google's 316 and HTC's 58. Prior to the launch of the iPhone, HTC actually filed zero patents with USPTO. Sheer numbers don't guarantee a slam dunk for Apple, but they do certainly give Apple a much larger cache of ammunition to draw from.

Many have criticized Apple for "competition by litigation" by filing complaints against HTC, but as The New York Times recently reported, lawsuits are not at all uncommon in the mobile space. Apple believes it has a right and duty to protect its own innovations, apparently just as other companies in the mobile market do. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said earlier this month.

Furthermore, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the lawsuits are merely a sign that the modern smartphone market is still in its early stages, and that this particular lawsuit won't stifle innovation as some believe. "The smartphone market is still in a nascent state; much innovation still lies ahead in this field," he wrote in an analysis of Apple's patent litigation. "In all nascent technology markets, there is a period early where IP rights will be sorted out."

Unless Apple and HTC come to an out-of-court settlement, we could be waiting until at least 2012 to hear a decision from either the ITC or US district court on the matter. 

Read the comments on this post

Apple both publicly and privately warned smartphone makers that it wouldn't tolerate its intellectual property being infringed upon, and the company made its first move against Taiwan-based HTC earlier this month with a federal lawsuit and a complaint to the International Trade Commission. HTC says it doesn't plan to give up without a fight.

"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself," HTC Corporation CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. "HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible."

HTC cited the company's numerous firsts to market as proof of its innovation, including selling the first Windows Mobile smartphone in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008. (It also lays claim to the "first gesture-based smartphone" released in June 2007, but that's also the same month that Apple released the original iPhone.) It also noted that Fast Company and MIT Technology Review have both recently named HTC as one of the top innovative companies globally.

The company is confident that its own patent portfolio will prove useful in its defense. "We've been in business since 1997 and a pioneer in the smart phone space," HTC America VP Jason Mackenzie told Forbes. "We absolutely have our share of patents."

However, Deutsche Banks analyst Chris Whitmore noted recently that Apple has amassed a much larger patent portfolio than HTC, or even Google, whose Andriod operating system is believed to be the real target of Apple's legal ire. Since 2000, Apple has been awarded over 3,000 patents, compared to Google's 316 and HTC's 58. Prior to the launch of the iPhone, HTC actually filed zero patents with USPTO. Sheer numbers don't guarantee a slam dunk for Apple, but they do certainly give Apple a much larger cache of ammunition to draw from.

Many have criticized Apple for "competition by litigation" by filing complaints against HTC, but as The New York Times recently reported, lawsuits are not at all uncommon in the mobile space. Apple believes it has a right and duty to protect its own innovations, apparently just as other companies in the mobile market do. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said earlier this month.

Furthermore, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the lawsuits are merely a sign that the modern smartphone market is still in its early stages, and that this particular lawsuit won't stifle innovation as some believe. "The smartphone market is still in a nascent state; much innovation still lies ahead in this field," he wrote in an analysis of Apple's patent litigation. "In all nascent technology markets, there is a period early where IP rights will be sorted out."

Unless Apple and HTC come to an out-of-court settlement, we could be waiting until at least 2012 to hear a decision from either the ITC or US district court on the matter. 

Read the comments on this post

Apple is on pace to potentially sell more iPads in its first three months than it sold iPhones in the three months after the touch-screen handset made its debut back in 2007, people familiar with the company's running sales totals say.

 Céline Lesage, mère de famille de 38 ans, a été condamnée jeudi par la cour d'assises de la Manche à 15 ans de réclusion criminelle pour avoir entre 2000 et 2007 étouffé ou étranglé six de ses nouveau-nés.

Filed under: Sedan, Government/Legal, Recalls, Safety, Hatchback, Toyota

Are you tired of hearing about Toyota recalls and safety concerns? If that's the case, we must regrettably inform you that there's an update to note on a previously reported issue, this one potentially affecting some 1.2 million Corolla and Matrix models from 2005, 2006 and 2007. This issue concerns a possible defect that may cause affected vehicles to stall due to a failure in the engine's electronic control unit. At this time, Reuters reports, this is not a recall, just an investigation.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration first began investigating the problem back in November of last year, and up to that point, the government agency had received 26 such complaints. Apparently, there's no rhyme or reason as to when the cars will stall out, and it can happen at any speed, even at a steady cruise on the highway or through an intersection.

