Hyundai Chairman Mong-Koo Ordered To Pay $60 Million

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Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-Koo will have to pay $60 million in damages to Hyundai Motor Company because of a lawsuit brought by 14 minority shareholders in the car company. Hyundai shareholders Chung Mong-Koo and Kim Dong-Jin suffered major losses when Hyundai Motors sold shares of Hyundai Chaebol (Hyundai Airspace & Aircraft Co. and Hyundai Hysco) and their affiliates. [TheTruthAboutCars]

General Motors Working On Rear-Wheel Drive Hybrids

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General Motors will be moving their Two Mode Hybrid powertrain made for trucks to rear-drive cars according to GM Vice Chairman of Global Product Operations Tom Stephens. This motor will appear in 2013 when GM introduces a new line of full-size trucks. [Edmunds]

Ford Shows Off The Shelby GT500

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Ford will be showing off the 2011 Shelby GT500 later today at the SVT garage near Detroit. [AutoWeek]

Danica Patrick Heading To NASCAR Nationwide Series

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GoDaddy.com girl Danica Patrick got 6th place at the ARCA race this past Saturday. This year she will have a Nascar Nationwide Series debut at the Daytona International Speedway. “Racing in the Nationwide Series race was my goal during this entire two-month preparation process, but we wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do,” stated Patrick as quoted by The New York Times. Patrick will drive the Number 7 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet Impala. [NYT]

Toyota Exec Jim Lentz Goes On Digg

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Jim Lentz, President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales will be answering some of the top questions asked by the Digg communitylater today as part of a Live Digg Dialogg. Over 1,000 questions have been asked on the forum. Some of the questions include:
“What do you drive?”
“How far along is Toyota on moving into some truly gas free cars in the future? Are these kinds of vehicles even possible or feasible in our current lifetime?”
“It has been years since Toyota had a sports car (Supra) available for sale in North America. Are there any plans to bring back the Supra or come out with a new afordable [sac] sports car?” [Digg]

Chad Henne Wins Audi Fuel-Efficiency Competition

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Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne won a competition between reporters, writers, and athletes to find out who can get the most miles per gallon out of a 2010 Audi Q7 TDI engine. The route was to be between Herdon, Virginia and Miami, Florida. Henne was able to achieve 32.6MPG. Henne won $20,000 and donated it to the Berks County Community Foundation. [Examiner]

Today is Monday February 8 and Super Bowl is now over with the Saints taking the win. Congratulations to everyone in New Orleans. It is a sad day for Peyton Manning and friends, but there’s always next year. Here is your Pulse2.com technology news round up.

Google’s $1 Billion Display Ad Biz and Translator Phone

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This year, Google is expecting their display ads business to generate more than $1 billion. This is about 4% of their total sales this year. If $1 billion is achieved this year, this would be an increase of about 40% from the year before. [BusinessWeek]

Google is also rumored to be making software for a phone that would be capable of translating foreign languages on-the-fly. The software covers about 52 languages so far. [Times UK]

AOL Is Close To Selling ICQ

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According to sources with AllThingsD, AOL is close to selling off ICQ for a price that is near $200 million. ICQ has about 40-50 million active users across the world with a major penetration in Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Israel. There is rumored to be about seven bids, four which are very serious. ICQ is based in Israel and has about 100 employees. ICQ is slightly profitable. [AllThingsD]

Loopt’s Local Ads

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Loopt and Mobile Spinach have partnered to provide special offers and discounts for local businesses. As of right now the service is available in San Francisco and the company expects to roll out the service to other major cities in the near future. Loopt has about 3 million users. [MediaPost]

Verizon Bans 4Chan

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4chan announced on Twitter that they have been “explicitly blocked” from Verizon. 4chan founder Christopher Poole attempted to reach Verizon to find out why they have been blocked, but Verizon was not able to give him a definitive answer as of yet. [ReadWriteWeb]

HTC Incredible

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Above is a photo that was sent to PocketNow.com and it is believed to be the Verizon HTC Incredible. The phone uses Android 2.1 with HTC Sense and there is a Snapdragon CPU inside. The phone would come with 256MB of RAM and there is a 3.5-3.7″ WVGA screen. [PocketNow]

Riddim Ribbon

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Tapulous has launched a new game called Riddim Ribbon. Tapulous decided that they wanted to move on beyond Tap Tap Revenge. The Riddim Ribbon game costs $2.99 and comes with several songs by The Black Eyed Peas. [Tapulous]

