Google launches low-cost TV dongle

 Google Chromecast device The device plugs into a television's HDMI slot Google has announced a low-cost competitor to Apple TV - a "dongle" device called Chromecast.

The dongle is plugged into a television's HDMI port, and allows users to stream media from smartphones, tablets and computers.

Launching immediately in the US, the device will cost $35 (£23). There is as yet no word on international launches.

Google also announced an upgraded Nexus 7 tablet, the first to run the new version of the Android system.

Failed attempts
Chromecast is Google's latest attempt to gain ground in the television industry.

In 2012, Google faltered in its attempts to make a move into the living room, considered by many experts to be ripe ground for making large profits through advertising.

Google's partnership with Sony, with which it released a £200 set-top box, was poorly received.

That attempt followed an even earlier false start in 2010 when it launched Google TV, a service that was blocked by several TV networks, and suffered greatly from requiring consumers to buy expensive hardware.

More recently, the orb-shaped Nexus Q device, announced last year, fell flat almost immediately - Google pulled it from sale in response to "feedback".

Continue reading the main story
I am not convinced that ordinary consumers will respond better to this tablet than the last one”

End Quote Jason Jenkins CNet With Chromecast, Google is attempting to simplify its large-screen offering, focusing on streaming clips from services such as YouTube and Netflix via a far cheaper device.

The dongle plugs into a television's HDMI port, and uses wireless home internet to link to devices.

However, unlike other similar devices, such as Apple TV, the media is streamed from the cloud, rather than from the mobile device itself.

This, Google said, allowed for higher-quality streaming, and had less impact on battery life.

The search giant was especially keen to stress the dongle's ability to stream across multiple operating systems, be it Android or Apple's iOS.

This aspect in particular is central to Google's core strategy, said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"It's a big departure from the Nexus Q," . "What it boils down to is a focus around YouTube - and getting people back into that ecosystem.

"If you look at the opportunities around advertising, they're getting eyeballs back to that."

New Nexus
Also shown off at the event was Google's updated Nexus 7 tablet, which will go on sale in the "coming weeks".

The tablet will be the first to run Android 4.3, the latest iteration of the Jelly Bean flavour of Google's mobile operating system.

Among the software's new features will be the ability to set restricted profiles, meaning parents can, for example, only give their child access to certain functions on a device.

Google Nexus 7 The new Nexus 7 will be $30 more expensive than its predecessor
The Asus-built device is slightly smaller, and 50g (1.8oz) lighter, than the original Nexus 7, which was launched last year.

The new device will have a screen resolution higher than any in its class, boasting 323 pixels per inch.

That is significantly higher than the iPad Mini's 163ppi and the 7in Kindle Fire HD's 216ppi.

But Jason Jenkins, from technology website Cnet, said it still had a lot of ground to make up with consumers.

"I am not convinced that ordinary consumers will respond better to this tablet than the last one," he said.

"Apple has established such momentum, Google's real challenge isn't just making a better tablet than Apple, it's persuading ordinary people to care that it makes one at all."

The new Nexus 7 will cost $30 more than it predecessor at $229 (£150), with other international prices yet to be announced.

The price point keeps it in line with Amazon's Kindle Fire, another key competitor - and considerably cheaper than Apple's iPad Mini, which retails starting at $329, or £269 in the UK.

Salesforce.com launches Sales Performance Accelerator

Salesforce.com is hoping customers will tap more pieces of its growing cloud software portfolio with a new product, Sales Performance Accelerator, that combines its CRM software with its Work.com performance management application as well as customer lead information from Data.com.

“We’re basically trying to make every sales rep an A-player,” with the combined package of applications, said Mark Woollen, vice president of product marketing, Sales Cloud.

Information from Salesforce.com’s Data.com service can help increase the amount of “pipeline,” or early-stage deals, salespeople have to work with, Woollen said.

Meanwhile, Work.com’s Facebook-like software environment gives managers a way to provide their sales teams with better coaching, leading to more consistent “win rates,” he said.

“One thing we find when we talk to sales organizations is that reps don’t know why they won or lost a particular deal,” said Nick Stein, senior director of marketing and communications.

While Salesforce.com customers were already able to purchase subscriptions for the three applications included in Sales Performance Accelerator, the points of integration have now been made much deeper, according to Stein and Woollen.

Salesforce.com is also offering a temporary break on pricing. For the next 90 days, Sales Performance Accelerator can be obtained for as little as $90 per user per month. Pricing will start at $110 per user per month after the promotional period.

