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Mercedes-Benz GL320 BlueTEC beats EPA mpg

We were recently given the opportunity to take the 2009 Mercedes-Benz GL320 BlueTEC on a long-distance road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles and back. While this seven seated behemoth was probably not the best vehicle to transport one journalist across the state of California, we figured this long trip down Interstate 5 would be a good opportunity to see how close the fuel-efficient diesel powerplant could get to its EPA estimated mileage.

The powerplant in question is a 3.0-L turbodiesel V-6 that outputs 210 horsepower and a beefy 398 pound-feet of torque. The engine sends its power through a seven-speed adaptive automatic transmission to Mercedes-Benz's 4MATIC permanent all-wheel drive system. Keeping the diesel's emissions clean is an AdBlue injection system that scrubs up to 80 percent of NOx from the exhaust gases. Greenies will be happy to know that the BlueTEC diesel is also approved for use with B5 biodiesel.… Read more

Dictionary.com's iPhone game tests ur spelling

Since launching its Dictionary.com app for iPhone and iPod Touch in early April, the folks over at Dictionary.com have been plotting other iPhone applications that use the tools they've got: grammatical, orthographic, synonymic authority. And while they're at it, maybe duplicate the numerical success of their reference app, which has floated among the iTunes Top 10 since its launch, and which hit more than a million downloads within the first three weeks.

The conduit of such lofty ambitions is Miss Spell's Class, a 99-cent app that despite its name, letter-grade scoring, and nostalgic background of college-ruled paper, Dictionary.com insists is aimed at their core demographic of high school and university students, and business professionals.

The app is straightforward. You quickly decide which of the 20 words in the round are spelled correctly or incorrectly. Points are knocked off for inaccuracy, and added to your total time. If it takes you 40 seconds to go through the list, but you get two wrong, your score spikes up to 60 seconds, a B. So save the pokiness for reviewing your score and for kicking yourself for casual errors.

The game is cute all right, and a test to the ego in the way that SATs and other standardized tests are--taunting in their simplicity, and debasing when you miss a word you ought to know. At least you're not alone--the misspellings that are your object to spot are siphoned straight from the top 5,000 botched words entered into Dictionary.com at a rate of 2 million typos and flubs per month.

Still, there are a few light raps of the ruler we'd make. In a test game, 'consiencious' was paired with 'consensus', rather than with 'conscientious'. Apart from that, we're not quite convinced the game will make us more intelligent, until Dictionary.com slips in definitions, and perhaps the pronunciation guide from the free Dictionary.com iPhone app. Miss Spell's Class is also a bit one-dimensional. Although this game title is just the beginning, we'd like to see it instilled with different skill levels and playing modes, where you might actively spell a word, not just passively review it, or quickly choose the right configuration from a handful of choices. There should be different skins to pull in the grade-school youngsters, old fogeys, and tweens who are too cool for school, and competitions over Wi-Fi.… Read more

Free Stanford iPhone developer course at iTunes U

If you're anxious to develop your own iPhone app, don't know where to start, and find high-pedigree university instruction appealing, consider learning the art of the iPhone from Stanford University. You won't need a high-school degree to take the class--the school's Computer Science Department has begun posting material from its 10-week iPhone Application Programming course in iTunes U.

"There's a lot of interest in the iPhone," said Brent Izutsu, Stanford's project manager for Stanford on iTunes U, in the university's press release. "This course provides an excellent opportunity for us … Read more

Mercedes-Benz applies AMG formula to the E Class (video)

The 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG is to BMW's M5 what the C63 is to the M3, so the logic goes.

Mercedes sticks to the AMG formula of transplanting the 6.2-liter V-8 into the all-new E Class and boosting the power to 518 horsepower, but strays slightly with the addition of a new seven-speed dual clutch transmission.

Mercedes-Benz E-Class gets sexier coupe model

Mercedes-Benz has revealed photos of the all-new Mercedes-Benz coupe just three months after the reveal of the sedan version. The Coupe is set to bow at the 2009 Geneva auto show.

The E-Class coupe is positioned to be a sort of jack-of-all-trades sports coupe with an initial line-up of five engines, three suspension variants, a wide choice of colors, six different wheel/tire combinations, and many optional extras.

Click here for even more details and photos of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class coupe.

Apple reaches $22.5 million settlement in Nano scratch suit

Apple has reached a $22.5 million settlement agreement in the class action iPod Nano scratch lawsuit and potential claimants began receiving settlement notices this week, according to the plaintiffs attorney.

The lawsuit, filed in October 2005 in a California Superior Court in Los Angeles County, alleges Apple's iPod Nano is prone to scratches and its alleged defects were not disclosed by the company.

A $22.5 million cash settlement agreement was reached in late October and a court has preliminarily approved the agreement, said the plaintiffs attorney. But it wasn't until this week that notices of the … Read more

Royal Navy goes with 'Windows for Subs'

Bucking the open-source trend, the British Royal Navy has developed a modified version of Microsoft Windows XP and has begun installing it on its fleet of nuclear submarines.

The new Submarine Command System Next Generation (SMCS NG) employs standard multifunction consoles with double LCD screens, linked with "commercial grade" cables and software to internal Ethernet local area networks (LANs) aboard each sub.

Ever thrifty, the spit-and-baling-wire Brits went with Windows in part because it was cheaper to maintain. The use of commercial off-the-shelf technology is expected to save the U.K. taxpayers up to $32 million over the … Read more