Facebook used in 90% of divorces

NEW YORK: Social networking sites are becoming primary source of evidence in divorce proceedings, according to US lawyers.

A survey conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers has found that Facebook is cited in 20 per cent of divorces in America. However, Florida lawyer, Carin Constantine says the number is much, much higher.

The study also revealed that 80 per cent of divorce lawyers reported that more people are using social networking to engage in affairs.

A divorce lawyer has cautioned that Facebook is used in 90 per cent of cases to pull the partner down at the time of splitting.

"There are times when my paralegal and I sit in this office and laugh because people are stupid. They put things out there on the internet that can last forever," the New York Daily quoted Constantine as saying.

Getting rid of Facebook accounts doesn't help much either, Constantine warned.

She told WTSP that she just goes to Google's 'images' search function and puts in the divorcee's name, and within seconds, incriminating photos can pop up.

"The problem is, if you've got 400 friends, I assure you one of those friends doesn't have all the privacy settings correct," she said.

Audi Plans Extra Shifts to Reduce Waiting Times for SUV Models, CFO Says

An employee assembles an Audi Q7 sport-utility vehicle on the assembly line at the Volkswagen AG factory in Bratislava, Slovakia. Photographer: Jochen Eckel/Bloomberg

Axel Strotbek, chief financial officer of Audi AG. Photographer: Guenter Schiffmann/Bloomberg

Audi, Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s luxury brand, will add shifts to ease waiting times for models including the Q7 sport-utility vehicle, which starts at $46,250.

Audi plans additional weekend work this month at its two main German factories to increase production, Chief Financial Officer Axel Strotbek said in an interview yesterday.

“The extra shifts are required by the good order book,” Strotbek said by phone from Audi’s headquarters in Ingolstadt,Germany. “The delivery times of several models is higher than we’d like.”

Demand for Audi vehicles fueled a surge in VW’s first- quarter earnings before interest and taxes, which more than tripled to a record 2.91 billion euros ($4.3 billion). Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), Daimler AG (DAI)’s Mercedes-Benz and Audi are targeting their highest-ever sales this year, lifted by growing wealth in China and a rebound in spending in the U.S.

BMW, the world’s luxury-car leader, said in March it may add production capacity in Brazil, even as it expands in China and India to keep pace with demand. Chief Executive OfficerNorbert Reithofer said that handling the level of orders has been a “tour de force” for the production team.

“Demand for luxury cars is being driven by China, the U.S. and Europe,” said Daniel Schwarz, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Commerzbank AG. “Although we’re at historical levels, it doesn’t look like we’ve hit the peak yet.”

SUV Demand

Audi sold 18 percent more cars and SUVs in the first quarter, a total of 312,600 units, and April deliveries confirm that the VW division is on track to achieve its full-year target of delivering more than 1.2 million vehicles, Strotbek said.

“Demand in the SUV segment has accelerated sharply,” the CFO said. “The Q7 has the longest waiting times, but the Q5 is also enjoying enormously high popularity.”

Volkswagen is holding its annual shareholders meeting today in Hamburg. The company, which aims to merge with Porsche SE to strengthen its position in luxury cars and overtake Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) as the world’s biggest carmaker, is proposing a dividend of 2.20 euros per common share.

Lamborghini Aventador to arrive at Al Ghassan Motors

With the Aventador LP 700-4, Automobile Lamborghini is redefining the very peak of the world super sports car market. Its brutal power, outstanding lightweight engineering, and phenomenal handling precision are combined with superior design and the very finest equipment to deliver an incomparable driving experience.

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  Lamborghini Aventador.

The President and CEO of Automobile Lamborghini, Stephan Winkelmann describes the work of art in these words "With the Aventador LP 700-4, the future of the super sports car is now part of the present. Its exceptional package of innovative technologies is unique, its performance simply overwhelming".

