Hewlett Packard (HP) has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and is considering abandoning Windows all together. HP would develop their own software for their PCs. I'm sure Steve Jobs just loves seeing Microsoft in the begger's position. :D

http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/21/vis...rtner=yahootix

Try the above link first. Only if the link does not work for some reason, then I posted the text of the article below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FORBES -
Microsoft: Don't Mess With HP
Brian Caulfield, 11.21.08, 06:00 PM EST
Angry e-mails from HP to Microsoft could explain HP's skunk works project to build its own consumer interface.

Watch your back, Monkey Boy. You may have messed with the wrong bunch of PC builders.

A court filing unsealed Thursday as part of a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) revealed that Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) Chief Executive Mark Hurd e-mailed Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to complain about HP's "call lines being overrun," with customers struggling to upgrade to Vista. "I'm sure you're aware of this," Hurd added. The full text of the e-mail has not yet been released, but Hurd's complaints to Ballmer are the latest signs of escalating tensions between HP and Microsoft caused by the launch of Windows Vista in 2007.

The lawsuit accuses Microsoft of slapping labels on PCs that said the machines were Vista-capable when they didn't have the processing power needed to run some of the operating system's most touted features.

E-mails released Nov. 14 as part of the case show Richard Walker, the head of HP's PC business, hinting at the customer trouble to come in a Feb, 1, 2006, e-mail to Ballmer and other members of Microsoft's management team. "I hope this incident isn't a foretaste of the relationship I will have with Microsoft going forward, but I can tell you that it's left a very bad taste," Walker wrote. "The decision you have made has taken away an investment we made consciously for competitive advantage knowing that some players would choose not to."

That e-mail triggered panic at Microsoft. Jim Allchin, then co-president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, quickly sent a follow-up note to Ballmer. "I am beyond being upset here," he wrote. Ballmer pointed the finger at Will Poole, then corporate vice president for client business, which is responsible for the Windows operating system. "I had nothing to do with this," Ballmer wrote. "Will [Poole] handled everything. ... You better get Will under control." Poole scrambled to repair the damage. "Jim [Allchin] is rightly upset that hp went non-linear after having intel break explicit agreement with me and tell them of the new plan b4 we could explain and mitigate," Poole wrote in a note to Ballmer and other Microsoft executives on Feb. 3, 2006. "I have that under control with hp, for now, but was very painful. Some vp at intel is to blame, we don't know who yet."

Ballmer's e-mail response: "Great by me but Jim [Alchin] is apoplectic. I know nothing of the details, please advise." Allchin retired from Microsoft in January 2007. Poole later moved to Microsoft's Unlimited Potential group, dedicated to closing the "digital divide," before leaving Microsoft earlier this year.

And while practically everyone associated with Vista at Microsoft is now gone, Walker remains at HP. And in in a twist worthy of The Sopranos, Walker has assembled a group dedicated to putting its own stamp on the Vista operating system.

HP's Customer Experience group, led by Susie Wee, has quietly put it ahead of Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ), by some measures, at incorporating new elements such as touch sensitivity into computer interfaces (see "Fixing Vista").

The $1,149 HP TouchSmart tx2 Notebook PC, launched this week, is the latest result of that effort. It puts the touch-screen interface HP developed for its TouchSmart line of PCs onto a notebook computer. Many had expected that Apple would release a notebook with a touch-sensitive screen first. Instead, Apple incorporated the multitouch gestures used on the iPhone into its notebooks' track pads.

The moves hint that HP could bring some of its research muscle to bear on PC software. The company has plenty of operating-system expertise, selling machines running Linux, Windows and a number of its own operating systems, including HP-UX, OpenVMS and NonStop.

If HP wanted to, it could easily slap its whizzy touch-sensitive interface onto Linux or even a proprietary operating system. And with its lion's share of the worldwide PC market, such an offering would be an instant threat to Microsoft. It would also protect HP from having to compete with anyone who managed to cram Vista onto his machine, a thought that we know has occurred to more than a few of the big brains in HP's engineering department.

