Rohan Saparamadu will become Chief Designer and Advisor to Styling at Maruti-Suzuki on September 7, 2009. Click for larger images
The 1996 L-Series sedan (left) and the 1997 Saturn SC coupe (right): the brand's first global market sedan and first sports coupe, respectively
Saab 9-7X design came from an early concept sketch that Saparamadu prepared for Bob Lutz in 2003
Rohan Saparamadu has been appointed Chief Designer and Advisor to Styling at Delhi, India-based Maruti-Suzuki. Saparamadu, a veteran of GM Design for the last 23 years, was offered the position after he accepted an early retirement from the automotive giant late last year.
Buick Rainier (2004)
Cadillac CTS (2007)
"The company was good and that's what kept me there all those years," Saparamadu told CDN of his career at General Motors. However, when he was given the option of an early retirement he decided to take the chance.
"For a couple of years I was thinking of making a change because I knew that I needed to do something different at a different company," Saparamadu said, adding that the position at Maruti-Suzuki had simply been "excellent timing".
In his new role, Saparamundu will be the company's styling advisor responsible for a "small and very young" group of 22 designers, clay modelers and digital designers. He starts his new role at Maruti-Suzuki, which has more than 50 percent of the market in India, on September 7th.
Born in Sri-Lanka, Saparamadu studied at CCS in Detroit and started his career at GM soon after graduation. Rising through the ranks to become Assistant Chief Designer, Saparamadu worked on the interior and exterior design for Buick and Cadillac concept vehicles as well as the first Saturn L-Series, which was created in collaboration with Opel engineering in Morfelden while he was on a two year assignment in Germany.
Saparamadu also worked on other GM concept vehicles during that time, emphasizing brand characteristics within each project, and was promoted to Lead Designer in 1994.
His appointment to Design Manager in 2002 saw him lead the teams that developed the Cadillac and Saab crossover vehicles as well as an electric vehicle for the Cadillac brand. The Saab 9-7X design came from an early concept sketch that he prepared for Bob Lutz in 2003, which had been inspired by Buick's first SUV, the 2004 Buick Rainier, also penned by Saparamadu. More recently, he led the Perceptual Quality team for the award-winning Cadillac CTS.
Internet has proved to be a good place of investment for many entrepreneurs, young and old. Some of the young entrepreneurs have earned huge success in their projects and have become millionaires at an early age.
This list includes 10 such young entrepreneurs who have become millionaires on the internet.
10) Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith
Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith Tagged Inc. co-founded
Age: 28 years old Project: Tagged Wealth: $45 million
Tagged Inc. was co-founded by Harvard graduates and entrepreneurs Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith. Tagged.com was launched in October 2004 by Tagged Inc. and is privately owned.Tagged.com is a social networking site founded in 2004. Tagged is the subject of numerous customer complaints for sending deceptive bulk mail and is regarded as a phishing and spamming site and an "E-mail scam" by consumer anti-fraud advocates. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States
9 Jake Nickell
Threadless Co-founders Jake Nickell
Age: 28 years old Project: Threadless Wealth: $50 million
Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store run by skinnyCorp of Chicago, Illinois, since 2000. Co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart started the company with $1,000 in seed money after entering an Internet t-shirt design contest.
Members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online; the designs are then put to a public vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an online store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit.
8 Alexander Levin
ImageShack Co.founder Alexander Levin
Age: 23 years old Project: ImageShack Wealth: $56 million
ImageShack is an image hosting website on the Internet. ImageShack has a subscription service, but the majority of their revenue is produced from advertising related to their free image hosting. The imageshack.us Alexa ranking as of September 25, 2007 is one of the top 40's. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, ImageShack was the fourth fastest growing web brand in July, 2006.
7 John Vechey
PopCap Games Co-founder John Vechey
Age: 28 years old Project: PopCap Games Wealth: $60 million
PopCap Games is a leading American casual game developer and publisher, based in Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 2000 by John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka, and currently employs more than 180 people. Most of Popcap's games can be played free in a limited form, with the full version available for a fee.
PopCap’s flagship title Bejeweled has sold more than 25 million units across all major platforms. PopCap games are available for Web, PC and Mac, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, cell-phones, PDAs, iPod Classic, iPhone/Touch and other mobile devices.