Nokia Class Action Lawsuit

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A class action complaint has been made against Nokia alleging that the phone company had committed securities fraud. The complaint was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. [PCWorld]

TweetDeck Adds Flickr

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TweetDeck has created a new version of their desktop Adobe AIR-based software that allows you to view YouTube videos and add Flickr support within the software. The company has also increased the Twitter API requests for up to 350 API calls per hour. Posterous is also now supported. [Mashable]

Super Bowl Sunday is here again folks. Personally I’m rooting for the Colts because Ervin Baldwin went to Michigan State around the same time that I did. And I also think highly of Mike Hart even though he went to U of M. And of course I also think that Peyton is one of the best QBs I’ve seen. And usually when I pick my favorite team, it is based on proximity to where I live. Lucas Oil Stadium is a couple hundred miles south of me. But one of my most favorite parts of the Super Bowl is the ads.

Every year advertising companies spend millions of dollars to advertise for the Super Bowl. A large portion of the money spent on Super Bowl ads go behind the creativity too. Although Pepsi won’t be participating in Super Bowl advertisements this year, CBS was able to sell about $200 million worth of ad space. About 100 million people are expected to tune into the game.

I have compiled a list of 40 of the greatest Super Bowl commercials of all time. Check it out and let us know what you think about this year’s commercials in the comments:

1. Ed McMahon and M.C. Hammer – Cash 4 Gold

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Here is the end of the week auto news roundup. The stories include Barry Levinson threatening to sue Ford over Twitter, Toyota’s new “unofficial” motto, a story about Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes, and an update with General Motors.

Barry Levinson Threatens Ford Over Twitter

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Using the hands free SYNC system, you will be able to update and receive tweets in the near future. However The Law Offices of Barry Levinson is getting ready to sue Ford Motor Company for that reason. Below is a portion of a press release that he sent out [TheTruthAboutCars]:

Ford’s development of technology to facilitate driver computer use runs counter to the national trend, which sees authorities cracking down on distracted driving… Ford defends its Twitter technology, claiming to be making existing driver behaviors safer. But Ford’s assertion may not hold up to scrutiny. The 2006 driver distraction study found that talking and listening to conversation via cell phone was as likely to cause a crash as dialing a cell phone; if this seemingly apt analogy for the distinction between typing on a computer and talking into one holds up, it would undermine Ford’s justification for installing Twitter technology in cars.

Toyota’s New Motto…

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This picture was a hit on Digg. Toyota: Moving Forward Even When You Don’t Want To.

Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes

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Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes was found at the bottom of a cliff around Mulholland Drive. Apparently Sheen left the keys in his Mercedes and the garage open. Sheen was notified about the car from a Mercedes rep. [Jalopnik]

GM Donates To Haiti and Builds A Robot With NASA

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The General Motors Foundation has donated 30 GMC Sierra pick up trucks as part of the Haitian relief effort. The pick up trucks will arrive in Haiti around mid-February with additional supplies like tarp and tents. The GM Foundation also donated $100,000 along with $250,000 from the auctioning of a limited edition Chevy Corvette at the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction [eGMcartech].

General Motors and NASA have partnered to develop a robot called the Robonaut 2 (R2). “The partnership’s vision is to explore advanced robots working together in harmony with people, building better, higher quality vehicles in a safer, more competitive manufacturing environment,” stated GM VP for global research and development Alan Taub.

Happy Friday everybody. Today is February 5, 2010 and below is the Pulse2 News Roundup. We are going to talk about Facebook, Apple, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Sony, Jersey Shore, Google Earth, FriendFinder, TechCrunch, Patrick Stewart, Jon Stewart, and Bill O’Reilly today.

Facebook 400 Million and Project Titan

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Facebook is working on overhauling their message system in order to replace it with a web mailing system. The code name for the project is Project Titan [TechCrunch]. Facebook has also turned 6 years old this week and has reached the 400 million user milestone. [Mashable]

Location Based Apple Ads and iTunes Web Browser

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Apple has notified App Store developers that they will be prohibited from using location based advertisements for their applications. “If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” Apple said [MacNN]. You can now browse the App Store on the web [PCWorld].