According to a letter sent as a response to a query from NHTSA, Toyota is suggesting that this particular issue doesn't create "an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety," calling the problem more of an inconvenience to owners. NHTSA says Toyota even issued a bulletin back in September of 2007 to dealers outlining a fix to replace the ECU with an improved model.

For what it's worth, we'd wager that electronic gremlins are the very last thing Toyota wants the public to hear about right about now in the wake of recalling some 8.5 million vehicles so far this year, most of which were to address potential mechanical problems with the accelerator pedal and ill-fitting floor mats that can cause cases of unintended acceleration. The automaker has repeatedly ruled out electronic problems as the cause of its sudden acceleration issues.

[Source: Reuters]

Followup: Toyota considering stall fix for 1.2M Corolla and Matrix models originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though early units might have been less reliable on the inside than later ones and sequels, the original 2007 iPhone was built pretty tough—enough that a family member’s hand-me-down that has been continually used (inside cases) for nearly three years now is still working fine. At least, it was until a week or two ago, when a certain little “nag screen” became way more naggy than normal. Even when the phone wasn’t actively...

Faced with claims that it encourages piracy, YouTube accuses its rival of sour grapes - as well as claiming it ran covert operations to upload thousands of videos to the site

American media conglomerate Viacom considered buying YouTube just months before it launched a $1bn (£655m) piracy lawsuit against the video sharing site, according to court documents.

Files released today by a US court suggest that the television giant - which owns channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central - had considered purchasing YouTube in 2006 in what executives said could prove a "transformative acquisition".

That deal was scotched when YouTube was bought later that year by internet leviathan Google for $1.65bn - shortly before Viacom launched its billion-dollar lawsuit accusing YouTube of "massive intentional copyright infringement".

The claims have come to light after the US court hearing the case unsealed hundreds of documents as it prepares to make a ruling on Viacom's claims. Lawyers have been arguing the case, which experts say could redefine the relationship between media and internet companies, behind closed doors since 2007 - but the court's move has made the astonishing revelations from both sides public for the first time.

Viacom's case hinges around the accusation that the video sharing site's founders - Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim - knew that copyright infringement was taking place, deliberately encouraged it and then failed to act properly when asked by rights holders.

In one filing, Viacom quotes an email from Chen who tells his colleagues to "concentrate all our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil".

The company also submitted evidence showing that Karim was among those who had submitted videos that infringed on the copyright of its owners - and that his colleagues were aware of the situation.

YouTube has consistently rejected the accusations, however, suggesting that it does not encourage illegal activity and that US copyright law means that it does have to police every uploaded to its servers.

It says that Viacom's evidence is largely used out of context - and that the entire court case could even be an outbreak of sour grapes.

One filing by YouTube suggests that Viacom had seriously entertained the possibility of buying the website in 2006, referring to an internal Viacom presentation which said that "we believe YouTube would make a transformative acquisition for MTV Networks/Viacom that would immediately make us the leading deliverer of video online, globally". It is not clear how serious this proposal was at the time.

In addition, YouTube argues that not only did Viacom "routinely" take the step of deliberately leaving pirated clips from ordinary users on the site because of their promotional value, but that it actually put up videos on YouTube - often surreptitiously.

"For years Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there," said Zahavah Levine, YouTube's chief counsel, in a blog post published today.

"It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately 'roughed up' the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses."

Faced with underground marketing efforts which had the stated aim of making video "look hijacked" in order to make sure it would "leak on YouTube", the site argues that it could never have been expected to accurately gauge whether or not had permission to post videos online.

Under American copyright law, internet service providers and websites are not directly responsible for the actions of their users and it is the duty of copyright holders to request that pirated versions of their be taken offline. However, the situation has become more complex in recent years with the advent of widespread file sharing and systems that make it easier to share copyrighted content without permission.

In the seminal Betamax case of 1984, a judge found that home video taping was legal because the technology could be used for legal purposes and not just piracy. But in 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled against file sharing site Grokster - whose lawyers had argued their case on the same basis - because it found that the company had deliberately encouraged users to infringe copyright.

Since launching in 2005, YouTube has become the world's most popular video website - garning hundreds of millions of users worldwide and having 20 hours of video uploaded to its system every minute.

A final ruling from US district court judge Louis Stanton, who is hearing the case, is not expected for several months.