"It's not very often you get pulled out of a meeting by a group of engineers who feel that they have had the rug pulled out from underneath them so that any competitive advantage we may have had in the marketplace is taken away, enabling any Tom, Dick or Harry with a PC containing a non-compliant processor/chip set to play at the same table," one e-mail from an HP employee read.

So will HP try to take out Windows? HP's Walker has the means, and the Vista debacle gives him a motive. Ballmer better make damn sure that when Microsoft launches Windows 7 he doesn't give him the opportunity.

Tabula Rasa, the sci-fi MMO from NCsoft and Richard Garriott, will shut down on February 28, according to an official message on the Tabula Rasa site. The game officially launched in November 2007, meaning that it will have lasted approximately 15 months. This brings to a close the long saga behind the game; it began development in 2001 and encountered numerous delays.

"Last November, we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for," the post, which was attributed to the Tabula Rasa team, read.

The post went on to add that the Tabula Rasa servers will be made free to play on January 10, allowing anyone to experience it before it shuts down on February 28. The team says that it will "be doing some really fun things... and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."

This certainly marks a setback for NCsoft and Garriott, even though he recently announced plans to leave NCsoft to pursue his interests in space. Garriott, the creator of Ultima and Ultima Online and an early pioneer in the RPG genre, was the sixth space tourist in history last October. He paid approximately $30 million to fly aboard the International Space Station for 12 days.

Tabula Rasa is set on alien worlds, where the last remnants of humanity battle against an alien coalition known as The Bane. Like World of Warcraft, it required a monthly subscription to play.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/932/932708p1.html

divp style="text-align:justify" a href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-17063-SyncMaster+2494HS%2C+Now+also+in+Japan.html"img src="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news_pics/17063/b.jpg" width="128" height="83" border="0" alt="SyncMaster+2494HS%2C+Now+also+in+Japan" title="SyncMaster+2494HS%2C+Now+also+in+Japan" align="left" hspace="5" vspace="5" //abr / br / br / Samsung Japan juste announced the launch of their new SyncMaster 2494HS, a 23.6” LCD and its 1920x1080 resolution. Receiving Samsung’s dynamic contrast system, this LCD can achieve a contrast ratio up to 50000:1 with a brightness of 300cd/ms and a 5ms speed. The SyncMaster 2494HS also feature an HDMI, DVI (HDCP) and D-SUB port.
If you are interested in this new LCD, you should expect 330€ sales price in Japan....br /br / a href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news-17063-SyncMaster+2494HS%2C+Now+also+in+Japan.html#comments"Reader Comments/a/pbr clear="all" //div div id="partners_feeds" ul lia href="http://www.dannychoo.com" target="_blank"dannychoo.com/a - Your portal to Japan (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/dannychoo_com_main_article_feed_eng" target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li lia href="http://www.japanprobe.com" target="_blank"Japan Probe/a - Japan news and entertainment (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/JapanProbe" target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li lia href="http://www.kirainet.com" target="_blank"Kirainet.com/a - A geek in Japan (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/kirainet-english" target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li /ul /div script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/Akihabaranews_en?i=http://www.akihabaranews.com" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"/script pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_en?a=6mRcFY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_en?i=6mRcFY" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=BLSLN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=BLSLN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=wkmeN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=wkmeN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=h7AIn"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=h7AIn" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=H5f9n"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=H5f9n" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=5ilbn"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=5ilbn" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=sVyKN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=sVyKN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=s8tJN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=s8tJN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=g3RIN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=g3RIN" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Akihabaranews_en/~4/461683469" height="1" width="1"/

GameCyteSean writes "GameCyte is reporting that Harmonix, EA, MTV and Viacom have been targeted by a class action lawsuit. Customers allege that the companies knowingly shipped defective bass drum pedals for the music game Rock Band, then exploited customers' necessity for replacements by having the game's hardware warranty extension expire just as the sequel, Rock Band 2 mdash; a game with improved pedals mdash; was scheduled to release." I wonder if we'll see a similar suit against Neversoft and Activision over the equipment problems related to the Guitar Hero World Tour launch.pa href="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/22/0551251amp;from=rss"img src="http://games.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/22/0551251"/a/ppa href="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/22/0551251amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uC3g8kla9DyJeD1lN1m4DnZd1O8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uC3g8kla9DyJeD1lN1m4DnZd1O8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotGames/~4/CBLJVS2EW2Q" height="1" width="1"/

This is an easy-to-use one touch dial app for phone dial / SMS dial on a predefined number and will read the accelerometer data when you launch the app.

