Mereja

Author: Serkadis

  • Do the iPad’s Missing Apps Point to a Multitasking Dashboard? [Voices]

    By Kevin Fox, Blogger, Fury.com

    Steve’s iPad keynote felt just a little off. We got what we wanted, but it still felt a little like the iPad was a vehicle full of potential rather than a self-contained package of productivity. This morning I woke up and realized what was missing: The minor apps.

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Demand Media’s Plan to Sell Content to Old-Media Fatties [Voices]

    By Matt Pressman, Writer, Vanity Fair

    For many of the people trying to eke out a living in the world of traditional media, the two most frightening words in the English language are Demand Media. Demand employs 7,000 freelance writers, editors, and videographers, and it produces a staggering 4,500 pieces of original content per day—most of it housed on such websites as eHow.com and tailored to pop up in response to almost every conceivable Google (GOOG) search (Associated Content, Seed.com, and others run similar operations).

    What’s so scary about that?

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • From the Archives: A Revealing Interview With Steve Jobs [Voices]

    By Jeff Goodell, Writer, Rolling Stone

    So Steve Jobs is rocking the world again with the introduction of the iPad, a device that takes another step closer to Jobs’ long-held dream of creating “a bicycle for the mind.” Will the iPad succeed? Who knows.

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • E Coli Hydrocarbon Production Engineered



    We are finally getting something from the biology boys that is convincing. They have shown it is possible to engineer E coli into a microbe that can break down cellulose into sugars that are then converted directly into hydrocarbons    It is the possibility of been an energetic efficient one step process that makes it all promising.
    It is still early days but the promise is now clear.  Organic waste unsuitable as feed stock for biochar can be transformed directly into fuel oil.  We are a long way from such a blanket solution but we are now going there.
    Hydrocarbon fuels will continue to be popular in agriculture even after the personal transportation industry is handled.  It will also continue to be used in heavy transport.  Sometimes you really need the energy density.  Thus a natural market will exist for the production of hydrocarbons by agricultural operations.
    Bacteria Transformed into Biofuel Refineries
    January 27, 2010
    Synthetic biology has allowed scientists to tweak E. coli to produce fuels from sugar and, more sustainably, cellulose
    By David Biello   
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bacteria-transformed-into-biofuel-refineries&sc=CAT_ENGYSUS_20100128
    The bacteria responsible for most cases of food poisoning in the U.S. has been turned into an efficient biological factory to make chemicals, medicines and, now, fuels. Chemical engineer Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have manipulated the genetic code of Escherichia coli, a common gut bacteria, so that it can chew up plant-derived sugar to produce diesel and other hydrocarbons, according to results published in the January 28 issue of Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

    “We incorporated genes that enabled production of biodiesel—esters [organic compounds] of fatty acids and ethanol—directly,” Keasling explains. “The fuel that is produced by ourE. coli can be used directly as biodiesel. In contrast, fats or oils from plants must be chemically esterified before they can be used.”\

    Perhaps more importantly, the researchers have also imported genes that allow E. coli to secrete enzymes that break down the tough material that makes up the bulk of plants—cellulose, specifically hemicellulose—and produce the sugar needed to fuel this process. “The organism can produce the fuel from a very inexpensive sugar supply, namely cellulosic biomass,” Keasling adds.

    The E. coli directly secretes the resulting biodiesel, which then floats to the top of a fermentation vat, so there is neither the necessity for distillation or other purification processes nor the need, as in biodiesel from algae, to break the cell to get the oil out.

    This new process for transforming E. coli into a cellulosic biodiesel refinery involves the tools of synthetic biology. For example, Keasling and his team cloned genes from Clostridium stercorarium andBacteroides ovatus—bacteria that thrive in soil and the guts of plant-eating animals, respectively—which produce enzymes that break down cellulose. The team then added an extra bit of genetic code in the form of short amino acid sequences that instruct the altered E. coli cells to secrete the bacterial enzyme, which breaks down the plant cellulose, turning it into sugar; the E. coli in turn transforms that sugar into biodiesel.


    The process is perfect for making hydrocarbons with at least 12 carbon atoms in them, ranging from diesel to chemical precursors—and even jet fuel, or kerosene. But it cannot, yet, make shorter chain hydrocarbons like gasoline. “Gasoline tends to contain short-chain hydrocarbons, say C8, with more branches, whereas diesel and jet fuel contain long-chain hydrocarbons with few branches,” Keasling notes. “There are other ways to make gasoline. We are working on these technologies, as well.”

    After all, the U.S. alone burns some 530 billion liters of gasoline a year, compared with just 7.5 billion liters of biodiesel. But Keasling has estimated in the past that a mere 40.5 million hectares of Miscanthus giganteus—a more than three-meter tall Asian grass—chewed up by specially engineered microbes, like the E. coli here, could produce enough fuel to meet all U.S. transportation needs.* That’s roughly one quarter of the current amount of land devoted to raising crops in the U.S.

    E. coli is the most likely candidate for such work, because it is an extremely well-studied organism as well as a hardy one. “E. coli tolerated the genetic changes quite well,” Keasling says. “It was somewhat surprising. Because all organisms require fatty acids for their cell membrane to survive, if you rob them of some fatty acids, they turn up the fatty acid biosynthesis to make up for the depletion.”

