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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tim Russert, who became a household name in American political discourse as host of NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday talk show, died on the job of a heart attack on Friday, the television network said. He was 58.

A Web site offers tips and outside links to resources to help save money on gasoline.

Filed under: Transportation

Sure, we've heard rumors about a possible iCar before, but it's not every day that a German auto magazine (Autobild, in this case) throws some wacky VW concept with an iPod touch floating above it on its cover. We know that the two companies have colloborated in the past, with old Jobsy and Volkswagen head Martin Winterkorn supposedly sipping brandy and regaling each other with tales of their salad days, but up until now the closest we've seen to an actual product was that Space Up! blue concept interior from back in November of last year. Will you finally have the perfect set of wheels to dock your iPhone on the go? Doubtful... but feel free to dream.

[Via Autoblog]

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If a Yahoo shareholder had bought the stock in January at about $19 a share, the price before Microsoft unveiled its original offer to buy the company, he'd still be doing better than the market in general.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Not that Motorola's had an abundance of innovative consumer products in the last few years, but what forward movement the company's research labs has been making is about to be severely stunted. Moto announced today that it'll be cutting its research group in about half -- down to about 300 employees -- as well as moving 180 others employees and dropping some unnamed projects. We don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, though; given Moto's state right now, they need development a hell of a lot more than they do research.

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A new application lets iPhone users listen to more than 200 Internet radio stations from CBS and AOL. The service exemplifies the kind of innovation the iPhone can bring to music and video streaming.

Court documents suggest that allegations of stock fraud are scuttling the proposed settlement in Facebook’s thorny lawsuit with college social-networking rival ConnectU.

Sports video games are a huge business -- and for many years, it was an extremely competitive space. I remember a few years back trying to wade through half a dozen different baseball video game titles to figure out which one was worth buying. However, a few years back, video game giant EA started signing "exclusive" deals with a variety of sporting leagues, including the NFL. These "exclusive" deals supposedly meant that only EA could produce games with the names and stats of real players -- a huge selling point among most fans. And, of course, in gaining exclusivity, EA has completely cashed in. However, a bunch of angry video gamers are now suing the company for anticompetitive conduct, noting that these exclusive deals killed off all the competition, allowing EA to drastically raise its prices.

Of course, there's a separate issue that might make these gamers (and other video game companies) happy: with the recent rulings concerning fantasy baseball, it appears that the court system recognizes that player names and stats are public domain data. Thus, even with the "exclusivity," other video game companies should be able to include real player names and data. They probably still cannot use real league logos, and even player likenesses may be out (which, again, is often a big selling point) -- but hopefully it at least brings some competition back to the market.

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Sports video games are a huge business -- and for many years, it was an extremely competitive space. I remember a few years back trying to wade through half a dozen different baseball video game titles to figure out which one was worth buying. However, a few years back, video game giant EA started signing "exclusive" deals with a variety of sporting leagues, including the NFL. These "exclusive" deals supposedly meant that only EA could produce games with the names and stats of real players -- a huge selling point among most fans. And, of course, in gaining exclusivity, EA has completely cashed in. However, a bunch of angry video gamers are now suing the company for anticompetitive conduct, noting that these exclusive deals killed off all the competition, allowing EA to drastically raise its prices.

Of course, there's a separate issue that might make these gamers (and other video game companies) happy: with the recent rulings concerning fantasy baseball, it appears that the court system recognizes that player names and stats are public domain data. Thus, even with the "exclusivity," other video game companies should be able to include real player names and data. They probably still cannot use real league logos, and even player likenesses may be out (which, again, is often a big selling point) -- but hopefully it at least brings some competition back to the market.

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After our recent posts about a hiring freeze at Yahoo (YHOO), we're hearing more stories which (anecdotally) confirm that Sunnyvale is battening down the hatches. Here's one, via e-mail, from Web standards guru Molly Holzschlag.

I had been just about to sign a contract for a week long training event as part of the Yahoo! Juku program [an internal training program for developers]. We were all very excited about the event, when I got a phone call from my contact there over Memorial Day weekend to tell me that a decision to drop contractors from the program was being made (they have excellent internal folks). So clearly it was budget related, but I cannot tell you the actual facts about the influences that led to that decision. It was handled very well, however, and as I said we were all very disappointed and expressed hope of working together again at some time in the future.

Anyone else want to weigh in with their tale? We have also heard from Yahoos who insist that hiring continues apace, and we're happy to process those tales, too: The more information the better. Drop us a line at [email protected] or use our anonymous tip box (note that it is indeed anonymous, so we won't be able to follow up with you unless you leave us some sort of contact information).

See Also: Yahoo Cost Freeze Means Business Likely Weak
Yahoo's Other News: Mini-Hiring Freeze In July