• YouTube
• Digital video
• Piracy
• Piracy
• Television industry
• Law and technology

Bobbie Johnsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

· Security contractor admits shooting two men dead
· Text messages to Guardian detail events of August 2009

A former British soldier facing the death penalty in Iraq for allegedly murdering two fellow security contractors has given his first detailed account of the killings to the Guardian, admitting to shooting both dead but insisting he acted in self-defence.

Daniel Fitzsimons sent a series of messages to this newspaper detailing the events of last August in Baghdad's green zone that led him to become the first foreigner to face justice in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Fitzsimons told the Guardian that he shot one of the men, former Royal Marine Paul McGuigan, from Innerleithen in Scotland, three times as McGuigan allegedly pointed an assault rifle at him.

He says the second victim, Darren Hoare, from Australia, was killed during a fight that followed. All three men had been contracted to work as guards for the British security firm ArmorGroup.

Fitzsimons – who faces two counts of murder and one of the attempted murder of an Iraqi guard – and his lawyers claim he acted in self-defence and was suffering from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder following a previous tour of Iraq and service in the military.

His lawyers, who are aware of his admission to the Guardian, claim he should never have been allowed to work for a security company given his condition and record.

This defence is disputed by relatives of McGuigan, who say Fitzsimons is trying to escape justice by concocting a story of a drunken fight when none occurred.

Fitzsimons disclosed his version of the events of 8 August last year through a series of text messages. In the first, he reveals he was with a group using the internet in a colleagues' room. The meeting spiralled into a series of drunken brawls.

Fitzsimmons wrote that he was "drinking Grants whiskey" and "chatting on MSN to friends in country and back home. Paul McGuigan came into the room, pissed out of his skull. He was being a knob, having a go at me and slating some of my pals. I had enuf [sic] and punched him once on the nose. He was shocked and didn't retaliate ... We shook hands. I held a towel to his bloody nose. Drank more. Started on me again, telling me to punch him again. He was unstable, not me. This went on, hot and cold. Darren came in ..."

Fitzsimons said he, McGuigan and Hoare had made numerous visits to each other's rooms throughout the night, with tensions escalating each time. He claims the evening spilled over into violence when both men came to his room after he passed out from drinking half a bottle of whiskey.

"Paul punched me repeatedly," his texts say. "I fought savagely to get out of bed. Managed to get out, but ended up on the floor being stomped on. I lost consciousness for a few seconds. Heard Paul shout: 'We're going to fucking kill you, you little ....' I was getting it from both of them."

"Paul grabbed my M4, which I had been scattered away from my assault vest and armor. He cocked the weapon. I pulled the glock from my vest chambered a round. Paul had already told me he was gonna kill me now he had my M4 in his shoulder. I shot him three times in the chest. After the first shot he was still standing. I double tapped and put a further two into him. he was dead before he hit the ground. In slow motion I saw the life leave his body."

He said Hoare then "went for the glock" and a struggle ensued. "We were like animals ...The booze had rushed rnd my body so quick coz of the fighting. The exact events at this point are blotchy at best. I remember blackness then madness. I know I fought for control of the pistol with Darren and I know I gained control and he was shot at point blank I'm sure. We were literally wrapped together arms and legs. Fighting and biting when the shots were fired."

Fitzsimons had only been in Iraq for three days on a third tour as a private security contractor since leaving the British army. He had spent seven months in prison in 2007 on a charge of being in possession of illegal ammunition. He had been receiving psychiatric treatment since 2004, when he was still in the army. He was consulted again in May 2008 and June 2009, with a psychiatrist confirming his condition had worsened each time. The last diagnosis was made two months before he was hired to return to Iraq.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of the charity Reprieve, which is helping with Fitzsimons' defence, told the Guardian: "As a British soldier, in the service of his country in Kosovo, Danny came across the dissected body parts of a young boy who had been bringing the troops bread, floating in the water supply. After this and other horrors, it is hardly surprising that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is unfathomable that ArmorGroup would dispatch him to a war zone without a proper screening, and one must wonder who ultimately bears the greatest responsibility for the tragedy that followed."

Fitzsimons's account of the night is at odds with a statement provided by McGuigan's former fiance, Nicola Prestage, who claims shespoke to McGuigan via webcam for most of the night from 5:30pm. "We eventually said goodbye and logged off at 12.03am," she said in a statement. "Paul was murdered at approximately 1.15am in an unprovoked attack."