Early users of Sales Performance Accelerator include Enterasys and CareerBuilder, according to Salesforce.com.

Beyond an attempt to generate more revenue through attractive bundling, Sales Performance Accelerator also represents a return of focus by Salesforce.com to its core sales force automation software business.
Led by CEO Marc Benioff, of late the company’s marketing efforts have focused on a theme of “customer companies,” with Salesforce.com positioned as a purveyor of tools that can help businesses make stronger connections with their partners and customers.


Salesforce.com has also been spending big on acquisitions in order to enter adjacent product areas, such as marketing. It recently paid $2.5 billion to acquire marketing software vendor ExactTarget, with Benioff saying that marketing could end up being a $1 billion annual business for Salesforce.com.  

Steve Ballmer launches Microsoft 2.0

Steve Ballmer has unveiled plans to reinvent Microsoft with a big push to develop hardware from phones to set top boxes, as it attempts to remain relevant in the era of IT consumerisation.

In a memo to staff, the bullish CEO stated: “The bedrock of our new strategy is innovation in deep, rich, high-value experiences and activities.

"It’s the starting point for differentiated devices integrated with services. Our family will include phones, tablets, PCs, 2-in-1s, TV-attached devices and other devices to be imagined and developed.”

Addressing the success of Apple in creating a homogenous hardware and cloud environment with desirable devices, Ballmer said: “No technology company has as yet delivered a definitive family of devices useful all day for work and for play, connected with every bit of a person’s information available through one cloud.”

The company has repositioned Bing from internet search into a knowledge repository. He said: “Our machine learning infrastructure will understand people’s needs and what is available in the world and will provide information and assistance. “

Expanding beyond the Xbox and the Surface tablet, Ballmer plans to grow consumer hardware and enterprise services. “We will design, create and deliver through us and through third parties a complete family of Windows-powered devices,” Ballmer explained in the memo.

Part of this push with devices in the consumer sector will also occur in the enterprise market.

In particular, Ballmer said the company would focus on its Dynamics enterprise suite and he aims to facilitate adoption of devices and end-user services in the enterprise market.

He said: “Our family of devices must allow people to be more productive, and for them to easily use our devices for work.”

Commenting on the news, Gartner fellow David Cearley said: "The enterprise remains a critical target, which is why Ballmer has focused on Dynamics.

"But in terms of devices and services, Ballmer is emphasising integrated devices. Microsoft will create a wide range of OS capacities that it can deliver itself and through hardware partners.”

He said the Microsoft operating system will be aspect of these new devices."Instead of just a generic Windows PC we will see fully integrated software and services built on top of the hardware."

Read the Transforming our Company memo

NASA launches IRIS solar mission to research space weather

NASA launched a solar telescope on Thursday that scientists hope will be able to unlock the secrets of how material gathers, moves and heats up as it travels through the Sun's lower atmosphere.

 

Scientists say that better understanding of this part of the solar atmosphere, which sits below the corona, could help explain and model phenomena like the ejection of solar material -- something that can cause damage to electronic circuits, power distribution networks and communications systems on Earth when it gets large enough.

 

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) was launched from a Pegasus rocket that was dropped from the belly of an L-1011 TriStar aircraft flying above the Pacific Ocean, about 150 kilometers off the central coast of California.

 

The aircraft departed Vandenberg Airforce Base in southern California and dropped the rocket carrying the IRIS spacecraft at 7:27pm local time (2:36am GMT Friday). All systems appeared to be performing normally in the first few minutes after launch.

 

IRIS will focus on two parts of the lower solar atmosphere that exhibit an unusual effect: temperatures in the region are believed to be around 6,000 Kelvin near the Sun's surface and heat up to around a million Kelvin at the top of the region. That's different to our conventional experience with heat sources, where temperatures rise as the source is approached.

 

Tracking the movement of material into the upper atmosphere could help model solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections that can cause damage on Earth.

 

"What is this interface region? We don't know," said Alan Title, IRIS principal investigation at Lockheed Martin. "The instruments that looked at this region in the past have had about 20 times poorer resolution spatially and about 20 times poorer resolution spectrally. Basically, we've been looking at things that happened so fast, that data taken as slowly as previous instruments have done hasn't given us any information."