Snoop Vader

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Rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg was caught in the middle of an imperial march walking around SoHo New York. It looks like Snoop has crossed over to the dark side since he is walking right next to Darth Vader. [HuffPo]

Sony Profits

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Sony announced yesterday that they have returned to profit during the last three months of 2009. As a result, the company raised their outlook. [New York Times]

Snooki Crasher

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A new meme has hit the Internet thanks to Jersey Shore character Nicole “Snooki” Pilozzi. The meme is called Snooki Crasher and it features images of Snooki in places where she doesn’t belong. Below are a couple of examples. [URLesque]

World War II on Google Earth

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Images of World War II destruction have been uploaded to Google Earth. The cities where the images were uploaded include Berlin, Bordeaux, Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden. [Telegraph]

FriendFinder Cancels IPO

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The FriendFinder Network filed for an IPO about a month ago. The FriendFinder Network is a brand that oversees porn websites and social networks. The company was supposed to start trading this week, but they have cancelled due to “market conditions.” [AllThingsD]

TC Intern Fired

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TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington apologized to his readers on behalf of an intern that accepted a MacBook as compensation for writing a blog post. The intern was fired and every blog post he wrote was deleted. “I apologize to each one of you. I promise that we will always maintain complete transparency with you on how we operate, even when it isn’t such an easy thing to do,” stated Arrington in his apology. [TechCrunch]

Patrick Stewart on Twitter

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Patrick Stewart, the Star Trek Captain Jean-Luc Picard, calls his mobile phone “my beautiful iPhone.” But he doesn’t quite understand Twitter and is has a fear of getting addicted to gaming. “To reduce life to–how many? 140? Just seems to me to be a little bit simplistic. Maybe I like complexity and abstraction too much.” [HuffPo]. And if you’re a fan of Patrick Stewart, check out a project that my friend Mo Kakwan made at Yahoo! Hack Day a few years ago.

Bill O’Reilly vs. Jon Stewart

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Comedy Central news host Jon Stewart was a guest on FOX host Bill O’Reilly’s TV show earlier this week. The debate between Stewart and O’Reilly attracted 4,091,000 viewers. And about 1,041,000 of those viewers were aged between 25 and 54. [BusinessInsider]

1. According to Heritage.org, “The average American family has savings of only about $1,000.”  Fortunately the average American will be able to buy a car if they need it thanks to CarsForAGrand.com.  I heard about this website from Jalopnik and started exploring it after.  It is like a craigslist for cars that are a grand and under.  You can filter out the cars by location too. I highly recommend checking out this website if you are interested in buying a car on a budget.

2. Toyota reported a $1.7 billion quarterly net profit [Detroit News], but the recall will cost about $2 billion this quarter [TruthAboutCars].  Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak complained about the cruise control in his Prius and Toyota acknowledged that it is being caused by a software glitch [Jalopnik]. Below is Jon Stewart’s take on the situation:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Toyotathon of Death
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

3. Ford is rumored to be planning the launch of a special-edition Clubsport RS and a Focus RS which will look similar to the 2012 Focus unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show. The Focus Clubsport will have about 500 units manufactured initially and will have a 2.5L 5-cylinder turbo engine, giving it 350 horsepower [EGMCarTech].

4. GM has extended the deadline for Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. to buyout Hummer from them. Now Sichuan has up until the end of February [4WheelNews].

1. Twitter has announced a new feature called Hovercards.  Hovercards appear when you put the mouse over a username or avatar and it displays additional details about that user.  This will make it easy to follow, RT, and DM users. [Twitter Blog]

2. uTorrent 2.0 has been announced.  The updated version is only applicable to Windows as of right now.  The new version includes bug fixes, improved performance, bandwidth regulation, and UDP support. [Lifehacker]

3. SEGA has revealed that Project Needlemouse is Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. Sonic 4 will be in 2D and will continue from the last Sonic and Knuckles game. The game will be available on PSN, Xbox Live Arcade, and WiiWare this summer. [Hellforge]

4. Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has sold off HotJobs to Monster.com for $225 million in cash. Monster will continue to power Yahoo job listings for 3 years as part of the deal.  Yahoo! bought HotJobs for $436 million in 2001. [TechCrunch]