The confession also appears to conflict with the account ofJohn Pollard, the British coroner who received McGuigan's body in the UKa month after the incident. He said: "There were no injuries on his body which might have revealed he had been involved in a physical altercation."

In response to questions by the Guardian, ArmorGroup said: "We confirmed publicly on 15 September that, in this particular case, although there was evidence that Mr Fitzsimons falsified information during the recruitment process, his screening was not completed in line with the company's procedures.

"We received two separate medical documents which certified that Mr Fitzsimons was fit to work in Iraq. It has subsequently come to light that the most recent of those documents was forged – we have reason to believe it was forged by Mr Fitzsimons."

Prestage continued: "The fact they were not shot from close range rules out any notion of self-defence. Paul was sat on one side of the room on a chair and Darren was sat on the other side of the room on a bed. Paul was shot through the heart, the chest and through the mouth, and Darren was shot from behind, through his legs and through his temple.

Three weeks later, without the man I loved, I gave birth to his daughter, a beautiful baby girl who will never see her daddy, or receive a cuddle from him. I live a life sentence every minute of every day without Paul, and not fully enjoying our daughter. Everything she does is tinged with sadness knowing her daddy will never get to experience her.

"Can I claim I have PTSD living through this? I think not."

Fitzsimons has been sent by a Baghdad court for further psychiatric evaluation. His trial will resume on 7 April.

• Iraq
• Law

Martin Chulovguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Ron Dennis will oversee production in new £40m Woking facility after he quit carmaker's Formula One team last year

Ron Dennis, the boss of McLaren, insisted today he had "moved on" from Formula One as he launched the company's new super car.

Production of the road car, the MP4-12C, which will cost about £150,000, will start next year at a new £40m facility at the company's futuristic headquarters in Woking, creating 300 jobs.

McLaren Automotive, which is planning more new models, is hoping to eventually sell 4,000 cars worldwide each year. The company has made limited numbers of more expensive super cars in the past, but never this many.

Speaking to the Guardian, Dennis admitted he had expected withdrawal symptoms at the Australian grand prix last spring, his first after quitting the sport.

"I was full of expectation in Australia last year that I would go and get some sort of withdrawal," the 62-year-old said. "But I don't have to watch every minute of a grand prix even when I'm not there. It's part of my life and it's not gone but I've moved on to bigger challenges."

Nevertheless, he retains a strong attachment to the sport which he dominated for decades. Looking out from his office, over a lake and towards the field where the new production facility will be constructed, he said a tunnel would be built to connect the two sites, carrying what he calls "umbilical cords" such as IT lines.

Dennis, whose fortune the Sunday Times last year estimated at £87m, is clearly proud about McLaren's achievements in F1, making it the sport's second most successful team after Ferrari. Asked if he was worried that McLaren's push into larger-scale manufacturing was a risk, given the demise of other iconic British sports car manufacturers such as TVR, he said: "I don't want to be in any way derogatory to the business models of any of the other small car manufacturers. I never saw them in any grand prix or have any success in the motor sport it represents."

He also hit back at speculation that he had been forced to pass on the reins of the F1 team after McLaren was fined $100m (£65m) by its governing body, run by Max Mosley, over the 2007 "spygate" saga. He insisted he had been planning his move for some time.

"The story is I'm afraid heavily spun. My plan was always to pass team principal to Martin [Whitmarsh] at the beginning of 2009. Even if you're reluctantly pushed on to a pedestal then there's nothing more certain that the same people pushing you on to the pedestal will take every opportunity to rip you off it," he said.

• Automotive industry
• Manufacturing sector
• McLaren
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 Une peine de 14 ans de réclusion a été prononcée jeudi à l'encontre d'une jeune femme de 24 ans jugée en appel devant la cour d'assises de Paris pour avoir fomenté l'assassinat de sa grand-mère commis par son petit ami pour de l'argent. La juridiction d'appel a été plus indulgente que la cour d'assises de Seine-et-Marne qui, en décembre 2007, avait condamné Michèle Chassériau à 20 ans d'emprisonnement.

Smart move: Thanks to a legal settlement finalized today, many of the privacy watchdogs watching Facebook will soon seek funding from Facebook.