For example, when you launch the app on Portrait Mode, it will do SMS dial
and when on Landscape mode and put the phone to your ear, it will do the phone dial.

You can setup the behavior of Portrait / Landscape Dial Mode and reset the phone number in the Settings App .

It is now available in the App Store

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nokia Corp plans to launch a mobile phone service in Japan next spring, a move expected to intensify competition among Japanese cell phone carriers, Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Saturday.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?a=kbs7VgHi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?a=nY1tRR2v"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?i=nY1tRR2v" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?a=kOz3ezzK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/technologyNews?i=kOz3ezzK" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reuters/technologyNews/~4/okOtlEfobz4" height="1" width="1"/

div class="image"a href="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/big_show.php?/avaxhome/4f/d0/0009d04f.jpeg" target="_blank"img src="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/4f/d0/0009d04f_medium.jpeg" id="external_img_643151"//a/divbr/ div class="center"bKatie Price - Lingerie Range Launch/bbr/ JPEG | 9 PIC | 2100x3600 | 6.5MB/div

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/BlackBerry_Storm_VZW_Line.jpg" width="450" height="290" style="display:block;" /In spite of its a href="http://gizmodo.com/5094371/10-takes-on-the-blackberry-storm"mixed reviews concerning software bugs and the controversial click-screen/a, the BlackBerry Storm drew a heckuva lot of Crack(Berry)heads to Verizon Wireless stores today demanding to get a piece of that action, including some who got uppity when things didn't work out like Christmas morning./p pReuters is saying that "more than 200 people" were hanging out in front of a mid-town Manhattan Verizon store this morning, some who ended up throwing fits when the shop ran out of the RIM goodness just an hour into its morning sales./p pIf you yourself are concerned about a Storm shortage, Reuters says that Verizon stores that may have run dry are promising a unit within 7 days, as long as you pre-order at the store or online. Given the high profile of this product launch, I figure this isn't a supply problem so much as it is an allocation problem, and that every store will soon have enough to meet demand. Have you had any issues scoring a unit? If so, do share them so your fellow Giz readers don't waste their Saturdays. [a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4AK5KA20081121?feedType=RSSfeedName=technologyNews"Reuters/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=fed61c057f352dda23f381426e8e6114p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=fed61c057f352dda23f381426e8e6114p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=fed61c057f352dda23f381426e8e6114" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=3SbzFXqy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=nOoARnrD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=oJC7WajP"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=oJC7WajP" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=8r9avP1Q"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=8r9avP1Q" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/pRNpgGsum4c" height="1" width="1"/