 

"But even more fundamentally, there's not been a push to look at this region because the atomic physics in this region is very, very, very complicated," he said. It's only been in the last decade that computer models scientists hope can accurately model the Sun's lower atmosphere have even become available, he said.

 

Those simulations have required NASA's Pleiades supercomputer at its Ames Research Center, in Mountain View. Pleiades, manufactured by SGI and based around Intel Xeon processors, was ranked as the 19th most powerful computer in the world on the June 2013 Top 500 list of supercomputers. When it debuted on the list in June 2011 it was the 7th most powerful computer globally.

 

As the world's climate changes and ever more sensitive electronics is deployed, study of the effects of the Sun on Earth are becoming more pressing.

 

A recent study by Lloyd's of London said between 20 million and 40 million people in the U.S. are at risk of being without power for between two weeks and two years should a violent solar storm hit. The country is particularly at risk because of its aging power grid.

 

Power outages were much on the mind of the NASA team this week. IRIS was originally meant to be launched on Wednesday evening, but was delayed by a day because of a significant power outage at Vandenberg Airforce Base earlier in the week.

 

The irony of the delay wasn't lost on Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, which will be controlling the satellite and crunching a lot of the data it produces.

 

"We believe that some, maybe a lot of power outages, actually have a lot to do with solar activity," he said. "So the better we can understand the physics going on, the better we can understand the activity, the better we can potentially predict and mitigate these problems."

 

Follow me on Twitter: @sajilpl

Splunk launches analytics software for HadoopBig data analytics firm Splunk has launched a new software product called Hunk, which enables organisations to explore, analyse and visualise data that is stored in Hadoop.

Big data analytics firm Splunk has launched a new software product called Hunk, which enables organisations to explore, analyse and visualise data that is stored in Hadoop.

While many organisations have managed to stand up a Hadoop cluster and get data into it, they are still struggling to get value out, according to Splunk, because there are not enough people with the right MapReduce programming skills to pull meaningful data out of Hadoop.

Hunk, which is currently in beta, aims to solve this problem by giving organisations insight into their data assets without the need for custom development, costly data modelling or lengthy batch processing iterations.

“We can point Hunk at a customer's Hadoop cluster, and within an hour they are able to explore and start analysing data. They love that kind of productivity,” said Sanjay Mehta, VP of Product Marketing for Splunk.

Built using Splunk's virtual index technology, Hunk abstracts away the analytics functionality from the storage layer. This means that the Splunk technology stack can be used to for interactive exploration, analysis and visualisation of data stored anywhere.

While many Hadoop-based query technologies require a schema to be declared at the point that the user starts collecting data, Splunk has a notion of 'schema-on-the-fly', which means that any interpretation of the data is deferred until the time the user queries it.

“That's a really key concept because if you have an understanding of the schema at the time that you're trying to collect data, then you're immediately imposing some restriction on that data,” said Mehta.

“Data is inherently unstructured, you don't know what it looks like and it can change. So you need to be able to defer those kinds of interpretations until the point where you actually ask the question.”

Unlike Hadoop connectors – which extract data from Hadoop, transform it and run operations against it in a data warehouse – Hunk enables organisations to analyse and explore data natively in Hadoop, without having to transform and load it into other systems.

Users can also connect data from external relational databases, using Splunk DB Connect, and correlate this data to spot trends, identify patterns of interest and enrich insights.

Hunk's visualisation tools allow organisations to build graphs and charts to make their data more meaningful, and create custom dashboards that can be viewed and edited on laptops, tablets or other mobile devices via secure role-based access controls.

“The goal here is to democratise access to data. What we want to do is lower the barrier for entry for any type of user to be able to gain intelligence from that data,” said Mehta.

Splunk's Hunk software works against Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR commercial distributions of Hadoop, as well as the Apache version. Splunk also hopes to extend support to other big data technologies such as MongoDB and Cassandra over time.

Hunk will run in private beta for the next few months, and is expected to become generally available by the end of this year.

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

Google-backed O3b launches satellites to offer Internet connectivity

O3b Networks, a company backed by Google and other investors, has launched its first satellites that aim to provide low-cost and high-speed connectivity to parts of the world that do not have fiber infrastructure.

 

The company's first four satellites, launched Tuesday aboard the Arianespace Soyuz launch vehicle from French Guiana, made first contact with O3b's gateway in Hawaii, O3b said. The launch was delayed by a day reportedly because of weather conditions.

