Google tests self-driving car

Google recently spoke of their success with a self-driving car.

Read more about it here.

Biz Television wants to know what you think about the new form of commuting.

Apple eases app restrictions

The court system recently decided that jailbreaking your smartphone is legal. While Apple stood the most to lose in such a case, the iPhone producer never brought tried to prosecute anyone who had jailbroken their phone. Jailbreaking voids the warranty, but a quick restore factory settings tends to erase the damage.

This week, Apple Inc announced easing restrictions for building iPhone and iPad applications, a move that should allow for the use of third-party tools such as Adobe Systems’ Flash software.

Shares of Adobe surged over 12 percent at mid-afternoon on Nasdaq on Thursday, after Apple announced the changes.

Apple’s about-face follows a high-profile spat with Adobe last spring that saw Steve Jobs sharply criticize Flash technology.

Apple had been criticized by developers for what they called onerous restrictions on building apps. Apple had effectively banned developers from using the popular Flash software and other technology to build apps for iOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.

Gleacher & Co analyst Brian Marshall said Apple was feeling huge pressure from app developers.

“What spurred this on was the uproar from the growing iOS developer base,” Marshall said. “People liked using Flash, and now they’ll be able to use a bunch of different technologies.”

Recall of the Week: Ferrari

Giving the phrase “these cars are hot” a whole new meaning, Ferrari is recalling its new 458 Italia model after several vehicles were reported to have burst into flames.

The luxury supercar is being recalled in order to make modifications to the wheelhouse assembly.

Which begs the question: “Did your car just spontaneously burst into flame?”

“Why, yes, it did.”

“Rough day.”

“Yep.”

“In rare instances the heat shield could become deformed, bringing it too close to the exhaust system and igniting,” a Ferrari spokesperson said.

Ferrari is recalling all its 458 Italia vehicles after five fires were reported in California, Switzerland, China and France.

Deliveries of the car in the U.S. began this summer. It has a 4.5-liter 8-cylinder engine, 7-speed automatic transmission, 570 horsepower and has a base price around $230,000.

Ferrari said the company is asking owners of the cars produced before July 2010 to bring them in to have the glue replaced with mechanical fasteners.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a statement saying Ferrari’s Italian headquarters had told its North American division about the recall. NHTSA warned that if the adhesive ignites it could “render the vehicle inoperable and possibly result in a crash.”

The NHTSA statement said 303 vehicles are being recalled, and owners could be eligible for reimbursement for if they spent money on repairs related to the problem before the recall was announced.

I’m sure all of those car owners read this blog.

Intel will buy Infineon wireless for $1.4 billion

Intel will buy German chipmaker Infineon’s wireless unit for $1.4 billion, enabling the U.S. chipmaker to boost its presence in the smartphone market The transaction should close in the first quarter of 2011. The mobile unit will remain as a standalone business.

This is the second major deal for Intel within two weeks after the company announced its $7.7 billion offer for McAfee Inc on Aug 19, its largest acquisition, bolstering the appeal of its chips as it tries to expand further into the mobile market.

Intel’s Atom mobile chips took the low-cost, no-frills netbook market by storm but are rarely found in smartphones where other chipmakers dominate.

“Infineon would make Intel an instant heavyweight (in the mobile space) and buy them three, four years in R&D,” IDC analyst Flint Pulskamp has said.

Analysts caution that while an acquisition such as Infineon’s mobile chip unit is a step in the right direction it will take time to produce results.

Rivals based on UK-listed ARM’s chip design continue to grab market share.

Infineon shares fell 1.4 percent to 4.54 euros in Frankfurt, widening losses they posted on Friday after Intel warned its third-quarter revenue would fall short of its own expectations due to weak consumer demand on personal computers.

Intel shares closed largely flat at Friday’s market close in New York at $18.37.

And, more good news: their logos look pretty similar, so no need to really change much.

Boeing Dreamliner delayed

Boeing has pushed back delivery of its first 787 Dreamliner by several weeks. The decision is no surprise, but is also the latest in a series of embarrassing glitches that have disrupted production of the hotly anticipated aircraft.

The postponement for the carbon-composite airplane, already more than two years behind schedule, is attributed to a delay in the availability of a Rolls-Royce engine needed for the final phases of flight testing. ”The plane is a show-me plane at this point and I think everyone knows that,” said Alex Hamilton, managing director with boutique investment bank EarlyBirdCapital. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The U.S. planemaker now expects to deliver the first carbon-composite plane to Japan’s All Nippon Airways by the middle of the first quarter of 2011.