Remember how, in 2007, Facebook got in a hot mess when it launched a product called Beacon? (That was the ad product, which, unless users opted out of it, broadcasted Facebook users' activity on third-party sites back to Facebook for all those users' friends to see.)

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From the December 2009 issue of The Baffler (no online version of this article available). For those not familiar with The Baffler, this is the revival of a magazine of business and culture edited by Thomas Frank that had previously been published from 1988 to 2007. This issue was called ”Margin Call” and included articles by Matt Taibbi, Naomi Klein, Michael Lind. I believe readers will find this piece to be relevant.

Les responsables du circuit d'Indianapolis aimeraient retrouver leur Grand Prix dans le futur. Il n'y a eu aucune discussion avec Formula One Management pour le moment. Le circuit d'Indianapolis a accueilli la Formule 1 entre 2000 et 2007. Depuis, les constructeurs impliqués dans le championnat se sont exprimés en faveur d'un retour aux Etats-Unis, un marché très important. Depuis quelques mois, cela semble être une priorité moins importante. Il n'y a plus que trois constructeurs engagés en F1 et (...)

Fox & Friends perpetuated the false claim advanced on right-wing blogs that President Obama was incorrect in stating during a Fox News interview that Hawaii suffered an earthquake in 2006 -- a disaster Fox News itself reported on at the time. In a 2007 memo, a Fox News executive reportedly warned staff that "seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC."

Obama cites earthquake in Hawaii during Fox News interview

Obama: Medicaid fix "also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake." During an interview that aired during the March 17 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Obama discussed certain provisions in health care reform legislation that would affect various states and said of a proposal to adjust Medicaid reimbursement rates for states affected by natural disasters, "It also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake."

A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hit Hawaii on October 15, 2006. As Media Matters for America's Adam Shah noted in response to right-wing bloggers who claimed Obama was "making up" an earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey states that Hawaii suffered a magnitude 6.7 earthquake on October 15, 2006.

Right-wing blogs: "What earthquake in Hawaii?"

Jim Hoft: "Um... What earthquake in Hawaii?" At 6:54 p.m. on March 17, right-wing blogger Jim Hoft wrote a Gateway Pundit post that stated, "Either Obama's completely making up stuff now or we all missed some horrible devastating earthquake in Hawaii." He later wrote: "In 1868 there was a major earthquake in Hawaii that killed 77 people. In 1975 an earthquake in Hawaii killed 2 people."

Breitbart.tv links to Hoft. At 10:18 p.m. on March 17, Andrew Breitbart's website Breitbart.tv linked to Hoft's post and displayed the headline, "Puzzling statement: Obama says 'Louisiana Purchase' will help with the earthquake in Hawaii."

Drudge links to Breitbart.tv post. From the Drudge Report:

Hot Air follows Hoft focusing on 1975 earthquake. At 10:20 p.m. on March 17, HotAir's Cassy Fiano embedded video from the Fox News interview and wrote: "This moment, from Bret Baier's interview on Fox News with Obama, might just be one of the biggest 'WTF?!' moments from Obama's presidency yet. Obama is either completely making things up, living in an alternate reality, or really, really confused."

Malkin links to HotAir post. At 12:15 a.m. on March 18, Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin linked to HotAir's post on the Hawaiian earthquake in her blog, posting the following passage from HotAir:

Cassy Fiano and Allahpundit intrepidly attempt to decipher:

Apparently, there was a devastating earthquake in Hawaii that we all somehow missed.

Oh, wait, no. That's right. There was no earthquake, and Obama is just totally clueless, as usual. In fact, the last earthquake in Hawaii to cause any deaths at all was in 1975, and two people died.

In any case, why is he using this argument, anyways? He's turned this health care bill into a one-size-fits-all solution for everything. Not only will it fix our health care, but it will apparently create jobs and give disaster relief around the country!

...Update (AP): ...My guess is Obama meant to say that Hawaii went through a tsunami caused by the quake in Chile and got distracted in his irritation at Baier. But who knows what goes on in his mind at this point? This is a guy who thinks universal health care is going to reduce the deficit.

Internet's earthquake falsehood spreads to Fox News

Doocy follows talking points from right-wing blogs. During the March 18 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy played the quote in question from Obama's interview and responded: "Hold it. What Hawaiian earthquake? There was an earthquake in 1868 that killed 77. There was an earthquake in 1975 that killed two."

