Kimi Raikkonen's ice driving in Russia

Kimi Raikkonen lived up to his name "The Iceman" as he and Caterham F1 driver Charles Pic stared in an ice race in Russia. The phlegmatic Iceman is not a man to turn down the chance to drive something unusual, and just hours after wrapping up the second Formula One test in Barcelona, the Finn was on a plane to Russia to take part in the ice race.

Raikkonen was competing, along with Charles Pic, at The Race of Stars, a Russian ice-racing event that's the frozen equivalent of the Race of Champions, and which has previously hosted guest stars including F1 Champion Alain Prost, David Coulthard and Sebastien Loeb.

The F1 pair initially battled each other in Renault Dusters, with Raikkonen's World Rally Championship experience helping him to easily overcome the young Frenchman, who was on his first outing on ice.

The pair then switched to Renault Logans to take turns at beating Russian World Touring Car driver Kirill Ladygin in a two-way shootout around the Moscow track. But the Russian proved too strong in his natural habitat for either driver to overcome and notched up a fourth successive win in the race.

"It's nice to have fans from here and hopefully they will come when a race will be here," said Raikkonen, referring to the plans of having a Russian Grand Prix on the F1 2014 calendar.

Raikkonen will return to Barcelona on Thursday, Feb 29 for the third and final pre-season F1 testing, ahead of the first race of the 2013 season in Melbourne which kick starts on March 17th.

Paddy Lowe leaves McLaren to join Mercedes F1 team

McLaren's technical director, Paddy Lowe, will not be in Melbourne, Australia with the team for the opening Formula 1 race of the season on 17 March and will join Mercedes at the end of the season.

Last month, the Mercedes team principal, Ross Brawn, responding to questions about his own future with the German team, categorically denied Lowe would be joining as long as he remained in charge.

He said: "Paddy is not coming. I want to see how things go before I make a final long-term commitment. If I choose to leave the team then Paddy will come. We've got a plan. We have a fall-back plan. It's as simple as that."

But McLaren today announced that Paddy Lowe's move to Mercedes is a done deal and he will be replaced with Tim Goss immediately. Lowe will join Lewis Hamilton in time to oversee the massive changes for 2014, when the engines will downsize from V8s to V6 1.6 litre turbo charged units.

Lowe's arrival will not necessarily lead to Brawn's departure. It now seems that tensions between Brawn and the team's new non-executive chairman, the occasionally fractious Niki Lauda, have eased under the calming influence of Toto Wolff, who joined Mercedes as the director of motorsport from Williams at the start of the year, replacing Norbert Haug, and has since battled to establish stability. That has been his repeated theme. Wolff recognises that his arrival, together with that of Lauda and Hamilton, has created enough turbulence at the team's Brackley headquarters.

Lowe will continue to be employed by McLaren through 2013, in accordance with his contract. But he is not expected to be seen around the team and "will be performing a different role" within the organisation, according to the team principal Martin Whitmarsh, albeit undefined and understood to be away from grands prix weekends. The last thing McLaren want is Lowe taking their secrets to Mercedes.

However, the future of Brawn will remain the subject of speculation. He will be 60 next year and unless Mercedes make significant progress by then he is likely to move on, with Lowe taking charge of technical operations.

Brawn is a wealthy man who enjoyed phenomenal success, first with Benetton, then Scuderia Ferrari and then with his very own Brawn GP team, which Mercedes took over at the end of 2009 season. He has nothing to prove. When Mercedes moved in, Brawn and the chief executive officer, Nick Fry, sold their shares. Lauda's share ownership amounts to 10%. But Wolff, with 30%, is the dominant figure.

The departure of Lowe is another blow for McLaren, who had already lost their star driver, Lewis Hamilton, to the same team.McLaren are under immense pressure to produce wins this year after a disappointing in  2012 season. They started and finished the 2012 season with the quickest car, which was also often the best in the course of the season.

They also had Lewis Hamilton, the fastest man on the grid driving at the peak with all his powers. Yet they contrived not to win either the drivers' or the constructors' championship and also to lose the services of the man who remains the sport's top box-office attraction.

McLaren also have a headache with their engine supplier next year. Their contract with Mercedes expires next year. After the 2013 season, Mclaren will just be a team like Force India for engine. But Mercedes, making their own engines, will have a massive advantage to build their car around the new Turbo V6 engine and so will Ferrari and Red Bull Renault.

Meanwhile McLaren are considering another engine supplier for 2014 or 2015. And that could well mean a return for Japanese Honda, renewing a partnership that served them so well in the ultra successful era of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

K.V.Anand to direct Superstar Rajinikanth next film

The latest buzz in Kollywood is that K V Anand of Ko fame will be dircting Superstar Rajinikanth's next film. Eros International which is producing Superstar current project "Kochadaiyaan" will be producing this film as well. The news has been confirmed by Kamal Jain, the chief financial officer of Eros International in a recent interview.