Boeing said in July its delivery schedule might slip from the fourth quarter of 2010. The company blamed “instrument configuration” and inspection work.

Shares of Boeing, a Dow industrials component, were down 1.5 percent at $60.40 in premarket trade.

Boeing has taken 847 orders for the Dreamliner, which lists for $150 million to $205.5 million depending on the model, making it the company’s best selling airplane at this stage in development. Boeing gets paid for its commercial planes at delivery.

The delay comes four weeks after the Rolls’ engine, a Trent 1000, blew up at a test site in Derby, central England, forcing the company to temporarily close the facility.

“The delivery date revision follows an assessment of the availability of an engine needed for the final phases of flight test this fall,” Boeing said in a statement late Thursday night. “Flight testing across the test fleet continues as planned.”

Boeing added it was working with the British engine maker to ensure engines were made available as soon as possible but that the delay would not affect its financial outlook.

Florida sues major LCD manufacturer

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said on Tuesday that his office would file a lawsuit against the world’s biggest manufacturers of liquid crystal display panels for alleged price fixing.

The civil lawsuit will be filed in a California federal court, the attorney general’s office said.

The list of defendants included well-known international LCD makers such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, AU Optronics Corp, Hitachi Ltd, LG Display Co, Sharp Corp and Toshiba Corp.

The lawsuit claims these companies conspired, preventing competition for TFT-LCD panels. These panels are found in the most common LCD devices, like flat-screen TVs and computer monitors.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued LCD makers on Friday, claiming that the price fix has been going on for a decade.

Blackberry touch is official!

Blackberry lovers finally get their touch screen.

Research In Motion unveiled a new BlackBerry smartphone with a touchscreen and slideout keyboard, hoping to raise its consumer appeal and fend off competition from Apple’s iPhone.

The BlackBerry Torch will go on sale in the United States on August 12 for $199.99 with a two-year contract with AT&T Inc. in a move similar to AT&T’s exclusive contract with the iPhone. Analysts said the consumer-friendly features could help the BlackBerry catch up with the iPhone, as well as smartphones that use Google’s Android operating system such as Motorola’s Droid.

The Torch features a touch screen, but also has a slide down keyboard.

While some sites argue that consumers should wait for the iPhone to come to Verizon, other sources argue that Apple has little reason to go to other networks.

Blackberry did not try to reinvent the wheel. The Torch does not change the name of the game for touch smartphones. Blackberry seems to be the standard for business, and now, there’s just one more option out there.

Nokia Siemans wins US deal

Nokia Siemans Network won an eight-year contract worth over $7 billion which may be the largest order ever placed in the mobile telecoms gear industry.

NSN will build and operate a high-speed wireless network for Harbinger Capital’s new LightSquared venture. This is the day after NSN said they would buy Motorola’s telecom network equipment business for $1.2 billion.

Nokia has been struggling in the North American continent. This deal should boost the market.

The deal is subject to final approval by both the Nokia Siemens Networks and the LightSquared boards.

The new nationwide Long Term Evolution (LTE) network will consist of some 40,000 cellular base stations and cover 92 percent of the U.S. population by 2015. The LightSquared network build-out is expected to create more than 100,000 direct and indirect private sector jobs over the next five years, the company said in a statement. LightSquared named former Orange executive Sanjiv Ahuja as its chairman and chief executive, and said it planned to raise up to $1.75 billion in debt and equity.

Harbinger Capital Partners and affiliates have invested $2.9 billion in the venture.

The Tablet War heats up

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has puffed out his chest and thumbed his nose at the iPad as Microsoft prepares to do battle with Apple.

Ballmer announced most major PC companies, including Dell, Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, and Sony, have tablets in the pipeline at the company’s annual partner conference in Washington, D.C. All these devices will be running on the Windows 7 operating system.

Hewlett-Packard was not mentioned, as it will be designing a slate device that runs off Palm software.

At the same conference, Microsoft announced that online auction firm eBay Inc, tech services company Fujitsu Ltd and PC maker Dell are among the companies testing Microsoft’s new Windows Azure platform appliance, which lets customers implement Microsoft’s newest “cloud” server technology in its own data centers.

Recall of the Week: New Mobile App tracks recalls

While I didn’t start off wanting to have a recall of the week, there has been a recall on some product or other over the past few months.

Having trouble keeping track?

Now, the FDA has teamed up with the Department of Agriculture, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to create a mobile app that lets users track product recalls.

Find the app on the US government website. You get a press release and  a picture of the tainted product. Right now, the app is limited to Android users, but they are developing one for iPhone and Blackberry smartphones.