Steve Jobs likes to wait for nice round numbers before he announces his milestones, and on Monday Apple hit a big one: the 85,000 apps in the iPhone App Store have now been downloaded more than 2 billion times — a number Jobs described as "staggering."

"The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate," he said in a prepared statement, pointing out that more than half a billion apps were downloaded in Apple's fourth fiscal quarter alone.

He's right about the acceleration, but judging from the slope of the curve above, it's not quite as dramatic as he makes it sound.

It took Apple 74 days to rack up these half billion downloads, and 82 days to get the previous half billion.

Put another way, users were downloading apps at the rate of 6.1 million a day between April 23 (when the App Store hit 1 billion) and July 14 (when it hit 1.5 billion), and the rate of 6.7 million a day between July 15 and Sept. 26, a 10% increase.

Impressive, but given how many customers Apple has added in the past quarter, maybe not staggering.

Among the other numbers Apple announced Monday:

• Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones and iPod touches (up from 37 million in April)
• The App Store is available in 77 countries
• There are 125,000 registered iPhone developers

source: fortune

Google is using its Google Earth mapping tool to simulate on a 3D map of the world the predicted effects of climate change until the year 2100.

Using data provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Google created new layers for Google Earth showing the range of expected temperature and precipitation changes under different global emissions scenarios that could occur throughout the century.

Google hoping that allowing people to visualise the impacts of climate change on a 3D map of the world will compel more people to speak up about the issue.

"If we were not to dramatically reduce our emissions, the global average temperature is expected to rise as much as 4 or more degrees Celsius by the end of this century, and that would cause severe damage to natural systems and human health and wellbeing," Gore says in the introductory video.

"In addition, the destabilisation and extensive melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets ... has increased dramatically since 1979 and could cause global sea levels to rise between four and 12 metres, with each metre causing roughly another 100 million refugees."

The new layers for Google Earth is Known as the COP15, which you can download from here

By 2050s, Increase in water stress in Australia

By 2090s, Projection of temperature change in Australia

By 2090s, Projection of temperature change in Arctic Circle

By 2071-2100, species turnover in South America.

By 2050s, water stress in africa and europe.


The sea level rise today in Bangladesh

Predicted effect of a 4-metre rise in sea levels in Bangladesh

The latest Black Bison styling packages that give the Lexus RX350 and RX450h an aggressive new look from Wald International's.

The total makeover includes a new front bumper with large air-inlets, side skirts, a new rear bumper that houses a diffuser, redesigned front grille, a pair of twin tail pipes, a roof spoiler and Wald International's multispoke alloy wheels.

Well, all sort of things can happened in Malaysia!

Have you see Police Car perform street race on highway with their newly Evo X?

This is a video captured from the boyracer car. The boyracer and the cops is playing cat and mouse.

I am totally disappointed and felt ashame as Malaysian. Come on! The Evo X is given by government as highway petrol car but not for street racing.

Avaya Inc. agreed to acquire Nortel Networks Corp's money-losing division that makes phone systems for businesses for $900 million, plus an additional $15 million for an employee-retention program. This marks the end of a drawn-out auction for the operation that started Friday but dragged on until early Monday morning before wrapping.

Avaya, which is owned by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners LP and TPG Capital LLP, beat out Siemens Enterprise Communications for the Toronto telecom- equipment vendor's enterprise business.

The acquisition will make Avaya a more formidable competitor against rival and industry leader Cisco Systems Inc. potentially enhancing the ability of Avaya's private-equity owners to ultimately sell the combined business at a higher value.

The transaction allows Avaya's market share to surpass that of industry leader Cisco Systems Inc. in North America, giving it access to Nortel's blue-chip corporate customers, which include more than 80 of the Fortune 100 companies. Avaya will also be able to expand its distribution capability through Nortel's network of reseller partners.

According to AFP, a Taiwanese woman's wild ambition to kiss 100 men in Paris has become an overnight web sensation after she provided details of the quest on her much-visited blog.

Yang Ya-ching, a 27-year-old music major living in the French capital, has so far notched up 54 smooches, she said on her blog, which features photos of some of the encounters.

Collaborators in her project included a factory worker, a model, an Italian tourist and even a soldier visiting the capital of romance for Bastille Day.

You can visit her blog here.

"I came up with the idea three years ago," she said on her blog.

"Three of my four friends who were aware of the plan warned me that I might wind up getting slapped rather than kissed."

Yan has attracted 1.97 million visitors to her blog, including more than 224,000 on Monday alone.

"Aren't you afraid of catching a disease?" one of her followers asked.

"No," she replied. "The more you're afraid of, the less you accomplish."

Heres DCs Ken Block having a bit of fun in a rear wheel drive Ford Escort at the Team ONeal School with fellow rally driver Chris Atkinson.

From the Hong Kong Police Report Video. Beware of making friends from the internet!

No matter for the gay, lesbian or straight. Must careful when making friends especially from the internet.

Check out this lame video, but it is true :)

Riccardo Gabriele Patrese is an Italian former racing driver, who raced in Formula One from 1977 to 1993. He became the first Formula One driver to achieve 200 Grand Prix starts when he appeared at the 1990 British Grand Prix, and the first to achieve 250 starts at the 1993 German Grand Prix. Patrese entered 257 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix and started 256 races making him the second most experienced F1 driver in history, after Rubens Barrichello. He was runner up in the 1992 Formula One season and third in 1989 and 1991. He won six Formula One races, with a record gap of over six years between two of these - the 1983 South African Grand Prix and 1990 San Marino Grand Prix.

Back to this post, last year Riccardo took his wife a round at Jerez circuit in a Honda Civic Type-R... and his wife scream during the entire ride on the track.

Mini's 50th anniversary sees a performance-orientated coupe added to its growing line-up. Take a look on the below!