international

DETROIT--Volkswagen has been much better known for its high-mileage diesel models than hybrids. Yet here at the 2013 North American International Auto Show, VW showed a concept car featuring a new transmission that will let it turn almost any car in its lineup into a hybrid. The company also showed a new, more efficient direct-injection 1.8-liter engine making 250 horsepower.

The CrossBlue concept, a diesel hybrid, relies on what VW board member Ulrich Hackenberg referred to as an eDSG in an interview with CNET. The eDSG is a new version of VW's Dual Shift Gearbox (DSG), a transmission … Read more

Twitter has been pushing into the international market by making its service available on feature phones, according to Bloomberg.

The move comes as users in the U.S. are topping off and the microblogging service has to expand its boundaries in search of new members.

One of the ways Twitter is gaining new users is by partnering with wireless carriers in different countries that let people tweet on feature phones for free or for the cost of a text message. For example, the social network is now working with Turkish carrier Turkcell, according to Bloomberg. The partnership lets users tweet … Read more

This was the year of Internet activism with a sharp political point to it: Protests drove a stake through the heart of a Hollywood-backed digital copyright bill, helped derail a United Nations summit, and contributed to the demise of a proposed data-sharing law.

In 2012, when Internet users and companies flexed their political muscles, they realized they were stronger than they had thought. It amounted to a show of force not seen since the political wrangling over implanting copy-protection technology in PCs a decade ago, or perhaps since those blue ribbons that appeared on Web sites in the mid-1990s in … Read more

Braving Arctic temperatures and a brutal wind chill, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft roared to life and streaked smoothly into orbit today, carrying a veteran three-man crew on a two-day flight to the International Space Station.

With commander Roman Romanenko at the controls, the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft climbed away from its launching stand at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:12 a.m. ET (6:12 p.m. local time), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit.

Trailing a fiery jet of brilliant orange exhaust, the workhorse rocket arced … Read more

Apple's iPhone does not infringe on a sensor patent held by Motorola Mobility, a judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission said today.

In an initial determination, ITC Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender said Apple's iPhone did not infringe on a patent covering proximity sensor technology, because the main claim in that patent is invalid.

The ruling is preliminary and needs to be approved by the ITC's full six-member commission.

"We're disappointed with this outcome and are evaluating our options," a Motorola representative told Bloomberg, which reported the news Tuesday afternoon.

The spat … Read more

news analysis When the history of early 21st century Internet politicking is written, the meltdown of a United Nations summit last week will mark the date a virtual Cold War began.

In retrospect, the implosion of the Dubai summit was all but foreordained: it pitted nations with little tolerance for human rights against Western democracies which, at least in theory, uphold those principles. And it capped nearly a decade of behind-the-scenes jockeying by a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, created in 1865 to coordinate telegraph connectivity, to gain more authority over how the Internet is managed.

It … Read more

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On this episode of Crave, we check out the Burrito Bomber engineered by Darwin Aerospace that literally bombs burritos into geo-tagged locations. We also get some NASA reassurance that the world may not end this month, which means we may actually get the chance to wear Lacoste's awesome polo shirts of the future. Also, dogs that drive? Yep. … Read more

In a stunning repudiation of a United Nations summit, an alliance of Western democracies including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada today rejected a proposed treaty over concerns it hands repressive governments too much authority over the Internet.

"This conference was never meant to focus on Internet issues," said ambassador Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. delegation to the Dubai summit. "The Internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years -- all without U.N. regulation."

Delegates from the Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, the Philippines, … Read more

Foxconn International Holdings, another manufacturing division at Hon Hai that hasn't reached the same success as Foxconn Technology Group, is getting a new chairman.

The company's board of directors announced (PDF) today that Samuel Chin, its current executive director and chairman, will retire on January 1 to spend more time with his family. Tong Wen-hsin, another company director, will replace Chin as chairman. However, Chin will stay on an adviser to the chairman for 12 months.

"The company would like to take this opportunity to express its gratitude to Mr. Chin for his valuable contribution to the … Read more