The world’s tallest man, Bao Xishun today shook hands with He Pingping who claims to be Earth’s shortest.

While Mr Xishun, 56, towers above everyone at an astonishing 7.9ft, 19-year-old Mr Pingping is a mere 2.4ft high.

Bao Xishun, a herdsman from Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, was recently married in a traditional ceremony to a 28-year-old saleswoman from his hometown. At 5ft 6″ Xia Shujian only comes up to his elbow and is half his age.

He claims he was of normal height until he was 16 when he experienced a growth spurt and reached his present height seven years later.

Mr Xishun was confirmed as the tallest person by the Guinness Book of Records last year.

Mr Pingping was born nearby in Wulanchabu city, Inner Mongolia. His father claims he was only the size of an adult’s palm at birth.

He is now seeking to be registered as the world’s shortest man by the Guinness Book of Recrods. He could be in for a disappointment though. While Mr Pingping is 73cms tall, the current holder of the title Lin Yih-Chih was measured as 67.5cm.

Daily Mail

Last week, Google acquired one of the companies we featured, New York City’s GrandCentral. Though no details of the deal were released, TechCrunch, the famed technology news site, estimated the deal was in the $50 million range.

GrandCentral will continue to remain entirely free as they work with Google to add capacity, work out any kinks, fix bugs, and add a ton more great features.

Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today’s standard cable modems.

The new cable technology is crucial because the industry is competing with a speedy new offering called FiOS, a TV and Internet service that Verizon Communications Inc. is selling over a new fiber-optic network. The top speed currently available through FiOS is 50 megabits per second, but the network is already capable of providing 100 Mbps and the fiber lines offer nearly unlimited potential.

The technology, called DOCSIS 3.0, was developed by the cable industry’s research arm, Cable Television Laboratories. It bonds together four cable lines but is capable of allowing much more capacity. The laboratory said last month it expected manufacturers to begin submitting modems for certification under the standard by the end of the year.

In the presentation, ARRIS Group Inc. chief executive Robert Stanzione downloaded a 30-second, 300-megabyte television commercial in a few seconds and watched it long before a standard modem worked through an estimated download time of 16 minutes.

Stanzione also downloaded the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster’s visual dictionary in under four minutes, when it would have taken a standard modem three hours and 12 minutes.

“If you look at what just happened, 55 million words, 100,000 articles, more than 22,000 pictures, maps and more than 400 video clips,” Roberts said. “The same download on dial-up would have taken two weeks.”

AP

As confidence in military and White House leadership continues sliding, Americans are gaining confidence in the country’s small business leaders.

When asked how much confidence they have in leaders of a range of public and private institutions, 54% expressed a “great deal” of confidence in leaders of small business, a new Harris Interactive poll found. That put the small business sector atop the list of institutions in which respondents expressed the most confidence. The military came second with 46%, and major educational and medical institutions came next, with each sector notching 37%. The telephone poll of 1,013 Americans was conducted Feb. 6-12.

Though military leadership had the second-largest percentage of respondents expressing a great deal of confidence, that figure has slipped substantially from 2002’s high of 71%. Likewise, the percentage of those expressing a great deal of confidence in White House leaders has slipped from its post-Sept. 11 high of 50% in 2002, to 22% in 2007.

Confidence in the leaders from other public sectors has been slipping as well. The percentage with a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court dropped from 33% in 2006 to 27% this year. Over the same time period, the support for leadership of organized religion shed three percentage points, going from 30% to 27%.

Outside of small business, the captains of corporate America and Wall Street also saw growing shares of respondents with a great deal of confidence. The percentage of those with a great deal of confidence in Wall Street leadership edged up from 15% to 17% between 2006 and 2007. And “major companies” gained three points, going from 13% to 16% during the same period.

startupjournal.com

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Start-up Skybus Airlines sold 97,000 seats in its first day, selling out its $10 one-way tickets on flights from Fort Lauderdale to Columbus, Ohio through August.

The Columbus-based airline is awaiting Federal Aviation Administration approval for its plans to begin service between the two cities May 29. It plans to sell at least 10 seats that cost $10 on all its flights and the remainder will sell for higher prices.

The service will be between Columbus and Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay area, Vancouver, Richmond, Va., Kansas City and Greensboro/Winston-Salem, N.C. Flights can only be booked at www.skybus.com.

Some Jackson Hewitt franchise owners may be feeling the heat after U.S. sues a franchisee for tax-fraud schemes.

On April 17 Jackson Hewitt franchise owners may be getting a little hot under the collar.

That’s not because of today’s tax deadline, but rather because earlier this month the Justice Department sued the operators of more than 125 Jackson Hewitt tax preparation offices, accusing them of cheating the U.S. Treasury out of more than $70 million through a “pervasive and massive series of tax-fraud schemes.”

Investigators accused 24 defendants in the Jackson Hewitt case of encouraging individuals to file bogus tax returns through such means as claiming fake deductions and fuel tax credits, seeking refunds based on phony earnings statements, and abusing the federal earned income tax credit.

“The news is going to negatively impact other stores,” according to Robert Purvin, chairman of the American Association of Franchisees and Dealers. “Hearing about a bad experience at one location may make you less likely to go into another location,” he said.

“That’s a fact of life of franchising.”

CNN Money