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/sedans/" rel="tag"Sedans/Saloons/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/porsche/" rel="tag"Porsche/a/pa href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraaf.nl%2Fautotelegraaf%2F2593912%2F__Alle_details_Porsche_Panamera__.html%3Fp%3D21%2C1amp;hl=enamp;ie=UTF-8amp;sl=nlamp;tl=en"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/at_panamera_leak_450op.jpg" //abr /br /According to emAutoTelegraaf/em, the image above is the first official picture of the a href="http://www.autoblog.com/tag/PorschePanamera/"Porsche Panamera,/a showing the new four-door "coupe" in all its oddly proportioned glory. The Dutch pub released the image and details on the sedan after emAuto Motor und Sport/em supposedly broke the Monday embargo. More details will be released late Sunday night, but in the meantime, let's look at the reported specs.br /br /The a href="http://www.autoblog.com/tag/PorschePanameraGranTurismo/"Porsche Panamera Gran Turismo/a is 16.3 feet long, 6.3 feet wide and 4.66 feet tall, with a wheelbase of 9.6 feet. Weight hasn't been disclosed, but its roughly two tons. The most striking detail on the profile shot is the indentations leading from the front fenders, aft of the wheels, into the doors, but the jury is still out on the Panamera's bulbous back end. The slippery shape and low profile gives the sedan a drag coefficient of 0.29, while an electronically actuated rear spoiler will keep things planted at speed.br /br /An electronic air suspension is part of the package, along with an LSD, and power can be sent to either the rear wheels, or all four, depending on the trim level. Motivation will be provided by a range of engines, beginning with 3.6-liter V6 putting out 300 hp, and continuing upwards with the 400 hp, 4.8-liter V8 Panamera S and the Panamera Turbo, packing a twin-turbocharged version of the same bent eight putting out an estimated 500 hp. Power will be sent to Porsche's new PDK dual-clutch gearbox and although a diesel model has been ruled out, a V6-hybrid variant with 350 hp will come along at a later date.br /br /Porsche aims to sell approximately 20,000 units of the Panamera each year, with the automaker estimating that 20% will be the range-topping Turbo model. The Panamera will only be available in S and Turbo guises at launch, with the V6 model following shortly thereafter. Once established, Porsche hopes demand will increase to 50,000 units annually, with sales beginning in the U.S., Europe and Asia next year. emThanks for the tip, Jelle!/embr /br /[Source: a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraaf.nl%2Fautotelegraaf%2F2593912%2F__Alle_details_Porsche_Panamera__.html%3Fp%3D21%2C1amp;hl=enamp;ie=UTF-8amp;sl=nlamp;tl=en"AutoTelegraaf/a]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/21/porsche-panamera-image-and-details-leak-out/"Porsche Panamera image and details leak out/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:50:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraaf.nl%2Fautotelegraaf%2F2593912%2F__Alle_details_Porsche_Panamera__.html%3Fp%3D21%2C1amp;hl=enamp;ie=UTF-8amp;sl=nlamp;tl=enRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/21/porsche-panamera-image-and-details-leak-out/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1379990/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/21/porsche-panamera-image-and-details-leak-out/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/rd8MFqPuSw6J7M8x8je31sclrGU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/rd8MFqPuSw6J7M8x8je31sclrGU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=ei2QyXfj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=ei2QyXfj" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=vTznYeqj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=vTznYeqj" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/bHuse8XNtnU" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/28646?ns=guardianpageName=Environment%3A+Rich+countries+launch+great+land+grab+to+safeguard+food+supplych=Environmentc3=The+Guardianc4=Food+%28Environment%29%2CBiofuels+%28Environment%29%2CConservation+%28Environment%29%2CEndangered+habitats+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CWorld+news%2CFood+and+drink+industry+%28Business%29%2CBusiness%2CAgriculture+%28Science%29%2CKorea+%28News%29%2CSciencec5=Environment+Conservation%2CBusiness+Markets%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CClimate+Change%2CEnergy%2CEthical+Living%2CFood+and+Drinkc6=Julian+Borgerc7=2008_11_22c8=1122193c9=articlec10=GUc11=Environmentc12=Foodc13=c14=h2=GU%2FEnvironment%2FFood" width="1" height="1" //divpRich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies./ppThe head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people./ppRising food prices have already set off a second "scramble for Africa". This week, the South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics announced plans to buy a 99-year lease on a million hectares in Madagascar. Its aim is to grow 5m tonnes of corn a year by 2023, and produce palm oil from a further lease of 120,000 hectares (296,000 acres), relying on a largely South African workforce. Production would be mainly earmarked for South Korea, which wants to lessen dependence on imports./pp"These deals can be purely commercial ventures on one level, but sitting behind it is often a food security imperative backed by a government," said Carl Atkin, a consultant at Bidwells Agribusiness, a Cambridge firm helping to arrange some of the big international land deals./ppMadagascar's government said that an environmental impact assessment would have to be carried out before the Daewoo deal could be approved, but it welcomed the investment. The massive lease is the largest so far in an accelerating number of land deals that have been arranged since the surge in food prices late last year. /pp"In the context of arable land sales, this is unprecedented," Atkin said. "We're used to seeing 100,000-hectare sales. This is more than 10 times as much."/ppAt a food security summit in Rome, in June, there was agreement to channel more investment and development aid to African farmers to help them respond to higher prices by producing more. But governments and corporations in some cash-rich but land-poor states, mostly in the Middle East, have opted not to wait for world markets to respond and are trying to guarantee their own long-term access to food by buying up land in poorer countries./ppAccording to diplomats, the Saudi Binladin Group is planning an investment in Indonesia to grow basmati rice, while tens of thousands of hectares in Pakistan have been sold to Abu Dhabi investors. /ppArab investors, including the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, have also bought direct stakes in Sudanese agriculture. The president of the UEA, Khalifa bin Zayed, has said his country was considering large-scale agricultural projects in Kazakhstan to ensure a stable food supply. /ppEven China, which has plenty of land but is now getting short of water as it pursues breakneck industrialisation, has begun to explore land deals in south-east Asia. Laos, meanwhile, has signed away between 2m-3m hectares, or 15% of its viable farmland. Libya has secured 250,000 hectares of Ukrainian farmland, and Egypt is believed to want similar access. Kuwait and Qatar have been chasing deals for prime tracts of Cambodia rice fields./ppEager buyers generally have been welcomed by sellers in developing world governments desperate for capital in a recession. Madagascar's land reform minister said revenue would go to infrastructure and development in flood-prone areas. /ppSudan is trying to attract investors for almost 900,000 hectares of its land, and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has been courting would-be Saudi investors. /pp"If this was a negotiation between equals, it could be a good thing. It could bring investment, stable prices and predictability to the market," said Duncan Green, Oxfam's head of research. "But the problem is, [in] this scramble for soil I don't see any place for the small farmers." /ppAlex Evans, at the Centre on International Cooperation, at New York University, said: "The small farmers are losing out already. People without solid title are likely to be turfed off the land."