 

The O3b system aims to combine the wide reach of satellite with the speed of a fiberoptic network, targeting customers and businesses in nearly 180 countries with lowcost, highspeed and low-latency Internet and mobile connectivity.

 

O3b uses MEO (medium earth orbit) satellites as an alternative to more expensive geostationary satellites. Satellites in geostationary orbit offer the logistical advantage of remaining at the same point over the Earth at all times, enabling a single satellite to continuously serve a large geographic region. But geostationary satellites require a high altitude of over 35,000 kilometers above the earth in order to maintain their stationary position, according to O3b documents. This distance decreases their ability to provide the low latency required by most business applications.

 

Operating in MEO, the O3b satellite constellation will provide full country coverage within 45 degrees of latitude north and south of the equator, with a round trip latency of less than 150 milliseconds, according to O3b.

 

The Jersey, Channel Islands company aims to provide IP trunking and mobile backhaul services to ISPs and mobile operators in the equatorial region. Its O3bCell service, for example, connects cell site towers and the core mobile network, with support for 2G, 3G and 4G-LTE voice and data services, offering seamless upgrade to packet switched networks.

 

A second group of four O3b satellites will be launched in September to complete the first phase constellation of satellites. The first O3b customers will be able to begin using the service early November.

 

O3b did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

A total of 12 O3b satellites are to be put into orbit by Arianespace in groups of four, with missions planned for later this year, and another in 2014, the commercial satellite launch company said.

 

O3b's many investors include satellite operator SES, Google, and Liberty Global. It raised US$1.3 billion to cover the cost of building and launching the first 12 satellites and running the business until it becomes operational and starts to generate revenue. O3b has already signed deals with telecom providers and ISPs including Malaysian telecommunications provider Maju Nusa and West Africa Telecom in Liberia. It has also tied with Royal Caribbean Cruises to provide broadband access service to passengers on its cruise ship.

 

Google announced recently its Loon project which involves the use of a network of balloons floating in the stratosphere, around 20 kilometers above the earth's surface, to provide Internet service "to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters." Project Loon started in June with a pilot in New Zealand. People will connect to the Internet using a special antenna on top of buildings.

 

 

CineEurope: NEC Launches $170,000 Laser Projector

NEC may have beaten rival manufacturers in the race to bring to market the first laser illuminated projection system.

The Japanese vendor has begun taking orders for the $170,000 NC1040L, a model of which is being shown this week at CineEurope. The first installations are expected this fall at undisclosed Japanese car manufacturers.

“We also have considerable interest from cinema exhibitors,” said Gerd Kaiser, NEC's marketing and business development manager for large venue projectors. “It has been demonstrated in private to exhibitors in Paris and other cities in Europe.”

A number of vendors are recommending developing laser-illuminated projection technology to make the screens brighter. Proponents say laser light offers additional advantages, including lower operating costs, reduced power consumption compared to the xenon lamps currently in use, and increased system lifespans. Still, regulatory issues remain for the technology because the FDA monitors the use of lasers.

According to NEC, its new laser-illuminated DLP unit is 4K ready, 48 and 62 fps capable and boasts a color space that exceeds the DCI specification. Its light source supposedly last up to 20,000 hours before needing to be replaced. It outputs 5,000 lumens of brightness to screens up to 31 feet, meaning that the projector would be used for smaller auditoriums, and would not be bright enough to be subject to regulation.

“The model is scalable so that we are able to double the brightness to 10,000 lumens [with a dual laser source] and then offer 30,000 and 60,000 lumen upgrades provided [FDA and EU] regulations are relaxed,” explained Kaiser.

By contrast Christie, which has has already been demonstrating its developing laser projector, has yet to finalize a release date or pricing for its system, which it has not brought to Barcelona.

It recently completed 100 screenings of G.I Joe: Retaliation on a 65-foot screen at AMC Theatres' Burbank 16 ETX theater using a 72,000-lumen laser projector running at 14 foot-lamberts in 3D. Christie's laser-illumination technology is also scalable from 10,000 to 70,000-plus lumens.

Don Shaw, Christie’s senior director of product management, said he expected first installations of the system early next year.

“We expect no more than 100 installs by the end of 2014,” he said. “Laser projection will be considerably more expensive than xenon-lamp projectors and therefore will be adopted first at premium, high-grossing sites which already offer 4K or high-specification audio or giant-format experiences.”