6) Angelo Sotira
DeviantArt Co-founder Angelo Sotira
Age: 26 years old Project: DeviantART Wealth: $75 million
DeviantArt (official typeset as deviantART; commonly abbreviated as dA) is an American online community with worldwide appeal showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others. DeviantArt, Inc. is headquartered in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States. As of May 2009[update] the site consists of over 10 million members, over 81 million submissions, and receives around 105,000 submissions per day. The domain deviantart.com attracted at least 36 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.
DeviantArt aims to provide a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works. Works are organized in a comprehensive category structure, including photography, digital art, traditional art, literature, Flash, filmmaking, skins for applications and others, along with extensive downloadable resources such as tutorials and stock photography. "Fella," a small robotic cat character, is the official DeviantArt mascot.
5) Andrew Michael
Fast Hosts founder Andrew Michael
Age: 29 years old Project: Fast Hosts Wealth: $110 million
4) Blake Ross and David Hyatt
Mozilla firefox project by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross.
Age: 22 years old Project: Mozilla Wealth: $120 million
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. Firefox has 22.98% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of August 2009[update], making it the second most popular browser in terms of current use worldwide after Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has 66.97%.
To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements most current web standards in addition to several features which are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards.
Latest Firefox features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (aka "geolocation") based exclusively on a Google service and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through add-ons, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users.
Firefox runs on various versions of Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and many other Unix-like operating systems. Its current stable release is version 3.5.3, released on September 9, 2009[update]. Firefox's source code is free software, released under a tri-license GNU GPL/GNU LGPL/MPL
3) Chad Hurley
Chad Hurley co-founder and Chief Executive Officer youtube
Age: 30 years old Project: YouTube Wealth: $300 million
Chad Meredith Hurley (born 1976) is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the popular San Bruno, California-based video sharing website YouTube. In June 2006, he was voted 28th on Business 2.0's "50 People Who Matter Now" list. In October 2006 he sold YouTube for $1.65 billion to Google.
Hurley worked in eBay's PayPal division—one of his tasks involved designing the original PayPal logo before starting YouTube with fellow PayPal colleagues Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.
Hurley is a user interface expert and was primarily responsible for the tagging and video sharing aspects of YouTube
2) Andrew Gower
Andrew Christopher Gower is a British games developer and co-founder of Jagex Ltd
Age: 28 years old Project: Runescape Wealth: $650 million
Andrew Christopher Gower (born 2 December 1978) is a British games developer and co-founder of Jagex Ltd, the company he founded with Paul Gower and Constant Tedder. He is noted for writing MMORPG RuneScape, with the assistance of his brother, Paul Gower and also a lead developer.
Jagex Games Studio (or Jagex Ltd./Jagex Software/JAGeX) is a producer of online computer games based in Cambridge, UK. It is best known for the three versions of its RuneScape MMO, as well as for having produced the FunOrb games site and developing the 'to be released' MechScape MMO. Jagex has over 350 employees, with all content development, management, and customer support provided 'in house'.
The company produces games exclusively written using the Java language, its name standing for "JAva Gaming EXperts". It has received a number of awards for its achievements and is one of the highest profile developers in the UK.
1) Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg Facebook Founder
Age: 23 years old Project: Facebook Wealth: $700 million
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. As a Harvard student, he created the online social website Facebook with fellow computer science major students and his roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Facebook is a social networking site popular worldwide. Zuckerberg serves as Facebook's CEO. He has been the subject of controversy for the origins of his business and his wealth.
Time Magazine added Zuckerberg as one of The World's Most Influential People of 2008. He fell under the Scientists & Thinkers category for his web phenomenon, Facebook, and ranked 52 out of 101 people
In the future, we'll all be able to drive without leaving home. Researchers in Berlin reworked their DARPA-spec autonomous minivan to be controllable by an iPhone app (Courtesy of popsci.com)
A recent ad for Vodafone featured Formula One champ Lewis Hamilton piloting his F1 steed, as if it were an RC car, using a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone. Many were fooled, some were not, but really it was just a wishful-thinking play by clever ad people.
But one such convergence of smartphones and automobiles apparently is legit. Computer science researchers at Berlin's Free University worked up this Chrysler minivan that can be controlled remotely by an iPhone app.