With the Aventador, Lamborghini is taking a big step into the future - and building on the glorious history of the brand with the next automotive legend. The Aventador inherited its name from the courageous bull that entered into the Saragossa Arena battle in 1993 and won the "Trofeo de la Pena la Madronera" for its fearlessness.

The technology package of the Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 is utterly unique.

Lamborghini is heading into the future with a systematic lightweight design concept based on an innovative monocoque made from carbon fiber.

The ISR transmission is unique among road-going vehicles, guaranteeing the fastest shifting time, as fast as 50 milliseconds. It goes without saying that the doors open upward and they are both made out of the carbon fiber. However, the Aventador also evokes its immediate predecessor the Murciélago - electronically managed air intakes open depending on the outdoor temperature and the need for cooling air, ensuring maximum smooth efficiency. Another feature for those whishing to flaunt the heart of their Lamborghini is the optional transparent engine bonnet; exhibiting the twelve-cylinder engine like a technical work of art in a display case.

The Aventador will be built to the very highest quality standards in an all-new production facility in Sant'Agata Bolognese and the first customers will take delivery of the new Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 in late summer of 2011.

Lamborghini is distributed throughout the Kingdom and in Bahrain by Al Ghassan Motors, formed in Jeddah at 1992. Al Ghassan Motors, owned by Sheikh Ghassan A.H Al Sulaiman began by specializing in all makes of super sport and luxury vehicles. Earning distribution rights for Lamborghini, Lotus, McLaren and Ducati in KSA and Bahrain, as well as Bentley and Bugatti for the entire kingdom. Moreover, securing distribution rights for CRG Karting chassis and Rotax Karting engines as well as offering world class protection solutions for automobiles
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The phone with two brains that's a secret speed demon

A sight for sore eyes: The Sony Xperia Arc boasts a massive 4.2 inch screen, as well as a powerful dual-core processor

Bigger brains don't automatically mean higher intelligence -- otherwise the world would be ruled by the sperm whale, which tops the animal kingdom for sheer volume of grey matter.

It's what you do with it that counts.

That's the dilemma facing the new LG Optimus 2X mobile, which is the first on the market to boast a dual-core processor.

Dual cores have been common in computers for years but only now have the boffins conquered the technical hurdles to shrink the same technology into a mobile.

Essentially, it gives the device two brains and in theory makes everything run twice as fast.

The LG 2X looks not unlike many other premium Android phones, slickly designed and with a generously proportioned four-inch screen.

Light, yet solidly built, the 2X shows little outward sign of the horsepower under the bonnet.

Switch it on and it fairly zips along -- scrolling smoothly, launching apps in a trice and rarely pausing for breath.

But there's still a sense that nothing takes dramatic advantage of that extra oomph yet -- it's as if you were driving a Ferrari on an Offaly back road.

It may be the world's fastest phone but it feels only slightly nippier than single-core rivals.

But the 2X does have other tricks up its sleeve that make it worth recommending. The phone's big screen is impressive enough, delivering crisp and colourful visuals.

However, an HDMI port enables connection to a big-screen telly, all the better to show off the 2X's ultra-high-def video-camera footage, play games or simply to watch downloaded video.

Naturally, all this electronic brawn costs the 2X battery life versus similar rivals and, unfortunately, the phone runs a slightly outdated version of Android.

The LG 2X costs €500 SIM-free but is expected to be available on contract with O2 shortly.

www.lg.com/uk

Sony Ericsson failed to translate its early success in mobiles into the competitive smartphone field, only beginning to hit its stride with the Xperia X10 last year.

The jury's still out on its new 'PlayStation phone' but it definitely has a winner in the new Xperia Arc.

So thin it must live on a diet of cigarettes and water, the Arc somehow fits in a 4.2-inch screen, a superb eight-megapixel camera and the latest Android software.

Like the LG 2X, it can connect via HDMI to your telly if that gorgeous screen isn't enough for you.

The skinny buttons are a little awkward and someone should be shot for placing the headphone jack on the side.

