Google has agreed to pay $500 million in fines, for running illegal Canadian pharmacy adds.
The U.S. Department of Justice, said it is illegal to mail prescription drugs from outside the country. Many of the Canadian online pharmacies did not require a prescription either.
Google officials admit they knew what they were doing could get them into trouble, so they set up a fund to pay any fines, if they were caught.
“Samsung welcomes the Düsseldorf District Court’s decision to suspend the pan-European preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.”– Rachel Jones, Samsung
Early in August Apple filed a complaint with the EU, over the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Apple claims the Samsung tablet is too similar to the iPad 2. At first the EU court agreed, but has now allowed the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab in most EU member countries.
One legal analysts, Frank Mueller, says Apple still has a chance to beat Samsung, because the EU laws are too ambiguous, and open to much interpretation. However, if Apple pursued the case it would “…reinforce a lot of people’s impression that Apple’s enforcement of design-related rights is… overreaching in some areas.”
Human skin has been bio-engineered to include spider silk. Scientists in the Netherlands then fired a bullet at it. Turns out it’s bullet proof!
Don’t get too excited, it was only a .22 caliber bullet. But it shows promise, after all spider’s silk is the strongest thing in nature.
https://youtu.be/iX3LtVuGp4c
The experiment is known as 2.6g 329m/s (a reference to the .22 bullet), and was actually the invention of an artist, Jalila Essaidi. She was inspired by a U.S. scientist, Randy Lewis, at the University of Utah.
The spider silk came from Utah, it was combined with skin in a Dutch dermatology lab, and Essaidi paid for the experiment. The spidey skin has spider silk between the dermis and the epidermis.
Essaidi said her main motivation was simply to see if it could be done. She also fired a few .22 rounds at the spidey skin. She doesn’t think the spider silk is harmful because it’s biodegradable, so it would degrade over time. She also thinks that, unfortunately, that would result in loose skin.
“If the U.S. or the EU are proudly focusing on internet freedom, while security and other ICT products made in the West are used to repress the same citizens we are trying to protect, this is clearly neither credible nor effective.”-Marietje Schaake, EU Member of Parliament from Netherlands
In Bahrain, where the U.S. supported government has been cracking down on peaceful protestors, and detaining and torturing them, human rights groups have revealed that Bahraini officials are tracking people’s activities through their cell phones.
Bahrain is using technology developed by Nokia Siemens. Bahraini activist Abdul Ghani Al Khanjar said while he was being tortured his own cell phone conversations were being read back to him. He was detained for seven months.
This is not the first time the company has been accused of enabling spying and torture. Last year, two Iranians attempted to sued Nokia Siemens in U.S. Federal court. They alleged that the surveillance technology helped Iranian security forces to arrest and torture them.
Nokia Siemens Networks is a joint venture between the Finnish Nokia and the German Siemens.
Recently, the President of Germany criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for going along with the European Central Bank in bailing out Greece, and other countries in economic trouble.
“That is asking for trouble in the long run and can only be tolerated in the interim.” and “I consider the sizeable purchase of individual states’ bonds by the European Central Bank to be legally questionable.”-Christian Wulff, German President
The statements were made to a group of economists. What’s unusual about Wulff’s statements is, for one the office of President in Germany is ceremonial, and secondly Wulff is a member of the same political party as Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union).
Wulff is not the only Christian Democratic Union member upset with current policies. Fellow CDU member, and head of the parliamentary Home Affairs Committee, Wolfgang Bosbach, said: “We should take the president’s comments seriously, it’s also a question of being fair to generations of people.”
Also, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel’s mentor, has blasted Merkel’s policies: “We must take care not to gamble everything away. We must urgently return to our former dependability.”
German politicians are starting to mirror public polls, which show many Germans do not want their government bailing out anymore countries.
The Germany auto industry has seen skyrocketing sales this year, mainly in China and India. But a Center Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, study predicts dire sales in the near future.
CAR boss Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, says the growing debt problems of Europe, United States, and even Japan, will eventually drag down the world economy. He predicts a “significant fall in growth” for the German auto industry.
Germany has the strongest performing car makers in the world. According to the Center of Automotive Management, VW holds 1st place, Daimler 2nd, and BMW holds 4th place (Korea’s Hyundai holds 3rd).
However, Center of Automotive Management predicts German car sales in China will soon drop off. So far Germany has seen 20% to 30% sales gains year after year. CAM analysts believe that in the near future German car makers will be lucky to see 5% sales growth in China and India.
5% sales growth will not be enough to make up for predicted loses in other markets (like the U.S.): “The gains that will be made in China and India won’t be able to compensate for the slight losses in other markets.”-Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, Center Automotive Research
Researchers from around the world have been looking for the source yeast used in Lager beers. They found it, in Argentina!
Germany has laid claim as the creator of lager beers, more than 600 years ago. But scientists realized that the yeast used, Saccharomyces Pastorianus, is not native to Bavaria.
Scientists combed five continents, and found only one source of origin: Patagonia, Argentina.
Now the question is how did Europeans get the yeast? After all the first German Lagers were created decades before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Could it be those daring Vikings who got to North America 400 years before Columbus, made it all the way to South America, then back to Europe?
Heineken, Europe’s biggest beer maker, made a profit the first half of this year, but no where near what they were hoping for.
Their net profit was 694 million euros (U.S.$999.38 million). That’s a drop compared to the first half of last year, when they netted 700 million euros.
They still made a big profit this year, but it shocked Heineken’s own analysts because they were expecting to make much more money.
“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”-Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, has been fighting cancer, and now he has resigned. No confirmation if it’s due to his health.
Tim Cook has already been picked to replace Jobs, and the board of Apple is rushing to get Cook into the CEO position.
The Science Daily reporting that Portuguese scientists discovered that oil from coriander, aka cilantro, makes a good anti-biotic.
“The results indicate that coriander oil damages the membrane surrounding the bacterial cell. This disrupts the barrier between the cell and its environment and inhibits essential processes including respiration, which ultimately leads to death of the bacterial cell.”-Fernanda Domingues.
Researchers confirmed that coriander/cilantro oil can affect 12 types of bacterial strains, and some were killed by solutions containing 1.6% or less coriander oil. The oil comes from the seeds of the plant. Not only could it be used as an anti-biotic, but it might be used to preserve food.