The team developed its iDriver app to manage the highly modified "Spirit of Berlin" autonomous vehicle using WiFi and the smartphone's controls. The unit's accelerometer controls steering, accomplished at hand by turning the device, while screen buttons control braking and acceleration. The system also sends a live video stream of the road ahead to the iPhone screen.
The van can also drive itself, by way of technologies developed for the 2007 DARPA Urban Grand Challenge autonomous vehicle race (the van was their entry). Packed inside are a stack of IBM Blade servers, video cameras, 3D laser sensors and GPS for positioning, as well as the drive-by-wire system that enables the iDriver app's functionality. In one experiment, a team member reportedly sat on the roof rack and steered the vehicle from above.
Galleon hedge-fund partner Raj Rajaratnam was escorted by FBI agents in New York Oct. 16 in what authorities are calling the largest insider-trading case against a hedge fund.
(Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
Raj Rajaratnam, who was arrested Friday for insider trading in the US, is also linked to a money-transfer case in Sri Lanka.
The world’s 559th wealthiest individual and hedge-fund owner, who was arrested in New York Friday for insider trading, is not just in trouble with US authorities. Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, is also connected with an indictment against a Sri Lankan member of Parliament and two others, according to the Daily Mirror of Sri Lanka.
The MP and his two accomplices were indicted for depositing $3 million in a private Sri Lankan bank without informing the nation’s central bank, a violation of Sri Lanka’s banking rules. According to the indictment, $1 million of the funds came directly from Galleon on Dec. 22, 2006, and $2 million were deposited by Mr. Rajaratnam on Jan. 3, 2007. The funds were intended to purchase shares in the Union Bank of Sri Lanka, according to the Mirror.
Rajaratnam,, a Tamil born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and widely regarded as a Wall Street wonder boy for perpetual returns over 10 percent, was not indicted in that case. The trial, scheduled to begin Sept. 25, has been postponed until February.
In the US case, federal investigators closed in on Rajaratnam through a series of wiretaps. Authorities say that the case against Rajaratnam and five codefendants is the largest ever against a hedge fund.
“He is not a master of the universe,” said Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, at a press conference Friday and reported by the New York Times’ DealBook blog. “He is a master of the Rolodex.” According to the indictment, Rajaratnam and his codefendants “routinely received inside information directly or indirectly from insiders and provided it to each other for the purpose of trading based on the information,” netting more than $20 million in illegal profits in 2006 and 2007.
Rajaratnam alone racked up more than $12.7 million in illegal profits for Galleon by trading on insider knowledge about companies including Hilton Hotels, Google, Akamai, and Advanced Micro Devices, according to the FBI.
While his wealth may seem astronomical, Rajaratnam is at the “lower” end of all-star fund managers in terms of income, banking “only” $200 million in 2008, for example, when some managers were hauling in over a billion.In Sri Lanka, Rajaratnam was known as a leading example of Tamils who left the country and prospered overseas. After the 2004 tsunami hit the coast, he set up a charity in the country and urged others to contribute funds for rebuilding. Last month, he put up $1 million to fund reintegration programs for Tamil Tiger fighters whose rebellion was crushed earlier this year.
Every single minute, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. Add to that the hundreds of TV shows now available to watch on the Internet, and the sheer volume of video posted online quickly overwhelms. How do you find the good stuff?
Blinkx, a video search company, creates some stylish order around the vast video haul. Blinkx bills itself as the world's largest video search engine, and says it has indexed more video, audio and TV shows on the Web than anyone else--35 million hours of it. Chief Executive Suranga Chandratillake figures that's about two-thirds of the video content online, and the other one-third is mostly locked up, requiring payment or passwords to view it.
British-born Chandratillake, 31, founded Blinkx five years ago in San Francisco after serving as chief technology officer in the U.S. for U.K. Internet search firm Autonomy. He predicted then that people would be watching more video online and would need a better way to find it.
"Video search is difficult," he says, explaining that most video search looks for descriptive text in tags attached to the video, which can be incomplete or misleading. But Blinkx uses speech recognition, visual analysis and scene-change detection, which enable a more accurate search as well as the ability to search within videos for specific words or people.