But otherwise this is one classy contender from the Sony Ericsson stable.

It costs about €90 on the typical cheapest contract or about €450 on pre-pay.

www.sonyericsson.ie

Irish Independent

ISRO builds India's fastest supercomputer

BANGALORE: Indian Space Research Organisation has built a supercomputer, which is to be India's fastest in terms of theoretical peak performance of 220 TeraFLOPS (220 Trillion Floating Point Operations per second). 

The supercomputer "SAGA-220", built by the Satish Dhawan Supercomputing Facility located at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram at a cost of about Rs 14 crore was inaugurated by K Radhakrishnan, Chairman ISRO at VSSC today, ISRO said in a statement. 

The new Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) based supercomputer, "SAGA-220" (Supercomputer for Aerospace with GPU Architecture-220 TeraFLOPS) is being used by space scientists for solving complex aerospace problems. 

"SAGA-220" is fully designed and built by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre using commercially available hardware, open source software components and in house developments. 

The system uses 400 NVIDIA Tesla 2070 GPUs and 400 Intel Quad Core Xeon CPUs supplied by WIPROwith a high speed interconnect. 

With each GPU and CPU providing a performance of 500 GigaFLOPS and 50 GigaFLOPS respectively, the theoretical peak performance of the system amounts to 220 TeraFLOPS, the statement said. 

The present GPU system offers significant advantage over the conventional CPU based system in terms of cost, power and space requirements, it said. 

The system is environmentally green and consumes a power of only 150 KW. This system can also be easily scaled to many PetaFLOPS (1000 TeraFLOPS).

Pulse of the generation

In a bid to understand its target audience, MTV, the youth channel of Viacom 18 Media Pvt. Ltd, a joint venture between Network 18 and Viacom Inc., conducted a study targeting the age group of 18-25 years. Titled ‘Age of Sinnocence’, the study explores attitudes towards money, relationships and views on ethics among the youth. For the report, 2,200 young men and women were contacted across 13 cities. The quantitative study was conducted by TNS Market Research in partnership with MTV. The qualitative part of the study, done by Quantum Consumer Solutions for MTV, covered 150 respondents in the six cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Kanpur. These qualitative responses were collected through peer group discussions, same and mixed gender focus groups and video diaries, among other sources.

Also See Pulse of the generation (PDF)

Motorola preparing two Quad-Core Tegra 3 Smartphones for Q1 2012?

So, you may already know about the upcoming quad-core processors from NVIDIA which the call the Tegra 3 (Kal-EL). Well, a new rumor is out suggesting that Motorola is cooking up two new smartphone devices powered by this processor and they may hit the market sometime in Q1 2012. There is still a very long time and we suspect that there would be a few Tegra 3 smartphones announced in the market sometime during the end of this year.

Anyways, coming back to Motorola, the guys at Droid-Life heard something about two devices from the manufacturer which are codenamed Motorola Bullet and Motorola Jet. These two devices would be powered by NVIDIA’s new Tegra 3 (Kal-EL) processor and for the moment are scheduled for a Q1 2012 launch. It seems like we may get to know more about these two smartphones at CES 2012.

The Motorola Bullet is rumored to be a full touchscreen device which will sport a 4.3-inch qHD screen with at least 1GB DDR2 RAM (it may also be 1.5GB), 16GB of internal storage, NFC capabilities along with a new redesigned sensor to support is 12 megapixel camera. It is expected that the device may launch before the Motorola Jet.

Next is the Motorola Jet, which is supposed to come with a full redesigned chicklet-style physical keyboard. This device will sport a 4-inch qHD screen, 1GB (or 1.5GB) of DDR2 RAM, 16GB of internal storage, NFC capabilities and probably the same 12 megapixel camera from the Motorola Bullet.

There are no confirmations about these devices and it also unknown whether it would run Android. While we do expect to come bundled with this new upcoming mobile operating system, we wonder whether it may sport their own proprietary web based OS which they are supposedly working on?