5. Wikileaks is a website that started in 2006 with the goal of hosting leaked government documents.  Wikileaks gained a lot of attention when 9/11 pager messages and Guantanamo Bay manuals were leaked.  Wikileaks raised about $200,000 as part of a fund-raising goal to stay operational, but the company is seeking an additional $400,000 to pay staff members.  The funding was announced via Twitter: “Achieved min. funraising goal. ($200k/600k); we’re back fighting for another year, even if we have to eat rice to do it.” [Telegraph]

6. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) has acquired a New York based company called Touchco.  Touchco develops touchscreen technology and will be merged with the hardware division for the Amazon.com Kindle.  Touchco’s interpolating touch technology can be made transparent and work with color LCD screens.  It can also detect an unlimited number of touch points.  Touchco can achieve this at lower costs than the estimated iPad/iPhone screens (or $10 per square foot).  [Engadget/NYT]

Every day millions of people are tweeting, digging, voting up on reddit, IMing, texting, and uploading video content.  Keeping track of everything on the Internet can be overwhelming.  Visualizing some of this data can make things easier on our eyes.  There are lots of tools out there that can help visualize and make sense of all of the user generated data.  The purpose of this blog post is to raise the awareness of the tools available as of today.  I have broken down the tools by the associated websites in alphabetical order here.
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Toyota Motor Corporation was hit hard by a recall recently.  As a result, Toyota reported a 16% decline in U.S. sales this past January.  Sales fell short of 100,000 units for the first time in the last several years.  However Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) and General Motors reported an increase in sales.  Ford had a 25% increase for January when compared to a year ago and General Motors reported a 14% increase.

The Toyota recall was due to faulty gas pedal systems.  January is generally a slow month for automotive sales, but all the car manufacturing companies expected an increase due to last year’s weak economy.  Toyota’s recall affects about 2.3 million vehicles in the U.S.  Ford and GM have also offered incentives to Toyota vehicle owners for trade-ins.

Everybody needs a pep talk every now and then. In this case, this cat owner decided that Mimi needed an intervention.

One thing I like about flash mob videos is that every single one is fun to watch. Some of them are to get a reaction from the crowd and others are made for political messages. Regardless of the purpose, each of the flash mob videos I’ve seen look fun to participate in and the Internet gets a viral video in the process.

I remember the first flash mob video I saw was made by a bunch of people wearing blue shirts and khakis walking into a Best Buy. The “real” Best Buy employees were stumped and didn’t know what to do.

The Internet has a plethora of other flash mob videos such as the ones made using themes from an MC Hammer song and the movie 300. Here is a list of some of the best flash mob videos that I have seen on the Internet thus far. If you have other ones that you would like our readers to see, please leave a comment:

50. University of Florida – Bang!

This video involves the recreation of a banned Xbox 360 commercial.

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70. Beautiful fly – Los Angeles – [Link]

Date: 2009-09-10, 10:29PM PDT

I caught a fly.
Shimmers green, red eyes.
Measures approximately 9mm by 5mm, flies great.
Want to give to a good home.

69. WhaleMobile *UNIQUE*

Date: 2009-07-15, 7:22AM EDT

This one of a kind “WhaleMobile” is for sale. It needs new tires, but otherwise starts right up and runs fine. Not street legal, but still fun to drive, good for birthday parties and events. A lever inside the cockpit controls the whale tail, and allows some up and down motion. Water pump inside cockpit still works, and will build up pressure to be released through blowhole up top. It has working headlights.

This was a project my grandfather worked on when I was a kid, and it used to terrify me, as I have an inexplicable fear of these evil creatures. I am hoping to sell it by the end of the month, as I owe child support and don’t have the cash to cover it at the moment. This was built off of the frame of an otherwise perfect 1986 Yugo Cabrio. The vehicle itself has 38,000 miles on it, but it was badly damaged in a hailstorm and the bodywork was completely demolished. My grandfather got the idea of turning it into a WhaleMobile off of some cartoon, and he took his crazy idea and ran with it.

Serious inquiries only, but all are welcome to come and see the WhaleMobile in action. Please leave the harpoons at home.

Call me directly at 502.448.1137 for more details, leave a message if I don’t answer.

68. Planning to pillage? You’ll need one of these! -Seattle [Link]

Date: 2005-11-12, 2:46PM PST

The vikings from the Capitol One commercials may be running out of work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pillage the next city over. (We suggest Redmond.)