/ppDetails of land deals have been kept secret so it is unknown whether they have built-in safeguards for local populations./ppSteve Wiggins, a rural development expert at the Overseas Development Institute, said: "There are very few economies of scale in most agriculture above the level of family farm because managing [the] labour is extremely difficult." Investors might also have to contend with hostility. "If I was a political-risk adviser to [investors] I'd say 'you are taking a very big risk'. Land is an extremely sensitive thing. This could go horribly wrong if you don't learn the lessons of history."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/food"Food/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/biofuels"Biofuels/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/conservation/"Conservation/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/endangeredhabitats"Endangered habitats/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/fooddrinks"Food drink industry/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/agriculture"Agriculture/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/korea"North and South Korea/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Environmentcountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227317660228112201400459684"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Environmentcountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227317660228112201400459684" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/83383?ns=guardianpageName=Environment%3A+San+Francisco+Bay+to+be+electric+car+capitalch=Environmentc3=The+Guardianc4=Travel+and+transport+environmental+impact%2CAlternative+energy+%28Environment%29%2CCarbon+emissions+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CClimate+change+%28Environment%29%2CUS+news%2CWorld+news%2CBusiness%2CTechnology%2CMotoring+%28Technology%29%2CGreen+technology+%28Technology%29c5=Motoring%2CBusiness+Markets%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CClimate+Change%2CEnergy%2CEthical+Living%2CCorporate+ITc6=Bobbie+Johnson%2CAlok+Jhac7=2008_11_22c8=1122138c9=articlec10=GUc11=Environmentc12=Travel+and+transportc13=c14=h2=GU%2FEnvironment%2FTravel+and+transport" width="1" height="1" //divpOfficials in California have unveiled ambitious plans to turn the San Francisco Bay area - home to 7.6 million people - into one of the world's leading centres for electric vehicles./ppIf it succeeds, the strategy will see billions of dollars poured into a power infrastructure that will turn the region away from fossil fuels and persuade millions of people to switch to green transport technology./ppThe plan, which will see the bay area become the first region of California to switch its transport systems entirely away from traditional fuels, is being supported by local government as well as the state's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger./pp"California is already a world leader in fighting global warming and promoting renewable energy," he said. "This partnership is proof that by working together we can achieve our goals of creating a healthier planet while boosting our economy."/ppGlobally, cars generate about 20% of the world's output of carbon dioxide and California's cars account for 40% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing around 1m petrol cars with electric cars by 2015, as is proposed under the new plans, will make a big difference./ppAt least $1bn is expected to be spent on improving green transport infrastructure to make the bay area - encompassing the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, as well as Silicon Valley - the leading centre for electric vehicles in America, and potentially around the world./ppThe electric transportation company Better Place will build a network of kerbside charging points across cities in the area and create the equivalent of filling stations, where electric car owners will be able to replace their flat batteries for fully charged ones. With a full charge on one of Better Place's batteries, a typical car will be able to travel 100 miles, ideal for commuting around urban areas. /ppThe local government will also work to harmonise standards across the region so that drivers of electric vehicles can travel the length and breadth of the bay area without worrying about finding the right kind of charging station./ppMost users of the Better Place system would pay a monthly subscription for unlimited access to the company's services. Visitors with electric cars could also use the charging points for a one-off fee./pp"You can plug in any car," said Jason Wolf, the California business manager at Better Place. "In California, everyone who's bought Teslas, everyone who has bought plug-in hybrids or electric cars that are not in tight relationship with us, will be able to plug into our network."/ppSpeaking at the launch yesterday, Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, said: "If we're going to get serious about advancing climate-action plans, we've got to get serious about getting into the business of alternative transportation."/ppCalifornia, the world's eighth largest economy, has some of the most progressive climate-change legislation. The state aims to reduce greenhouse gas levels to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050./ppThe plans will put California on a footing with other countries leading the attempt to introduce electric cars, including Israel, Denmark and Australia. Last month, the Britain pledged pound;100m to speed the commercial introduction of electric and low-carbon road transport to the country./ppWolf said the first cars in the California scheme would be deployed in 2010./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/travelandtransport"Travel and transport/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/alternativeenergy"Alternative energy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/carbonemissions"Carbon emissions/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange"Climate change/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/motoring"Motoring/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/greentech"Green technology/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Environmentcountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227317660402112201400459684"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Environmentcountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227317660402112201400459684" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