Rajini's on going "Kochadaiyaan", directed by his daughter Soundharya is in its final stages and is gearing up for summer release. Bollywood Diva Deepika Padukone will share the screen with Superstar this time. Sarath kumar, Aadhi, Rukmani, Nasaar form the rest of the crew. Rajini will then commence "Raana" to be directed by K.S.Ravikumar.

There has been a lot of speculation on who will direct Rajini post "Rana". Shankar, A.R.Murugadoss, K.V.Anand and Rajamouli were said to be hot favourites, ready with the script. And finally K.V.Anand has been roped in to helm the project. K.V.Anand has already worked with Rajini in Shankar's Sivaji as Cinematographer. Rajini apparently likes Anand's lens and lights work.

However, when contacted K.V.Anand, he stated that he has not signed on the dotted line yet. He says, "As of now, I'm working on three different subjects with three script writers. Three production houses are in touch with me, and I've approached three heroes for each subject. Depending on the availability of dates, I will sign my next film. I will get a clearer picture in the next 20 days."

Sony Launches PS4!

Japanese electronic giant Sony has announced its next-generation gaming console, the PS4, PlayStation 4, at an event in New York City. The new gaming console will succeed the PS3, which went on sale in 2006 and has sold about 75 million units worldwide.

The Sony PS4 will eventually compete against Microsoft's still-to-be-unveiled Xbox 360 successor and Nintendo's Wii U. PS4 will not have any boot-up time according to system architect Mark Cerny. Pressing "on" will bring you directly to the home screen.

PS4's new hardware is designed to offer extreme graphics as well as new features such as sharing of recorded gameplay clips.Meanwhile, downloads can take place in the background, even while the system is off / playing games.

The system will also go much further than current generation systems toward integrating a social media experience. There's a great deal of talk about a social network for games. I get the feeling that Sony is hammering home social a bit too hard, though it's possible that the new "Share" button on the PS4 controller will allow Sony to really push eSports.

Interestingly, you will also be able to hand over control of your game to people remotely via the Share button as well, or send in drops (such as health packs) via the social system. Better than any talk of social, the PlayStation Store will now include every possible title as a digital download According to Gaikai's David Perry.

The Vita will also be tightly integrated with the PS4. "Our long-term goal is to make every PS4 title playable on the Vita," says Perry. Sony is also working on a long-term goal to make the entire catalog of PS3 games available on any device, according to Perry. Ideally they will make all PS1 and PS2 games available as well.

Sony also confirmed a range of big-name software for the machine including Bungie's upcoming "shared-world shooter" Destiny, which will include exclusive content for the PS4. According to the report, Sony said the console 'coming holiday 2013' suggesting it will go on sale in at least some countries in or around December. It did not give any indication of its price nor did it show what the console would look like, the report added.

Robert Kubica loses seat to Daniel Juncadella in Mercedes DTM 2013

Robert Kubica will not join the DTM 2013 season after Mercedes announced a six-car 2013 line-up with European Formula 3 champion Daniel Juncadella.

Last month, the Pole tested one of the German marque's cars, with Mercedes newly appointed Toto Wolff saying it was a "proper test in a proper race car".

"Let's see how it goes," said Mercedes' new motor racing director.

While now successful in lower-tier rallying, former Renault and BMW driver Kubica is still unable to drive a powerful single seater due to the limitations of his right arm, which was almost severed in an early 2011 rally crash.

Mercedes announced on Wednesday that it has entered six German DTM cars in the 2013 series, but none of them will be raced by Robert Kubica.

Instead, Mercedes' lineup features Micheal Schumacher's bro Ralf Schumacher, Gary Paffett, Roberto Merhi, Christian Vietoris, Robert Wickens and Formula 3 champion Daniel Juncadella.

The marque said Mercedes F1 driver Nico Rosberg will mentor the youngsters.

"I am looking forward to following their progress this season and can maybe give the young guns a tip or two," he said.

Formula 1 Pre-season Testing Live timings Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Click here to find out the Formula 1 Pre-season Testing Live timings Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Microsoft launches Outlook.com Features stuns rivals

Microsoft made a huge leap in its effort to take on Google's Gmail. The company's new flagship product Outlook.com, a free Internet email service, has grown to 60 million users since its launch at the end of July, 2012.

A third of the 60 million users represented users who switched from Gmail to Outlook.com owing to its clear, easy to use,  fast user interface, exciting tools for maintaining a spam-free inbox, integrations with other social networking sites and built in viewers for things like videos and documents. To further boost its growth, Microsoft also removed the beta tags from Outlook.com and made it open to the public last weekend.

