Amazon-owned IMDb released a nifty iPad App earlier this year which allowed customers to access more than 1.5 million movie and TV titles with information on millions celebrities, actors, actresses, directors and crew members. The Movies and TV app also allowed users to access movie trailers, find localized movie showtimes in the U.S., and more. Today, the company is releasing brand new iPhone and iPad apps with a bunch of new features and functionality.

First, the apps now include international movie showtimes for 13 countries including the UK, Canada,
Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, New Zealand Argentina and Chile. Fans will also be able to rate movies directly from the app.

The homescreen has been redesigned to integrate the latest trailers of movies, and the apps both feature updated entertainment news from hundreds of media outlets. Another addition that could be useful for hardcore IMDb users is the ability log-in with IMDb Pro accounts from the app to access contact information and representation listings. Pro users will also be able to place calls from the app (for the iPhone app). The company is also pushing its IMDb “everywhere” strategy by allowing users to log-in with their Facebook account, and share information to Twitter and Facebook from the app.

IMDb’s apps are fairly popular so these new additions should only help increase downloads. The Movies & TV app for the iPhone and iPad has been installed by “millions” and is being downloaded at a rate of nearly 1 million per month. The site is also undergoing a complete redesign as it hits its 20th anniversary and released an Android app in June.

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Consumer electronics maker Panasonic is cozying up to Tesla with a $30 million investment, in exchange for a 2% stake.

Although Panasonic and Tesla have worked together in the past, under the new partnership, the duo will closely collaborate on the development and marketing of new Tesla battery packs that feature Panasonic lithium-ion cells.

“Panasonic offers the highest energy-density cells and industry-leading performance with cutting edge Nickel-type cathode technology.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a statement late Wednesday, “We believe our partnership with them will enable us to further improve our battery pack while reducing cost.”

Under the terms of the deal, Panasonic purchased Tesla’s stock in a private placement for a price of $21.15 a share.

The structure of this alliance is not out of the ordinary for the electric car maker, which has been richly funded but deficient in profits. Over the past two years, Tesla has strengthened strategic relationships with investment deals.

Notably, in May, Tesla and Japanese automaker Toyota announced a major partnership to cooperate on the development of new electric vehicles. As part of the deal, Toyota agreed to plunk down $50 million for Tesla’s common stock. And Toyota was not the first major corporation to bet on Elon Musk’s roadster. In 2009, Daimler invested an equivalent sum in exchange for a 10% stake and technology, according to reports.

Although Tesla is moving forward with plans to ramp up vehicle production over the next few years, the company has also placed a greater emphasis on its powertrain business, which services other car manufacturers. Last month, Tesla disclosed it had a $60 million contract to supply parts to Toyota for the production of the upcoming electric RAV4.

Clunky battery parts may seem relatively boring when compared to Tesla’s sleek roadsters, but it may be the key to finding their (so far elusive) path to stable profitability.

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Today at its mobile event, Facebook executives Mark Zuckerberg and Erick Tseng gave some (vague) answers as to why there still isn’t an official iPad application.

Zuckerberg was pretty blunt when it came to explaining why there wasn’t an iPad launch during today’s mobile event: “The iPad isn’t mobile”. He later qualified this statement to say that Facebook loves working with Apple, but that the iPad isn’t as mobile as a phone (he’s right).

Tseng stepped in to add that the rise of tablets isn’t going to be about the iPad alone — we’re going to soon see numerous additional devices running on Android and possibly other platforms. And given Facebook’s limited resources, it doesn’t really make sense to hone in on a single platform.

Facebook needs a solution that will let it deploy features across multiple devices quickly, so there isn’t a lag time like there has been between the Android and iPhone apps. In other words, we’re going to see a web-based mobile application that’s going to be targeted specifically at the tablet form factor.

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Have you ever stopped to evaluate your life in terms of small decisions you made that impacted who you are and what you do? Decisions such as a left turn here, saying hello to a stranger, picking one place to eat over another? Ever wondered what life would be like if you went the other direction, ignored that new person or picked the sub place over the soup place?

Simple decisions like these are sometimes the most important choices we can make in our lives. They often seem meaningless at the time, and yet each choice we make leads us down different forks in our life. Sometime they intersect with, and change, the lives of others as well.

For Jen McCabe, a small decision that changed her life forever was deciding to drive tired, a decision that could have cost her life, not to mention those of others. Fortunately, Jen’s decision – and the accident which followed – wasn’t fatal, but it did destroy her car and shatter her knee. It also made her an entrepreneur.

When I met Jen, I was taken back by her direct and real nature. When I pick guests for “Speaking Of…” I look for character and, more important, a story that defines who they are and which might benefit our community if shared.

Following Jen’s small decision to keep driving and not pull over, she had to learn how to walk again and lost her ability to do things for herself for nearly a year. She realized there are thousands of things you take for granted and that you can often feel alone. Those realizations inspired her to co-found a company called Contagion Health that produced imoveyou.com, a exercise challenge site for helping those that you love get the motivation they need to get their health on track again.

Jen won’t drive tired again, but she wouldn’t change what happened to her. It helped to define who she is and what she wants to do with her life.

Video below (with some awesome advice for entrepreneurs towards the end).

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