Ex-FNC VP for news Moody: "Seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right." Fox News has a documented pattern of news reports based on Internet rumors that turn out to be false. In January 2007, after Doocy retracted his false assertion that Obama "was educated in a madrassa," then-Fox News' vice president for news, John Moody, reportedly said in a memo to Fox News staff: "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC. The urgent queue is our way of communicating information that is air-worthy. Please adhere to this."

After its 2007 acquisition, it doesn’t seem like CBS (NYSE: CBS) has been able to get the most from its $280 million Last.fm outlay. There’s been no TV scrobbling, no profit, the site’s key execs have left and fitting the trendy Silicon Roundabout, London, startup in to a U.S. megacorp appears to have been a challenge generally.

But now CBS has reined Last.fm in to its interactive music group, with direct oversight from president David Goodman. Speaking to me after we came off a panel at MediaGuardian’s Changing Media Summit on Thursday, the unit’s product VP Fred McIntyre offered some new insight…

Les responsables du circuit d'Indianapolis aimeraient retrouver leur Grand Prix dans le futur. Il n'y a eu aucune discussion avec Formula One Management pour le moment.
Le circuit d'Indianapolis a accueilli la Formule 1 entre 2000 et 2007. Depuis, les constructeurs impliqués dans le championnat se sont exprimés en faveur d'un retour aux Etats-Unis, un marché très important.
Depuis quelques mois, cela semble être une priorité moins importante. Il n'y a plus que trois constructeurs engagés en F1 et (...) - Formule 1

Chris Hughes, who co-founded what became one of the world’s largest social networks and then just a few years later orchestrated a social-media campaign that helped put Barack Obama to the White House, has launched a new, non-profit startup that he says will create an “online platform to connect individuals and organizations working to change the world.” He launched the new entity, called Jumo, not on Facebook but through a post on his Tumblr blog and on Twitter. He didn’t provide many details about the venture or what it intends to build, but said:

To do this well, I’m firmly of the mind that we have to foster relationships between everyday people and issues and organizations that are personally relevant to them. It’s now possible to provide each person with information and opportunities for meaningful action tailored specifically to who they are. If Jumo can make sure that happens and offer opportunities for meaningful engagement alongside it, I think we can speed the pace of global change.

Hughes told The Huffington Post in a phone interview that he was looking for something to do after the Obama campaign ended, and knew that “I wanted to do something at the nexus of what I call global development and technology.” By global development, he said he meant a “broad umbrella including everything from health care and education to agriculture. He said he spent the past year “traveling and talking to people — researching, studying, learning everything I could in the space.” Jumo is opening an office in Soho next week, Hughes said on his blog, and is also looking to hire a developer, a design director and an “outreach director” who it says will require a “wide-ranging, nearly unparalleled command of the global development field and the ability to see through ideological constraints fairly and analytically.”

To some extent Jumo — whose name means “together in concert” in a West African language called Yoruba — may wind up competing with Hughes’ former company once it launches. Not only do many charitable groups use Facebook pages to gather support for causes, but former Facebook president Sean Parker has a Facebook application called Causes that has attracted millions of users. There are also several other Web-based platforms that are trying to connect people interested in global development, including Ushahidi, which pulls together information to help in crisis situations such as the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.

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Hughes left Facebook, which he co-founded with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and fellow classmates Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin, in 2007 to lead the social-media efforts for the Obama campaign, including helping to develop My.BarackObama.com, and was the subject of a number of flattering profiles in mainstream media outlets such as Fast Company magazine — which called him a “boy wonder” — and the Wall Street Journal. After the campaign ended he became entrepreneur in residence at General Capital Partners in Cambridge. It’s not clear whether General Capital has funded Jumo or not — a spokesperson said it is “a non-profit venture and we’re raising funds from both foundations and individuals.” Hughes told Fast Company he is looking to raise about $2.5 million.

Hughes said in an email sent to friends that he believes Jumo can “leverage the participatory web to foster long-term engagement with the issues and organizations that are relevant to each individual. Jumo has the potential to unlock a great deal of time, skills, and financial resources previously unavailable to organizations around the world.” After the “soft launch” of the startup, Hughes got a number of congratulations on Twitter, including one from Charlie O’Donnell of First Round Capital in New York, who said that he was “excited @chrishughes is back in the making the world a better place business.”

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Steve Rhodes