EMI Music and the QUEEN Fan Club Mexico will celebrate the launch of QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS' new album, The Cosmos Rocks, and pay homage to late QUEEN singer Freddie Mercury at the Queen Fest Mexico 2008 on Saturday, November 29.

Posted by Dennis Sellers

Zagat Survey, a provider of consumer survey-based leisure information, and Handmark, a company that specializes in the development and distribution of mobile media, today announced the release of Zagat to Go ‘09 for iPhone and iPod touch users.

pimg alt="Sayveelogo.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/Sayveelogo.jpg" width="150" height="51"Canadian startup a href="http://sayvee.com"Sayvee/a will "soon" launch a new service that allows artists to quickly and easily create their own websites to sell their art, build community, support positive political causes and more. That doesn't sound like a show stopper (unless you're an artist in need of a website) but the videos the company made to promote their service are awesome! /p pWe wish everyone put this much care into promo videos - then our jobs watching promo videos would be even more fun. And the serious business of promoting important web startups would overcome one of its most challenging obstacles - getting people to listen to and understand your explanation of some crazy new idea. So check out the Sayvee video we like best below, a href="http://sayvee.com"stop by their site/a for more and sign up there for notification when the new service is available. /p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.openx.org/ck.php?n=12683amp;cb=12683' target='_blank'img src='http://d.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=861amp;cb=12683amp;n=12683' border='0' alt='' align="right" //a/p centerobject width="400" height="267"param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2291455amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=amp;fullscreen=1" /embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2291455amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="267"/embed/objectbr /a href="http://vimeo.com/2291455"5 Reasons to get a site through Sayvee.com/a from a href="http://vimeo.com/sayvee"Nico Boesten/a on a href="http://vimeo.com"Vimeo/a./center pThese guys are going to have a hard time challenging incumbents like a href="http://en.dawanda.com"Dawanda/a and a href="http://www.shopwindoz.com/en/home/public"ShopWindoz/a, much less the awesome powers of a href="http://www.etsy.com/storque/"Etsy/a. Maybe their whole site will be as cool as their videos though!/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sayvee_makes_awesome_promo_vid.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/9z5FLGukTw6mVy3N607MS5awvZM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/9z5FLGukTw6mVy3N607MS5awvZM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=n5sTxynb"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1035" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=L0mRFVe0"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=OQ9euRh3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=OQ9euRh3" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=rEeYFbh2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=rEeYFbh2" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=awWONsQV"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=awWONsQV" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=fbLZXlpV"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=6w3Q6A35"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1034" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/s1_Lt8lSBhQ" height="1" width="1"/

