Did Filomena Kill Seth Tobias?

The death of investment manager Seth Tobias is becoming the center of controversy Tuesday after his brothers claim Tobias' widow planned his death.

Brothers brothers, Samuel, Spence, Scott and Joshua, claim that Filomena Tobias drugged her husband and lured him into the pool, where he drowned.

A former assistant to Seth Tobias has told the police that Filomena Tobias confessed to him that she had lured her husband, who was on a cocaine binge, into the water, promising him sex with a male go-go dancer know as "Tiger." A lawyer for Filomena Tobias has called the claims outrageous.

The plot thickened when it emerged that Filomena Tobias had paid $9,628 to have the pool drained and resurfaced just days after her husband died.

Seth Tobias formed Circle T in 1996, with $4 million, and parlayed that into a $300 million hedge fund and brokerage firm. Circle T is in the process of returning investors’ funds; clients have not lost money.

Tobias counted among his investors Samuel Zell, the billionaire who recently agreed to buy the Tribune Company.

He managed to make a name for himself on financial-news television, appearing on “Squawk Box” and “Kudlow & Company” on CNBC.

His lavish lifestyle led to heavy expenditures, cocaine use and frequent visits with his wife to Cupids, a gay bar in West Palm Beach with televisions constantly showing with hardcore gay pornography. Cupids is where he met "Tiger".


Source: news.finditt.com

Facebook Founder Loses Court Battle Against 02138 Magazine

A federal judge ruled against Facebook Inc. on Friday, denying two emergency motions to force 02138 magazine to take down documents regarding Mark E. Zuckerberg, the company’s founder.

The documents—which included Zuckerberg’s Harvard College application, his personal diary, and an e-mail he wrote to the College’s Administrative Board—are evidence in an ongoing court battle between Facebook and ConnectU, a social networking site founded by Harvard students who employed Zuckerberg before he went on to found Facebook.
The ConnectU founders allege that Zuckerberg, formerly of the Class of 2006, stole their ideas, including some of the source code for their site.

In the copy of the diary that is posted on the magazine’s Web site, Zuckerberg detailed potential features for the original Facebook, as well as how he would acquire the photographs and data for the first version.

“The Kirkland facebook is open on my computer desktop and some of these people have pretty horrendous facebook pics,” he wrote in a diary entry in October 2003, referring to the undergraduate House where he resided at the time. “I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive.”

Facebook argued that the documents were under court seal and should not have been released. The company’s lawyers notified 02138 on Thursday morning that they had filed the motions, giving the magazine less than two days’ notice to appear in court on Friday.

Bom S. Kim ’00—the founder of 02138, a magazine geared toward Harvard alums—said in a phone interview that the reporter who wrote the story about Zuckerberg simply walked into federal court and asked for the documents.

“We obtained them legally—it’s a matter of free speech,” Kim said. “This isn’t a new tactic—a big company trying to suppress information by harnessing their resources and lawyers to overwhelm media outlets.”

According to Kim, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock recognized 02138’s First Amendment right to publish the information.

“We were relieved and happy,” Kim said. “It’s a good day for journalism.”
Richard Bradley, the executive editor of the magazine, echoed Kim in an entry he posted on his blog, “Shots in the Dark.”

“[T]his is a victory for the ability of the American press to do its job,” Bradley wrote, “even when a $15 billion company brings its legal guns to bear on you.”

Representatives from Facebook did not respond to requests for comment

Source: thecrimson.com

One Laptop Per Child Orders Surge As Negroponte Claims Momentum Growing

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation has just secured an order for 260,000 of the low cost machines from the government of Peru. Despite a lower than expected take up from foreign governments, Nicholas Negroponte claims that this latest success could mean the momentum will now build.

Negroponte is the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) professor who set up the foundation in 2005 to provide affordable laptops to schoolchildren around the world. In an interview on Friday, he revealed news of the Peru order, as well as saying that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim had purchased 50,000 of the machines for distribution in his country.
The not for profit organisation wants to eventually offer laptops for $100 or less, with the current price $188. The idea behind the whole project is to convince governments of developing countries to buy the machines, and distribute them to poor schoolchildren to enable them to have access to technology normally unavailable due to costs.