NEC and Christie both said that without a Virtual Print Fee to subsidize the cost of purchase or lease, exhibitors might consider branding screens outfitted with the technology as "projected by laser."

“Laser is a cool term that audiences immediately identify with provided it can deliver them a new experience,” said Shaw.

Added Kaiser, “Laser could be marketed at a premium just like 4K."

Fellow digital-projector vendor Sony predicts that laser projection is at least three years away from wide adoption in theaters.

“This technology is still at a very early stage,” said Olivier Pasch, Sony's head of European digital cinema sales. “Laser will not be the perfect light source any time soon because of its cost, so it is only likely to be adopted in the very biggest auditoria.”

Pasch predicts wider rollout of lasers in three to four years, provided cost-efficient green-laser-light devices can be developed.

 

Hallmark Channel Launches TV Everywhere

"Home and Family" hosts Cristina Ferrare and Mark Steines

Hallmark Channel is the latest to offer TV Everywhere service.

Beginning Wednesday, customers of major cable systems will be able to access a streaming video-on-demand menu of selected recent Hallmark shows and movies on their smart phones, tablets and computers.

Not all Hallmark shows will be available, but among those that will be accessible, about two days after they air on the network, will be Home & Family and Marie as well as some original films and other programming. New episodes of Hallmark’s upcoming series Cedar Cove will be available after its premiere in July.

Users will contact their cable or satellite provider by going online. The providers have pages set up for Hallmark and other similar services and will provide a user ID and password. The subscriber then goes to http://www.hallmarkchanneleverywhere.com, signs in and picks from a VOD menu what they want to watch.

"As our industry becomes increasingly multiplatform and viewers seek video content beyond the traditional television screen, Hallmark Channel's expansion into the TV Everywhere space reflects our ongoing commitment to optimize our viewers' experience with our brand," says Crown Media Family Networks president and CEO Bill Abbott.

Initially the TV Everywhere option will be available to customers of Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS, Cablevision’s Optimum TV and Bright House Networks.

 

BlackBerry launches iPhone and Android security platform

Secure Work Space lets users toggle between personal and corporate modes on their devices.

Now a distant fourth (behind even Microsoft) and fading fast on the hardware side, BlackBerry is hoping its acclaimed security software might be its ticket to success -- even if it means supporting rivals' devices.

BlackBerry on Tuesday introduced a new service called "Secure Work Space," which allows enterprise iPhone and Android users to toggle between personal and corporate modes.

Secure Work Space is aimed at giving companies control over the data that flows over their networks, even on a user's personal phone. Corporate email, calendars, contacts and intranets are cordoned off, and IT departments can add or remove other apps from that corporate section without affecting any personal information.

That separation ensures, for example, that users can't copy a message from the corporate profile and paste it into the personal one. Just as crucially, malware infecting the personal side of the phone won't make its way into corporate data.

The setup is similar to BlackBerry Balance, which comes standard on BlackBerry 10 devices.

Related story: You're going to love the BlackBerry Q10 (or hate it)

BlackBerry will provide an update on sales of the Z10 and other BlackBerry 10 smartphones on Friday. Though some analysts are optimistic, no one expects the new line of devices will launch BlackBerry back to the smartphone forefront anytime soon -- or, truthfully, ever.

But if Secure Work Space takes off, it could help BlackBerry (BBRY) regain some of the corporate market that it lost so publicly and painfully.

"Conceptually, it does make sense -- BlackBerry did well securing email, and now they're securing a workspace," said Cowen & Co. analyst Matthew Hoffman.

But as BlackBerry has declined, competitors like Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) have worked hard to improve their own security capabilities. Samsung launched its own "Knox" system for the new Galaxy S4, which works much like Secure Work Space.

Still, there's room in the market for a trusted multi-platform solution -- an Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) of mobile devices.

Hoffman isn't convinced that BlackBerry will be the only company in the field, but BlackBerry still has the chance to become that trusted solution. Despite all of its troubles on the hardware side, BlackBerry's reputation as a company dedicated to security endures, as CEO Thorsten Heins has made sure to play up the company's history in the space.

A full switch to software would be "messy," though, Hoffman said. "[BlackBerry would] be taking 95% of its revenue, hardware, and saying, that doesn't matter -- now we're going to focus on this 5%. It would be a pretty big corporate transition to become software-only."

BlackBerry dipped a toe into this field back in 2011, when the company launched an experimental product that allows corporate IT staffers to manage multiple mobile devices -- including iOS and Android -- through the same interface. At the time, the company insisted that it wasn't shifting its strategy away from hardware.