Sony's director of hardware marketing, John Koller, has said announced the launch of the new urban PSP ad campaign and uploaded a video showing three of the 15-second TV spots.

pSo, we have a new book out, a href="http://thepitchfork500.com/"strongemThe Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present/em/strong/a, published by the Simon amp; Schuster imprint Fireside Books. It explores our 500 favorite songs from 1977-2006-- interspersed with sidebars on the most vital subgenres from electro to grime to riot grrrl-- to construct an alternate history of the past three decades of popular music. In the coming weeks we'll be posting streams of tracks from the book here in Forkcast and giving you a sneak peek at some of the entries.nbsp;/p pIf you're in Brooklyn, please come out for the strongema href="http://thepitchfork500.com/"strongemThe Pitchfork 500/em/strong/a/em/strong launch party on Wednesday, November 26. Dance and bowl (yes, bowl) to selections from the book at a href="http://www.thegutterbrooklyn.com/"strongThe Gutter Bar/strong/a, located at 200 N. 14th St. (between Wythe and Berry) in Williamsburg. We'll be there from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., there's no cover, and there will be books for sale. For a complete rundown of events, check a href="http://thepitchfork500.com/"strongwww.thepitchfork500.com/strong/a./p pemThe Pitchfork 500/em is available in your local bookstore right now (a href="http://www.quimbys.com/product_info.php?products_id=21880" target="_blank"strongQuimby/strong/a's is the shop in our Chicago neighborhood). Or you can order it via stronga href="http://www.amazon.com/Pitchfork-500-Guide-Greatest-Present/dp/1416562028/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1223394242amp;sr=8-1"Amazon/a/strong, stronga href="http://www.bn.com/pitchfork"Barnes amp; Noble/a/strong, stronga href="http://www.borders.com/online/store/SearchResults?keyword=pitchfork+500amp;type=0amp;simple=1"Borders/a/strong, strongspan style="color: #551a8b;"a href="http://www.insound.com/Pitchfork_The_Pitchfork_500%3A_Our_Guide_to_the_Greatest_Songs_from_Punk_to_the_Present__PRE-ORDER_Book/productmain/p/INS50216/" target="_blank" title="Insound"Insound/a/span/strong, stronga href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781416562023-0"Powells/a/strong, or stronga href="http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1amp;pid=628435amp;app=buy_now"Simon amp; Schuster/a/strong./p pAnd now, here's Mark Richardson on Panda Bear's "Bros", with a stream (good for one free play every 24 hours, via a href="http://www.lala.com/" target="_blank"strongLala/strong/a) below the text./p pimg src="/sites/default/files/brosblurb.jpg" border="0" //p p object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="300" height="254" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" param name="id" value="W48f4e8b6f7fe2a4349271d72e0ceb6aa" / param name="wmode" value="transparent" / param name="allowNetworking" value="all" / param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" / param name="src" value="http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/48f4e8b6f7fe2a43/49271d72e0ceb6aa/48f4e8b6706ccf78/ccb35821/-cpid/b0ee5e3d5fe1165b" /embed id="W48f4e8b6f7fe2a4349271d72e0ceb6aa" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300" height="254" src="http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/48f4e8b6f7fe2a43/49271d72e0ceb6aa/48f4e8b6706ccf78/ccb35821/-cpid/b0ee5e3d5fe1165b" allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="all" wmode="transparent"/embed /object /p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uNVaGEISUpjwpg61M2LRzJtEtc0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uNVaGEISUpjwpg61M2LRzJtEtc0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/eo7iRscECGM" height="1" width="1"/