You can get your own account at Outlook.com, with a new @outlook.com email address. Users of Hotmail will also benefit from Outlook.com's features: They can simply log in at Outlook.com to get the new interface, and if they don't, they'll be updated automatically by summer 2013.  Existing users of Hotmail, MSN Mail, and Windows Live Mail will still be able to keep their @hotmail, @live, or @msn addresses, even though they'll be using the improved interface.


Taking Hotmail as its foundation the new webmail design echoes the clean, simple look of Microsoft's major re-thinking of its flagship OS product, Windows 8.

Features that makes Outlook.com say a "WOW!":

• Allows attachments of size up to 300MB, compared to Gmail's 25MB.
• Ad-free webmail services - Microsoft does not scan the contents of your mail to display ads.
• Right-panel, with the mail sender's images from a connected social network, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to view the mailer's latest tweet, Facebook profile.
• Keyboard shortcuts - One new very handy shortcut is /, which takes you to the search box. Similarly, Tab key now takes you to the Send button when you're composing.
• A preview panel which separates the inbox from the preview below - something not offered in Gmail.
• Right-click menu choices for replying, forwarding, and so on.
• 'Instant Actions' show up as icons next to a message's subject when you hover the mouse over it, letting you mark the message as read/unread, delete it, or flag it. 
• Outlook has all of Hotmail's slick integrations—photos, videos, and documents can all be viewed right in the inbox. This includes viewing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents without launching the Office app in question.
• Well-designed, black-framed Image viewer letting you play slideshows on-page whether the images were attached to your incoming email or simply linked to from a photo sharing site like Flickr.
• Multiple Inboxes -  Allows you to hook Gmail(or other mail services). As well as just reading mail from all the connected accounts, you can send from any of them within Outlook.com, simply by choosing your From address from a dropdown in the new mail view.

Nico Rosberg's Mercedes quickest F1 pre-season test at Barcelona

Mercedes Nico Rosberg took the top spot on the opening day of the second pre-season test in Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain on Tuesday.
The Mercedes driver managed to clock 1:22.616 a lap, just seven thousandths quicker than Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus.
Both times came on the medium compound tyre toward the end of the session after Sebastian Vettel had led for much of the morning, before dropping to fourth behind Fernando Alonso.
The Spaniard made the most of his first day behind the wheel of the F138 by posting 110 laps, almost 30 more than his nearest rival.
Pastor Maldonado who debuted the new Williams FW35 for the first time went fifth fastest with a lap just over 1.1 seconds slower than Rosberg.
The session saw two red flags thanks to Esteban Gutierrez' s low fuel run, which saw him stop on circuit. Meanwhile Charles Pic stopped with a mechanical issue. He finished 11th behind Max Chilton in the Marussia.

Rafael Nadal loses in Chile Open Final

Clay King Rafael Nadal suffered a shock defeat in the final of the Chile Open to Argentina's Horacio Zeballos last night. The Spaniard comeback tournament after seven months out with a torn tendon in his left knee.

The Spaniard was an overwhelming favourite in Vina del Mar against the world no.73. But Zeballos looked every bit the equal of the seven-time French Open champion.

It was only the fifth singles final Nadal has lost on clay to go with 36 victories and he had looked on course to make that 37 after winning the first set on a tiebreak.

However Zeballos, 27, claimed a tight second-set tiebreak and then took the decider 6-4 to win the first singles title of his 10-year career 6-7, 7-6, 6-4.

Nadal will continue his comeback this week in the Brazil Open in Sao Paulo, and later this month plays again on clay in Acapulo, Mexico all aimed at getting him ready for a run at this eighth French Open title.

Petro De la Rosa's debut for Ferrari short lived as F138 catches fire

It was a dramatic Ferrari debut for veteran Pedro De La Rosa when, after just two installation laps, he was forced to stop his F138 due to a fire under the engine cover on the fourth and final day of Formula 1 testing at Jerez, Spain.

Ferrari wrote on Twitter: "Difficult start of the day for De La Rosa: F138 stopped on track after the second installation lap."

The incident took place just over an hour into the morning session.

On 16 January 2013, Petro de la Rosa was announced as the Ferrari development and reserve driver for the 2013 Formula 1 season.

Kimi Raikkonen splits up with Jenni Dahlman

Kimi Raikkonen has split with his beauty queen wife after almost nine years of marriage.
During his earlier days as a McLaren driver, the Icemen married the then Miss Scandinavia Jenni Dahlman in 2004.

The Finnish entertainment magazine 7 Paivaa reports that they have split.
"It's true, they have grown in different directions," confirmed the now Lotus driver's personal assistant Ridu Kuvaja, according to Finnish daily Ilta Sanomat.