Two years later, however, BlackBerry is still struggling on the device side and sorely needs a bright spot. If security software can be successful for BlackBerry, a bit of a strategic shift could be a smart move.

AOL Launches Its Own News Reader

 

 

With Google Reader’s demise looming, a host of media companies have jumped to fill the impending void. Apps like Zite have updated to take on Reader-like qualities. Digg has been racing to build its own RSS reader that largely reproduces Google Reader’s core functions. And now, AOL joins the fray with its own AOL Reader, officially launching today.

 

Like the just-announced Digg Reader and Google Reader before it, AOL Reader has a simple, minimalist design. It’s got all the features you’d expect from a robust RSS reader. Does it have anything mind-blowing that sets it apart from other readers? Not really. But it looks good, works as expected, and if you have an AOL account, you’d be remiss not to give it a shot if you’re looking for a new web-based reader.

 

Searching for news sources and adding feeds is straightforward — just tap the plus sign on the upper left of the interface. A “Settings” button next to that gives you more options, like the ability to import the OPML file for existing subscriptions if you currently use another reader.

 

AOL Reader offers four different views for browsing feed content: A simple list view, which expands a post within this list when you click or navigate to it; a more visual Google+ or Flipboard-like “card” view; a “full view,” which most resembles Google Reader’s default viewing mode; and a two-panel view that lists articles on the left and pulls up the full text on the right. I like that you’ve got these different options — depending on whether I’m on a desktop or tablet, if I’m in a hurry or if I’m feeling browsy, I can use a different view to satisfy that need.

 

You can organize incoming items into folders, and on the AOL Reader homepage, you can quickly see a selection of the most recent content from each folder. You can also tag items, making it easy to reference articles around a certain subject later on. There’s also the ability to star/favorite things, or mark them unread.

 

And because we’re nothing if we’re not constantly connected and sharing with our peers, articles can be shared in AOL Reader easily through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ or via e-mail.

 

 

Warren Buffett's sister launches an online philanthropy course

 

Doris Buffett

FORTUNE -- The name Buffett is in the news, but the first name is Doris, not Warren. His older sister by three years -- that makes her 85, him 82 -- she is pursuing a decade-long interest by sponsoring a new, free, online course about philanthropy.

The goal of the program, called Giving With Purpose is to teach college students -- and anyone else who cares to kibitz -- how to beneficially contribute to charity. That's not necessarily easy. There are IRS rules for giving that must be learned and there is wayward, wasteful philanthropy to be avoided.

But for college students who apply themselves well in this new course, the prize at the end is real Buffett money to give away.

Doris Buffett got to this stage of philanthropy by starting with small donations about 10 years ago in North Carolina, where she then lived. (Today she is a resident of Virginia). Her usual practice in those days was to aid local people who had run into bad luck -- a sudden illness, for example, or even a broken-down car -- and needed a few thousand dollars just to struggle along.

Her gifts earned her the name "Sunshine Lady" and that led her to set up the Sunshine Lady Foundation.

MORE: Spanx founder joins Giving Pledge

When Warren Buffett announced in 2006 that he would begin giving his vast fortune to charity (and again, in 2010, when he joined with Melinda and Bill Gates to form the Giving Pledge), he was inundated with letters from people asking for help. He responded by sending the pleas along to Doris, the acknowledged philanthropy expert in the Buffett family, and by also promising her money for deserving letter-writers when she needed it. Recalling those days, she remembers that the original shipment from Warren included 410 letters.

Doris thereafter applied some skills she'd learned while working years earlier in a district attorney's office to sort out the letters between deserving and not. A small army of unpaid women -- called Sunbeams -- helped her in this job.

Gradually Doris broadened her giving and the once small Sunshine Lady Foundation grew into a large force. Over the last four years, its contributions (some of the money from Warren, but most from her) have averaged $10 million annually.

The foundation still gives money to ordinary people down on their luck, but Doris has also added some special projects: educating prisoners in such places as Sing Sing, sending battered women to college, and also giving college scholarships to North Carolinians generally.

The foundation's scholarships have some strings attached to them. Besides requiring a recipient to maintain a 3.0 grade average, they also compel the student to pledge (in a written contract) that he or she will not engage in body piercing (except ears); tattooing; the use of illegal substances, alcohol or tobacco; carrying a credit card; and sustaining an unhealthy body weight. Says Doris, "That's the grandma in me coming out."