Just last week, the education minister of Nigeria, Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku claimed that the project was senseless until the basic facilities such as seats and uniforms were put in place.
There has also been intense competition to the idea of an affordable for all laptop from the commercial sector in the form of Microsoft and Intel.

Due to the lack of uptake of the original plan, OLPC introduced the Give One, Get One program, with participants buying two of the laptops for $400: one for themselves; and one for a child in the developing country.

According to The Boston Globe, Robert Fadel, the OLPC Foundation’s director of finance and operations, claims that since the Give One Get One program began on November 12th, the foundation has received about $2 million in orders every day. That equated to 190,000 laptops in total, with at least 95,000 of those going to kids in developing countries.

I hope the OLPC’s mission succeeds, as there’s no doubt it’s a great aim to enable children in less well off countries to be able to have access to this technology that we all take for granted.

Source: tech.blorge.com

Nicholas Negroponte (One Laptop Per Child) Sued for Patent Infringement

Among its other problems - like failing to get orders from third-world governments, competing against Intel and Microsoft, and the seeing the price of its Holy Grail rise from $100 to $200 - One Laptop Per Child and its do-gooder-in-chief Nicholas Negroponte are now being sued for patent infringement in Nigeria on a Nigerian patent (RD8489) by a US-based Nigerian-owned outfit called Lagos Analysis Corporation.

Lagos claims the non-profit reversed engineered its Shift2 keyboard driver source codes.
Lagos says it developed advanced multi-lingual keyboard technology using four shift keys and characters which when pressed while typing normally produce language-critical accents, symbols and diacritical marks. The widgetry appears in Lagos' region-specific Konyin Multilingual Keyboards.

Lancor claims OLPC bought two of the keyboards and ripped the technology off even though the OLPC and the Konyin keyboards are different.

Lancor, which intends to file suit elsewhere, claims OLPC put the functionality in another key.
Last we heard OLTP hadn't seen the suit.

Nigeria initially agreed to buy a million XO laptops from OLPC but reneged on the deal in part because of the higher price and in part because - according to what its education minister Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku told the BBC the other day - "What is the sense of introducing One Laptop Per Child when they don't have seats to sit down and learn; when they don't have uniforms to go to school in; when they don't have facilities."

So, failing Nigeria, the first 300,000 AMD-based XOs are in production and some of them are bound for Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti and Mongolia. The rest are bound for upscale American homes under OLPC's $399 Give One, Get One scheme, which started November 12 and was only supposed to run for two weeks but has been extended to December 31.
Oh, yes, and Intel is giving 3,000 of its competing Classmates to Nigeria.

Source: wireless.sys-con.com

Gibbs Aquada: First Boatmobile You Can Afford - Coming To America

Looking a bit like an MX-5 that got tired of land-bound living and returned to the sea, the Gibbs Aquada is nearly the automotive equivalent of a dolphin. It's sleek and fast in the drink, but the little amphibious roadster can still crawl out of the soup and go prowling around on four wheels. Once on dry land, the Aquada's no slouch, either; it's capable of running 100 plus mph.

Popular Mechanics managed to snag a ride in a stateside example and while messing about in boats, PM got some exciting news. No, we still don't know what's in Spam, but the Aquada is coming to the States to be sold with the Federal seal of safety approval. You may need to get a boater's license before you can take to the seas, but Gibbs contends that the Aquada will resist sinking mightily, even if swamped. That's comforting for something with such little freeboard, but don't worry, you'll bob like a cork after your wallet's been lightened at the dealer. The sale price in the US is expected to slot in around $100,000, a veritable fire sale compared to the $200,000 tab across the Atlantic. A good convertible will set you back at least $20,000, and an enjoyable runabout will cost at least as much, plus fuel, docking, and winter storage, to name a few. So $100,000 will likely be cheaper than owning a car and a nice little boat once the final tally is in. We wonder if Gibbs is going to try to circumvent shipping the cars, and just shove them off from the dock with an encouraging "off you go, watch out for rogue waves."

- Popular Mechanics