Today only, we’re giving away one very special viking hat. Ideal for the modern pillager, it is constructed from lightweight silver and gold plastic. Complete with faux gold horns and faux gold rope detailing, it makes the statement, “I have come for your grog and your goats.”

As it was never worn into battle, the hat is in mint condition, free of blood and dents.

It is “one size fits most,” and has ritual phrases impressed on the inside of the hat. They read, “CAUTION This is a toy not to be used as a safety helmet. Made in China. WARNING! This is a toy. Does not provide protection.” Lo, be ye warned.

Available for pick up until 6 PM today. No holds.

May your pillage be plentiful and your beer in Ballard be tasty.

67. Stupid clock with day, month and date read out – Ventura [Link]

Date: 2008-06-29, 10:39AM PDT

I bought this stupid clock on E-Bay for my 86-year old aunt, because she is getting confused. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until it arrived that you have to manually change everything, every day, except the time.

Every day. Push three buttons. If you forget for a day, or only push two buttons, the large, black and white read-out that is so easy to read, is wrong. I found it made her even more confused. If the stupid clock said something, she believed it. I would call her up and tell her what day it is and she would argue with me, because her stupid clock said something different.

Stupid clock. I bought her a new one that automatically changes every day.

This stupid, battery operated clock is free to whomever wants it. You will find it easier to work in harmony with it if you are a fairly cognizant person. On the other hand, if you are not always cognizant and want to drive your family crazy, this is the PERFECT clock for you.

66. Are these yours – Minneapolis [Link]

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[Click to enlarge]

Above is an infographic design to compare the Apple iPad vs. the JooJoo vs. the Amazon.com Kindle DX vs. the HP Slate.  Since the HP Slate specs have not been released yet, I had to base the information on speculation and rumors.  This infographic and blog post will be updated upon the actual date of the HP Slate.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced their latest product today, the iPad.  Generally companies make sure to own the domain name of a product or service that they offer.  Apple owns iPod.com and bought Me.com from a company called Snappville.com. However iPad.com is owned by a company called Enero 6 Corporation according to the website.  Apple bought the domain name iSlate.com about a year ago which led people to believe that this would be the name of the new device.

At the bottom of the screenshot you will notice that the website is owned by Enero 6 Corp.  Enero means January in Spanish which is the same month that the iPad was launched. Enero 6 may stand for January 6th. Coincidentally Apple and Steve Jobs had some milestones around that date:

January 6, 1998 – Steve Jobs announces that the company will show a $45 million profit for the first quarter of fiscal year 1998
January 6, 2000 – Steve Jobs announces OS X.
January 6, 2002 – Apple announced the iMac with 15″ LCD.
January 6, 2004 – Apple announced iLife 2004 and iPod Mini at Macworld
January 6, 2005 – Bill Gates was giving a presentation at CES and Windows froze.
January 5, 2009 – Steve Jobs said he would not be at MacWorld because he wanted to spend time with family.
January 6, 2009 – iTunes becomes DRM free.

The Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad is now official!!

Features include:
1. iTunes built in
2. YouTube/YouTube in HD
3. Contact list in book form
4. Same maps application as iPhone (Google) — Classic/satellite/hybrid/terrain/traffic/compass/drop pin features
5. Appears to be a bigger version of an iPhone
6. E-mail support (Message list in a column on the left and full message on the right.)
7. Large on-screen QWERTY keyboard
8. No Adobe Flash support
9. Slide to unlock feature (similar to iPhone)
10. 10 hours of battery life
11. Over a month of standby time
12. Accelerometer and compass
13. WiFi 802.11n/Bluetooth 2.1+EDR/3G Plans
14. 1GHz Apple A4 chip
15. 16GB-64GB Flash storage
16. Full capacitive multi-touch
17. 9.7″ IPS display
18. 0.5 inches thin/1.5 lbs.

19. “We think it’s going to be another gold rush for devs. And of course every iPad comes with the app store on it.”
20. “We rewrote all of our apps for this display. the iPhone SDK supports development for this now… and we’re releasing it today.”

21. Prices
250MB / month through AT&T = $14.99
Unlimited data through AT&T = $29.99
NO CONTRACT AND CANCEL ANYTIME!

22. Separate number touchscreen keypad for data entry on spreadsheets
23. Syncs through USB
24. All iPad 3Gs are unlocked
25. WiFi only models shipping in 60 days — 3G models shipping in 90 days