Another project that the foundation added -- this is the forerunner of today's online course -- was sponsoring college courses about philanthropy, in which students actively investigated local causes to determine which deserved Sunshine Lady grants ranging up to a per-college total of $10,000. Among the 30 or so participants in the course have been University of North Carolina, University of Nebraska, and Georgetown.

MORE: Warren Buffett is bullish ... on women

The new online course (which starts in mid-July) will last for six weeks and provide university and college classes the same chance to give away $10,000, upon their intelligently vetting one or more local charitable causes. Doris Buffett and a second foundation she started in 2011, Learning By Giving -- which she funded with $5 million -- will be the overseers and arbiters of this work. The technology the program needs has meanwhile been supplied by Google's MOOC, which stands for Massive Open Online Course.

Two younger Buffetts are closely involved with the new online program. Doris' grandson, Alex Buffett Rozek, 34, who manages a small Boston investment partnership, is president of the Learning by Giving foundation; Warren's grandson, Howard Warren Buffett, 28, who will be teaching social value investing at Columbia this fall, is on the foundation's board. Rozek has served as a director of the Sunshine Lady Foundation, and the younger Buffett has worked with his father, Howard Graham Buffett, on the latter's eponymous foundation.

The six-week course covers all of the steps that a student requires to make informed judgments about giving away money -- for example, what impact does a charitable organization have on its community and what will be the impact of your money on the organization?  But guest speakers having a hands-on knowledge of philanthropy will also make video appearances -- among them baseball's Cal Ripken Jr. and ice cream's Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield.

The first of these speakers, in the opening week of the course, are Doris and Warren Buffett, who jointly discuss their philanthropic experiences -- Doris white-haired and striking, Warren looking his usual avuncular self. Doris notes that she's businesslike in her giving, but has experienced "incredible joy" in carrying it out. Warren nods understandingly, adding that "helping people achieve their potential is about as good as it gets." And as the video rolls, they peremptorily interrupt each other, just as if they were kids back in Omaha.

 

Lamborghini Launches Limited India Edition Gallardo Sports Car

Six super-sports cars adorned with the colors of the Indian flag will be available to mark the 50th anniversary of the Italian luxury automaker.

NEW DELHI -- Italian super-luxury automaker Automobili Lamborghini rolled out an exclusive limited edition of its Gallardo model sports car Wednesday in Mumbai that was made specifically for the Indian market.

Only six units of the Gallardo LP550-2 India Edition will be available. The car comes in the three colors of the Indian flag: arancio borealis (pearl orange), bianco monocerus (white) and verde ithaca (pearl green). In addition, the supercar is adorned with Indian tricolor stripes that run from the front bonnet to the rear engine bonnet, including over the roof. There is an "India Serie Speciale" plate beside the driver's seat quarter-glass. The car has a predominantly black interior design, with stitching on the driver's seat in verde ulysse (green), on the passenger seat in arancio leonis (orange) and on the doors, center console and dashboard in bianco polar (white).

STORY: Aston Martin Cars Expand India Distribution

The limited-edition car is priced at about $500,000 (30.6 million rupees).

The India edition is part of Lamborghini's 50th anniversary celebration, for which the company has launched various international commemorative models and products. These include a 200-unit limited edition of its Aventador model and a partnership with Car Shoe (owned by Italian fashion group Prada) that produced a limited edition of its famous moccasin: A metal logo for Lamborghini's 50th anniversary features on the lace, and the company shield is enameled on the back and printed on the insole. The moccasin was given to drivers and staff participating in the Lamborghini Grande Giro, in which 350 vintage and modern Lamborghinis drove about 750 miles through Italy from May 7-11 to mark the company's half-century.

STORY: Ferrari Officially Arrives in India

Lamborghini launched in India in 2006. The company said it since has sold 90 cars from two showrooms, one each in Mumbai and Delhi. Celebrity owners include Bollywood actor-producer John Abraham, who recently bought a black Gallardo. "In the last two years alone, we have sold 31 units," Lamborghini India head of operations Pavan Shetty said. "In 2011, Lamborghini sold 14 cars here, while in 2012 the number rose to 17 cars."

One of the six India Edition cars has been sold to a Bangalore-based entrepreneur, according to reports.

During recent years, the luxury super-sports car market in India has seen the arrival of other majors such as Ferrari and Aston Martin.