The newspaper has reported that Jenni moved out of their $40 million home in Switzerland several weeks ago.

Broadcaster MTV3 reports that divorce could be "very expensive" for Kimi Raikkonen, given his estimated fortune is more than $160-million, including a portfolio of properties.

Viswaroopam Movie Review

After watching Viswaroopam, one thing that kept on poping in my mind is why the hell the movie was dragged into so much controversies by some people. This will be the mindset of almost everyone who watches the film.

Viswaroopam is a first of its kind film in Tamil Cinema. The making of the film is very rich, stylish and cinematography by Sanu Varghese makes this film a action-spy thriller with international standards in true sense. Kamal Hassan excels as an actor, director and writer in this film.

The plot of the film is how a life of an ordinary couple changes when one hires a detective to spy the other and they get involved in extra-ordinary situations when the detective gets killed by a terrorist gang. The film has two tracks one Kamal Hassan's past and the other present in America.

The entire film takes shot in US and Afghanistan and it is made to portray in a very authentic way. Kamal Hassan has worked very well on the screenplay, the film is rightly paced once when all the elements of plot get untied we are thrown into a thrill ride. As a director he has skillfully etched each and every frame of the film which is evident right from the title card.

Every shot in the film is important and Kamal has conveyed a lot of messages visually rather than through dialogues which is very noteworthy in the entire Afghan sequence.

All the actors have done a very good job. Rahul Bose, Pooja Kumar, Andreah, Nasser and rest of the cast come through as the characters very well. The guest appearance by Shekar Kapur is well utilized.

This film is a sure multiple times watchable film, do catch it only in Theatres and DTH, a film of this kind needs the support of the audience.

Pros: Cinematography, Kamal Hassan performance, Rahul Bose acting, Rich Production values

Cons: Moderate visual effects, Music & Background Score, Screenplay

Verdict:- It’s a Kamal Show all the way as an Actor, Writer and Director. His guts to choose a movie on terrorism is appreciable, but he failed in executing the movie in a more convincing way to get it accepted by all section of audiences.

Happy Birthday Facebook!!!

Today marks the 9th birthday of Facebook, a social media giant so ubiquitous that it seems it must have been around forever instead of less than a decade.

Facebook has grown from a handful of users in 2004 to more than one billion active users(as of September 2012), more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device and more than 4,000 employees as of December 2012.

Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes in a dorm room. It was originally intended to serve just the university's student population.

Zuckerberg originally named it as "Facemash," but, thankfully, the name evolved.

Later, membership included other colleges and universities in the greater Boston area. From there, it expanded to all colleges and universities, then to all high schools and, finally, to anyone in the world over the age of 13.

The statistics on Facebook are staggering, usually measured in terms of millions and billions at the end of 2012:

• 618 million - daily online users.
• 680 million - monthly online users who use FB mobile products.
• 30 billion - pieces of information are shared each month.
• 250 million - photos are uploaded daily.
• 700 minutes - Facebook user spends at the site per month
• 1 million - links are shared every 20 minutes
• 2 million - Friend requests are made every 20 minutes
• 3 million - messages are sent every 20 minutes
• 165 million - Users in United States (most users per nation)
• About 70 percent of all Facebook users are outside the U.S.

Needless to say, Facebook's pervasive presence has its supporters and detractors.

Facebook is either a heaven sent platform for linking the world together or a tool of the devil designed to eliminate privacy and fracture national cohesiveness.

Pepsi IPL 6 auctions - Aussies Hot Favourites - Glenn Maxwell Top Paid

The lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) auction started this morning with bang. Mumbai Indians paid a whopping $1 million (Rs.5.3 crore) to get Aussie all-rounder Glenn Maxwell had a base price of $200,000 to play for their side.

While MI also bought the retired Australian skipper Ricky Ponting for base price of $400,000 (Rs.2.1 crore), Vijay Mallaya owned, Bangalore-based Royal Challengers paid the same amount to cement the place of Indian pacer RP Singh in its squad. Pune Warriors bought current Australian skipper Michael Clarke for base price of $400,000 (Rs.2.1 crore).

Delhi Daredevils paid a whopping Rs2.3 crore for South African all-rounder Johan Botha. Aussie batsman Luke Pomersbach, who had a base price of $50,000, was bought for Rs.1.5 crore by Kings XI Punjab.

Australian all-rounder James Faulkner, with a base price of $100,000, was bought for four times that amount (Rs.2.1 crore)by Rajasthan Royals, while Indian all-rounder Abhishek Nayar would play for Pune Warriors for a fee of Rs.3.5 crore ($675,000).