Though the company’s Web page redesigns have received negative reviews, Tim Parsey, senior vice president of user experience design, said his work was done. … Read More
Renowned tech executive Jon Rubinstein joins Qualcomm’s board
Former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has joined Qualcomm’s board of directors. The tech executive, who most recently served as senior vice president of product innovation for HP, brings more than 30 years of experience to the table, Qualcomm said in a press release on the matter. … Read More
The Tsarnaevs and me
I started getting facials from Zubeidat Tsarnaeva (pronounced Zu-bey-da) six years ago when I was 17 at a spa in the Boston area. She soon after left the spa and contacted my mom to have us start coming to her house, at 410 Norfolk St., right on the line of Cambridge and Somerville. All throughout my senior year of high school and four years of college I went to her house about three times a year. The last time I went to the house was in December and January of 2011/2012.The first few years the third-floor apartment was often crowded with her two sons, now identified as the alleged Boston Bombers, and her two daughters, one of whom was around my age. It was definitely not a glamorous place to get a facial, as the “spa” was set up in her living room, and during these years the family expanded. The staircase was crowded with their shoes, the house filled with noises of arguing, cooking, etc. She would often apologize for this. Her daughters and Dzhokhar, the younger son, always struck me as perfectly nice and normal kids about my age. As far as I knew the daughters also attended Rindge (the local public high school) along with their brother. She gave a damn good facial, often working on my skin for two or three hours, and this is why my sister, mom and I continued to go back to her home for years.Continue Reading… … Read More
New case against Skolkovo exec, cops question opposition MP’s $750,000 lecture fees
Skolkovo executive Aleksey Beltyukov passed the money to MP Ilya Ponomaryov (of the opposition Fair Russia party) over one-year period – from February 2011 till February 2012 – and these actions could qualify as large-scale embezzlement, the press service of Russia’s top law enforcement body announced in a Friday statement.In Russia these charges carry a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.The announcement came on the next day after Investigative Committee agents conducted a major search at the Skolkovo Foundation and questioned several of its senior managers, including President Viktor Vekselberg – one of Russia’s richest businessmen with estimated worth of $18 billion.However, on Thursday investigators said that their visit to the foundation was connected with a different criminal case – the alleged embezzlement of 24 million rubles ($800,000) by former head of the Skolkovo financial department Kirill Lugovtsev.As for the probe against Vice-President Beltyukov, law enforcers claim he tried to cover the embezzlement by preparing a contract under which Ponomaryov had to read 10 lectures for $30,000 each and prepare one research paper for a fee of $450,000. The agents said they were “checking information on the lectures that were actually read by the MP and also the scientific value, originality and the basis behind the scientific suggestions made in his research.”Ilya Ponomaryov said in a radio interview that he had received money from Skolkovo, but the contract was genuine and all his actions were legal. He also said that the case against him was politically-motivated and added that it would be sad if the whole Skolkovo project perished because of the anti-corruption steps.The main suspect, Andrey Beltyukov, also said in comments to news agencies that the case was “as far from the criminal code as possible.”“We really hired Mr. Ponomaryov and really paid him some money, but we hold that we had a solid foundation to do so,” he added.It should be noted that the probe into Ponomaryov’s Skolkovo contract was commenced after the Investigative Committee received an official address from another Russian MP – the head of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky.Zhirinovsky openly accused his colleague of corruption, saying that the lectures were never delivered and therefore Ponomaryov defrauded money from the state budget (Skolkovo is financed mainly by the state).Additionally, Zhirinovsky claimed that Ponomaryov had not mentioned the Skolkovo contracts in his income declaration, which is a criminal offence in Russia for a parliamentarian. Ponomaryov shrugged off these charges, saying that he never concealed anything and his declarations always included all of his sources of income.Ponomaryov also attempted to target Zhirinovsky with countercharges, saying that the LDPR leader had organized a “divorce of convenience,” by splitting with his spouse only on paper shortly before filing the income declarations in order not to mention the property registered in her name.Zhirinovsky replied that he had never registered his marriage in a civil body and is only married according to church law. … Read More
Researchers convert DVD drive into blood analysis machine
A group of researchers from the School of Biotechnology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have converted a standard DVD drive into a laser-based microscope that can perform blood analysis. The optical drive can be used to analyze DNA, RNA, proteins and even entire cells, said senior lecturer… … Read More
The GOP’s opening shot on Obama’s Social Security cuts
The White House took a big risk in including chained CPI in their budget proposal, despite fierce protestations from their political allies, but they’re confident they can win any fight with Republicans who attack them for wanting to cut Social Security benefits, as two senior administration officials explained to us this week. Now we will find out if they’re right, as a key Republican has become the first in his party to attack the president from the left on social safety net cuts.Speaking with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday, Oregon Rep. Greg Walden — the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of the House GOP — said Obama’s budget represents “a shocking attack on seniors”:“I think you’re crossing that line very quickly here in terms of denying access to seniors for health care in districts like mine certainly and around the country.”Continue Reading… … Read More