pSo, we have a new book out, a href=http://thepitchfork500.com/strongemThe Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present/em/strong/a, published by the Simon amp; Schuster imprint Fireside Books. It explores our 500 favorite songs from 1977-2006-- interspersed with sidebars on the most vital subgenres from electro to grime to riot grrrl-- to construct an alternate history of the past three decades of popular music. In the coming weeks we'll be posting streams of tracks from the book here in Forkcast and giving you a sneak peek at some of the entries.nbsp;/p pIf you're in Brooklyn, please come out for the strongema href=http://thepitchfork500.com/strongemThe Pitchfork 500/em/strong/a/em/strong launch party on Wednesday, November 26. Dance and bowl (yes, bowl) to selections from the book at a href=http://www.thegutterbrooklyn.com/strongThe Gutter Bar/strong/a, located at 200 N. 14th St. (between Wythe and Berry) in Williamsburg. We'll be there from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., there's no cover, and there will be books for sale. For a complete rundown of events, check a href=http://thepitchfork500.com/strongwww.thepitchfork500.com/strong/a./p pemThe Pitchfork 500/em is available in your local bookstore right now (a href=http://www.quimbys.com/product_info.php?products_id=21880 target=_blankstrongQuimby/strong/a's is the shop in our Chicago neighborhood). Or you can order it via stronga href=http://www.amazon.com/Pitchfork-500-Guide-Greatest-Present/dp/1416562028/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1223394242amp;sr=8-1Amazon/a/strong, stronga href=http://www.bn.com/pitchforkBarnes amp; Noble/a/strong, stronga href=http://www.borders.com/online/store/SearchResults?keyword=pitchfork+500amp;type=0amp;simple=1Borders/a/strong, strongspan style=color: #551a8b;a href=http://www.insound.com/Pitchfork_The_Pitchfork_500%3A_Our_Guide_to_the_Greatest_Songs_from_Punk_to_the_Present__PRE-ORDER_Book/productmain/p/INS50216/ target=_blank title=InsoundInsound/a/span/strong, stronga href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781416562023-0Powells/a/strong, or stronga href=http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1amp;pid=628435amp;app=buy_nowSimon amp; Schuster/a/strong./p pAnd now, here's Mark Richardson on Panda Bear's Bros, with a stream (good for one free play every 24 hours, via a href=http://www.lala.com/ target=_blankstrongLala/strong/a) below the text./p pimg src=/sites/default/files/brosblurb.jpg border=0 //p p object classid=clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000 width=300 height=254 codebase=http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0 param name=id value=W48f4e8b6f7fe2a4349271d72e0ceb6aa / param name=wmode value=transparent / param name=allowNetworking value=all / param name=allowScriptAccess value=always / param name=src value=http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/48f4e8b6f7fe2a43/49271d72e0ceb6aa/48f4e8b6706ccf78/ccb35821/-cpid/b0ee5e3d5fe1165b /embed id=W48f4e8b6f7fe2a4349271d72e0ceb6aa type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=300 height=254 src=http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/48f4e8b6f7fe2a43/49271d72e0ceb6aa/48f4e8b6706ccf78/ccb35821/-cpid/b0ee5e3d5fe1165b allowscriptaccess=always allownetworking=all wmode=transparent/embed /object /p

To the Tabula Rasa Community,

Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal.
Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there.
Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch,
but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.

So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009.

Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009.

We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa,
and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while.

Stay tuned for more information. We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you
to take us up on the benefits we're offering Tabula Rasa players.

The Tabula Rasa Team

:( .. while game wasnt perfect, it wasnt also bad at all, didnt expected this :cry:

http://playtr.com/news/latest_news/m...la_rasa_t.html