The New England Patriots have released Defensive Lineman Albert Haynesworth at the mid way point of the 2011 National Football League season.

Haynesworth missed two games due to a back injury. In the six remaining games he had six tackles and zero sacks.

In Haynesworth’s last play, New York Giant Guard David Diehl blocked Haynesworth to open up a hole for Giants Running Back Brandon Jacobs to score a 10-yard touchdown with 9:10 left in the third quarter.

After the play, Patriots Assistant Coach Pepper Johnson and Haynesworth got into a heated discussion.

Haynesworth came to the Patriots after a July 28 trade with the Washington Redskins.  The Patriots gave up a fifth round draft choice in the 2013 NFL draft for Haynesworth.

Haynesworth had signed a 7-year 100 million dollar free agent contract with the Redskins after a successful 2008 season where he played with the Tennessee Titans.

However Haynesworth’s tenure in Washington was rocky as Redskins Coach Mike Shanahan took him out of the starting lineup and suspended him for the final four games of the 2010 season.

Photo by Yarl

Orlando Mega Church pastor Zachery Tims was found dead on Friday in a Times Square Hotel Room in New York.

Tims, the senior pastor of the 8,000 member New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka near Orlando Florida, was 42.

The Wall Street Journal reports that drugs are suspected. The New York Daily News reported that police allegedly found an envelope with white powder in Tims pocket and that he was alone.

An Autopsy performed on Monday was inconclusive and Grace Brugess, spokeswoman for New York Medical Examiner’s Office, told CNN that more tests will be needed to determine cause of death. Toxicology tests could take some time.

In 2009, Tims and his wife Riva Tims divorced when Zachery Tims admitted to an affair with a stripper. Tims had four children with his ex-wife Riva.

Photo by Aaron Escobar

Researchers from University of Queensland, in Brisbane Australia suggest that avid television  watchers may have a shorter lifespan.

In research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine for every hour of TV watched after age 25 ones life is shortened by 22 minutes.

The reason for this link between television watching and a shorter life is controversial.  Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine suggests that it may be due to the sedentary lifestyle required to watch a lot of television.  He said:

“As a rule, the more time we spend watching TV, the more time we spend eating mindlessly in front of the TV, and the less time we spend being physically active, More eating and less physical activity, in turn, mean greater risk for obesity, and the chronic diseases it tends to anticipate, notably diabetes, heart disease and cancer.”

Katz also noted that the connection could be due to loneliness. He said that many who watch excessive amounts of television “are lonely, or isolated, or depressed, and these conditions, in turn, may be the real causes of premature mortality.”

In related news, On Monday, another study from the journal Lancet found that 15 minutes of physical activity a day could increase one’s lifespan by three years.

Photo By Kristan Hutchison (Property of National Science Foundation)

A study, published in the Lancet, indicates that 15 minutes of exercise a day can help inactive people to reduce their risk of death by 14%. This is a major study of 400,000 people that compared inactive people to active people.

The researchers collected data from these 400,000 people in Taiwan over eight years.

In the study, those who exercised an average of 92 minutes per week had a 4% overall reduced risk of mortality compared to the inactive group.

In addition, every additional 15 minutes reduced the risk by 4%.

“These benefits were applicable to all age groups and both sexes, and to those with cardiovascular disease risks,” wrote the researchers in the Lancet. “Individuals who were inactive had a 17% increased risk of mortality compared with individuals in the low-volume group.”

Exercise frequency was self reported, but researches said they took that fact into account in addition to other factors like smoking and drinking.

Photo by Rob DiCaterino

The St. Petersburg medical examiner concluded that former World Wrestling Federation champion Randy “Macho Man” Savage died of natural causes last month.

The former wrestler was involved in an automobile accident on May 20 near Saint Petersburg Florida.  In that accident, Savage crashed his Jeep wrangler into a tree.