Blinkx got a head start by licensing Autonomy's search software, which was designed primarily for use within large companies. (Autonomy has a 10% stake in Blinkx.) Chandratillake started with a dozen programmers to refine the software to better locate and categorize video for the average viewer. The site now has channels that give you the day's news, entertaining videos, or the TV shows you want to watch. Blinx fan Chip McCormack of Kokomo, Ind., says he spends more time watching Blinkx than regular television.
Blinkx went public in May 2007 on the AIM market in London and has been on a fast growth path ever since. The company licenses its video search technology to Ask.com, Real Networks and some Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) sites in the U.K. Much of its $13.9 million in revenue for the year ended March 2009 came from advertising revenues it shares with hundreds of travel and how-to partner video sites such as Howcast and Geobeat.
The WLAN Project Team (L-R): Mr Graham Daniels, Dr John O'Sullivan, Dr Terry Percival, Mr Diet Ostry, Mr John Deane.
Australian inventiveness lies at the heart of how millions of people now use wireless networks to access information on a myriad of portable devices.
14 October 2009
In homes, offices and cafés, most of the wireless devices we use every day to access the Internet and other networks rely on CSIRO’s solution to a complex radio problem.
"CSIRO’s solution to the ‘multipath problem’ and its subsequent commercialisation ranks as one of the most significant achievements in CSIRO’s 82 year history," CSIRO chairman Dr John Stocker says.
"The technology is used in over 800 million devices right now and its use is rapidly expanding."
“CSIRO’s solution to the ‘multipath problem’ and its subsequent commercialisation ranks as one of the most significant achievements in CSIRO’s 82 year history,”
CSIRO chairman Dr John Stocker.
Today at a ceremony in Melbourne, the scientific, commercial and legal teams responsible for the achievement will receive CSIRO’s highest honour: the Chairman’s Medal for Research Achievement.
One of the main problems the team managed to solve was ’multipathing’.
"You might imagine that the little box with the flashing lights that powers your home wireless network is simply beaming information straight to your laptop," CSIRO’s Dr John O’Sullivan, leader of the scientific team says.
"In reality the radio waves travel in all directions, bouncing off walls, furniture and people – making it very hard to deliver a clear signal to the receiver."
The team solved this problem by adapting ideas that had their roots in radioastronomy and the search for exploding black holes.
"I was inspired to think about ways of cleaning up smeared radio signals to make searching for short pulses like those from exploding black holes easier," Dr O’Sullivan says.
"We ended up building a ‘fast Fourier transform’ chip to do these sorts of processing tasks efficiently and fast. That proved to be the key to untangling the web of wireless signals so we could build a workable high speed wireless local area network (WLAN)."
A US patent was granted in 1996 and, in 1999, one of the first modern international standards for WLAN (IEEE 802.11a) relied on the technology covered by CSIRO’s patent for its implementation. In 2001 the first products entered the market.
"CSIRO set out to encourage the industry to take licenses for the use of its patented technology," Mr Nigel Poole, CSIRO Executive Director, Commercial says.
"When that did not prove successful, we initiated legal proceedings which then led to proceedings being initiated against CSIRO.
"The result earlier this year was that 14 companies settled with CSIRO under confidential terms. The revenue arising from these settlements to date is approximately $A200 million.
"Soon an announcement will be made about how Australian research will benefit from this success."
Bring high quality sound and large bass to your laptop or netbook
Model
uBoom
Recommended Retail Price
AUD$189.00
Design
Bring high quality sound and large bass to your laptop or netbook
Specifications
Speaker Membrane Size: Left/Right 2, Subwoofer 2 1/2 Speaker Impedance: 4 ohms Speaker Frequency Response: R/L 100~20KHz, Woofer 20~250Hz Total RMS: 24 Watts Power supply: AC/DC adapter 100V~240V 12VDC/2A Driver: Driver Free Connection: 1 x USB, 1 x AUX in, 1 x Microphone Jack Operation Temperature: 0°C ~ 45°C Operation Humidity: 20%~90%RH Weight: 3000g Dimension: (W x D x H) 595x135x90mm
I am a virtualization enthusiast. I work with VMware, Hyper-V, RHEV and Citrix technologies. From the day I have started working with VMware, I have been excited to work with these technologies.
