News

• GM set to launch app for car navigation

  General Motors soon will sell a $US50 smartphone application that could replace your car's dashboard navigation system.

• K-glove developed from space robot

  General Motors and NASA used technology from their space-bound Robonaut 2 to create robotic gloves for humans that the companies hope can reduce repetitive stress injuries.

• If the Dow had chosen Apple instead of Cisco

  After the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed over 13,000 recently, San Jose Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy made an impassioned case for including Apple in the index, a position he buttressed in part by citing an analysis by Adam Nash of Greylock Partners.

• Robots v. humans: Real steel or dumb metal?

  Right from the start let's agree that the argument of humans or robots is getting close to being a dead heat in some areas. With advances in artificial intelligence and complex software, many robots are close to performing some duties better than their human counterparts.

• Cadillac updates car controls with touch, voice

  Cadillac wants to let drivers have natural conversations with their cars and get physical feedback from a touchscreen in some models coming as soon as next year.

• A GM bankruptcy could leave IT vendors with unpaid bills

  There are two story lines revolving around the expected bankruptcy of General Motors Corp., and the first one is ugly. Bankruptcy is a nasty business and IT vendors may be left with unpaid bills, smaller contracts and uncertainty about the automaker's future.

• Motorola to rely on Android to revive phone sales

  Motorola Tuesday said its mobile phone revenues fell by 51 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, and said it plans to improve phone sales in 2009 by developing fewer new handsets with a focus on smartphones that run the Android operating system.

• Auto industry bankruptcies could ripple through tech

  The auto industry has been offering US lawmakers an apocalypse-level scenario warning them that as many as three million jobs could disappear if automakers run out of cash.