However the St Petersburg medical examiner found, in his autopsy, that the automobile accident only caused minor cuts and bruises to the former Slim Jim Spokesman.  The examiner did find that Savage, whose real name is Randy Poffo, had an enlarged heart and hardened coronary arteries.
Savage was inducted into the professional wrestling hall of fame in 2009.  He held the WCW World Heavyweight Championship 4 times and the WWF Championship 2 times.  Perhaps he was best known for being half of the Tag Team “Mega Powers.”  Hulk Hogan who was the other half of the combination tweeted that he was devastated by the loss.

Randy Savage was 58 years old.

Nine months after providing Netflix services to iPhone; Neftlix has created an app that will work on five Android phones.  These phones are the HTC incredible, EVO 4G, Nexus One, G2, and Samsung Nexus S.

“We are thrilled to announce that we have begun to roll out a Netflix application for the Android platform.  We are making the free app available for download from Android Market. ” Wrote Roma De from the product team of Netflix.  “The Market download will initially be available only on select phones that currently have the requisite playback support. We expect to quickly add to the number of phones that can download from Android Market as we work with ecosystem partners to expand playback support.”

While the app is free, users must subscribe to the Netflix service to gain access to the streaming movies and television programs.

The Android operating system runs on a number of phones from different manufacturers.  This multiplicity of hardware devices makes it difficult to write the software needed to stream movies to phone users.

De wrote on the Netflix blog: “One of these challenges is the lack of standard streaming playback features that the Netflix application can use to gain broad penetration across all available Android phones. In the absence of standardization, we have to test each individual handset and launch only on those that can support playback.”

While there are difficulties, De anticipates that “in the coming months” Netflix will be available on”a large majority of Android phones.”

Former CEO of General Motors, Robert C Stempel, better known as Bob Stempel died on Saturday at the age of 77. Bob Stempel joined General Motors as an engineer in 1958 and worked his way up. He was CEO of General Motors from 1990-1992 and the president of the company from 1987 to 1990. He quit the company in 1992 after a boardroom argument. His latest work involved electric cars and high technology batteries amongst other automobile engineering interests.

“The General Motors family mourns the passing of Bob Stempel, who admirably led the company during very difficult times in the early 1990s,” a statement released by the company on Monday read. “Bob was a very popular chairman with employees, and his many accomplishments as a visionary engineer included leading the development of the catalytic converter, one of the great environmental advancements in auto history.”

“His knowledge of battery development led to the push for the EV1 electric car, and Bob continued to build his expertise in the electrification of the automobile after he left GM in 1992,” the statement adds. Stempel is attributed to developing the front-wheel-drive Toronado at Olds.

Apart from his work as an automobile engineer, Stempel is widely known for the 1975 incident when his son Timothy was kidnapped. Though he was unharmed as was rescued after two days from the trunk of a car, the Stempel family came to the public limelight. After his stint with General Motors, he became an adviser to Energy Conversion Devices.

Though Stempel’s cause of death is unclear, unconfirmed reports reveal that he was hospitalized recently in West Palm Beach, close to where his family home is. Along with his wife, Pat, Bob Stempel also owned a horse farm in Oxford, Michigan and a second home in Loxahatchee.

Chrysler, in a press statement has announced the launch of eight custom grilles and six wheel design packaged for the 2011 Chrysler 300. The company’s flagship sedan owners will have the options to choose from the customizable and personalized car additions. The parts will be manufactured by Mopar, which distributed approximately 280,000 parts and accessories in more than 90 countries, which include parts for Jeep, Dodge, Ram and Fiat apart from Chrysler.

The release elucidates that while the biller aluminum made grilles will cost owners anywhere in between $310 and $710, the wheels, which will be available in 18-inch, 19-inch and 20-inch designs will cost owners $265 to $610.

“Mopar is offering a full menu of grilles and wheels for those looking to customize and personalize their all-new Chrysler 300,” said Pietro Gorlier, President and CEO of Mopar, Chrysler Group LLC. “By itself, the Chrysler 300 makes a statement. Our grilles and wheels provide exclamation points. And unlike other aftermarket offerings, our grilles are specifically tested for aero, cooling and thermal, and our wheels are specifically designed and tested for durability and impact.”

Though being manufactured by Mopar, the designs for the grilles have been made by Chrysler to ensure perfect fit. The press release lists out the grille options: “The selection includes a 13-bar grille and a diamond-pattern grille, both constructed of billet aluminum. Both grilles are chrome-plated and polished to a high luster. The 13-bar grille features narrow horizontal, 5mm blades patterned within the traditional Chrysler 300 grille shape that first defined the model more than 55 years ago. The diamond-pattern grille features 154 individual diamond shapes and has a high-chrome polish.”

Owners of the 2011 Chrysler 300 can now choose from the custom range of grilles and wheels to make their cars stand out from the crowd.

In an attempt to reduce the energy expenses, social networking giant Facebook has announced the launch of its Open Compute Project. With this initiative, Facebook will be able to “share the custom-engineered technology in its first dedicated data center in Prineville, Oregon”. When the technology underwent trial, it recorded a 38 per cent increase in energy efficiency at 24 per cent lower costs for the company, according to their press release. According to Facebook, “If a quarter of the data center capacity in the U.S. were built on Open Compute Project specifications, it would save enough energy to power more than 160,000 homes.”

“Facebook and our development partners have invested tens of millions of dollars over the past two years to build upon industry specifications to create the most efficient computing infrastructure possible,” said Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of technical operations at Facebook. “These advancements are good for Facebook, but we think they could benefit all companies. Today we’re launching the Open Compute Project, a user-led forum, to share our designs and collaborate with anyone interested in highly efficient server and data center designs. We think it’s time to demystify the biggest capital expense of an online business — the infrastructure.”

According to Facebook’s Open Compute Project, it is not only about energy savings but also about severs sans non-essential parts like paints and logos. According to the company, the frills free servers have saved more than 6 pounds of materials per server, which is a huge saving for a large organization like Facebook.

Facebook has attracted industry support as well. The company press release quotes industry experts. “Companies with extreme computing needs continue to seek innovative technology that extends the boundaries of what is possible today while challenging their partners to reach new lows in energy usage. HP is looking forward to working with Facebook on the Open Compute Project to increase power efficiency in the most intense computing environments where performance is critical,” says Greg Huff, Chief Technology Officer, Industry Standard Servers and Software, HP.

Photo by M 93

American Honda Motor Company has announced an increase of 5.7 per cent in sales in 2011. While the total car sales for Honda went up from 113,697 (April 2010) to 124,799 (April 2011), the sales numbers for trucks went up from 66,547 to 73,709 (an increase of 6.7 per cent).

Amongst details, the Honda press release details the numbers. “Record-breaking April sales of the CR-V, Fit and Insight pushed April sales of the Honda Division monthly sales to 113,195, an increase of 5.9 percent versus April 2010. The CR-V crossover utility vehicle was up 25.3 percent for the month to an April record of 21,683. Sales of the sub-compact Fit increased by 66.3 percent to an April record of 8,116 and the Insight hybrid increased by 35.4 percent to an April record of 2,644 units. Sales of Honda cars increased 6.7 percent overall for the month to 67,536, with Accord and Civic selling 30,310 and 26,777, respectively, for April,” it read.

“Acura Division April 2011 sales increased 4.2 percent to 11,604 compared to April 2010. The MDX luxury sport utility vehicle led the division with sales of 3,912, an increase of 1.4 percent over April 2010.”

“Honda had another very strong month led by Accord, Civic and CR-V. In fact, sales of the versatile and refined Honda CR-V, America’s best-selling SUV, broke records for the third consecutive month,” said John Mendel, executive vice president of sales for American Honda.

“While our current dealer supply of vehicles remains adequate, we know that production constraints may start to affect sales into the summer months. However, we are working closely with our dealers, and together we are committed to continue our focus to support the needs of our customers,” he added.