    E. coli “grows fast, three times faster than yeast, 50 times faster than Mycoplasma, 100 times faster than most agricultural microbes,” explains geneticist and technology developer George Church at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in this research. “It can survive in detergents or gasoline that will kill lesser creatures, like us. It’s fairly easily manipulated.” Plus, E. coli can be turned into a microbial factory for almost anything that is presently manufactured but organic—from electrical conductors to fuel. “If it’s organic, then, immediately, it becomes plausible that you can make it with biological systems.”

    The idea in this case is to produce a batch of biofuel from a single colony through E. coli‘s natural ability to proliferate and, after producing the fuel, dispose of the E. coli and start anew with a fresh colony, according to Keasling. “This minimizes the mutations that might arise if one continually subcultured the microbe,” he says. The idea is also to engineer the new organism, deleting key metabolic pathways, such that it would never survive in the wild in order to prevent escapes with unintended environmental impacts, among other dangers.

    But ranging outside of its natural processes, E. coli is not the most efficient producer of biofuel. “We are at about 10 percent of the theoretical maximum yield from sugar,” Keasling notes. “We would like to be at 80 to 90 percent to make this commercially viable. Furthermore, we would need a large-scale production process,” such as 100,000 liter tanks to allow mass production of microbial fuel.

    Nevertheless, several companies, including LS9, which helped with the research, as well as Gevo and Keasling-founded Amyris Biotechnologies, are working on making fuel from microbes a reality at the pump—not just at the beer tap.

    *Erratum (1/28/10): This sentence was edited after publication to correct a measurement conversion error in the number of hectares stated.

  • Yahoo Finally Sheds HotJobs for $225 Million

    Yahoo’s streamlining continues after selling off or closing down a number of unimportant or unprofitable proprieties. The company has announced that it finally managed to sell Yahoo HotJobs, something it’s been trying to do for quite a bit of time. Monster, which already has an interest in job listings, will take HotJobs off Yahoo’s hands for $225 million in cash. That’s well below the $436 million it paid in 2002 but, then again, it’s not the same Yahoo it was in 2002.

    “Bringi… (read more)

  • Sega Unveils Sonic the Hedgehog 4

    Sega has been drip-feeding information about Project Needlemouse, the HD revival of Sonic the Hedgehog. Tonight the first official trailer (above) appeared on GameSpot, giving us the game’s official title: Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. The game is rendered in 3D but takes place on a 2D plane, so our guesses at crisp new 2D sprites were clearly off. It’s due out this summer, and though we already knew it was slated for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, this trailer confirms it’s due out for WiiWare as well.

    The title is an intriguing new piece of information for two reasons. For one, it’s clear Sega wants to capitalize on fond memories of Sonic by calling this the true successor to the series, similar to when Konami released Contra 4. Even the brief look at a stage recalls familiar imagery from Green Hill Zone. Besides that, the “Episode 1″ title indicates long-term plans with at least a few downloadable releases already planned. We’re not sure yet the kind of scope Sega has planned for the series, but we’ll find out soon enough.

    Sonic the Hedgehog 4

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Volvo S60 promo video

    This is a cool video from Volvo of the new S60 sedan, showing some extreme driving and the first glimpse at the interior, before its official debut at the 2010 Geneva motor show. The S60 is an updated version of the model, and will debut with engine options including GTDi petrol models, and turbocharged diesels with 1.6 and 2.0 litres. We could also see a 3.0-litre turbo model with more than 250 hp.

    New Volvo S60 first pics New Volvo S60 first pics


  • Suzuki Burgman Fuel Cell Scooter Heads to UK

    Don’t get all excited yet, as Suzuki’s machine will not go on sale, but it will be showcased in London’s Living Room, City Hall, ahead of fleet tests in the UK to begin. First presented at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show, the Burgman Fuel Cell Scooter builds on the Crosscage fuel cell motorbike unveiled in 2007.

    The scooter is equipped with a 70MPa hydrogen tank, the highest-pressure tank used on a bike thus far. The tank can be re-fueled in a few minutes and gives a riding range of 350km comparabl… (read more)

  • Sushi Chef on Sustainability

    Without question it is the consumer and his agents the sushi chefs who are able to demand changes in the harvesting of sea food.  So much of this has gone on out of sight and certainly with operators who are inured to piratical behavior.
    Sushi and conventional fisheries presently harvest a handful of species and do so in a mostly unregulated manner. It is clear from this article that this is an artificial classification and that the advent of regulation and sustainable practices will likely increase availability.
    Today, what is not harvested for shippable product undoubtedly is reprocessed into feed or simply dumped.  Since harvesting is using a wild feedstock, it is not surprising that only a fraction is presently used as human food.  The same is true for land based husbandry.
    My point is that we as customers are simply not equipped to even ask for changes for problems we know nothing about. Only the tuna today is attracting belated attention.  It is the sushi chefs who can bring real pressure on the industry.
    In fairness, the industry is in its infancy in terms of resource management and most attempts have been disappointing.  I have posted from time to time on this problem but do believe we will master the issues, although I think that the first issue to repair is resource ownership.
    Yet the sushi chefs do represent the premium market for the fishing industry and it is a fair bet it is most of their profit.  Thus the industry will struggle to keep them happy.
    Folks complain about factory farming, yet the practices of factory farming aim to optimize productivity which can only be achieved by minimizing the stress applied to the animals.  It is visually not pretty but I am sure within the narrow circumscribed world the animal is at least comfortable.
    Sea food harvesting is not farming but outright triage with little spent to protect or release the by catch.  So exploiting much more of the by catch is something that sushi chefs can strongly promote.  The consumer is certainly ready for it.

    We all need to support this type of initiative.


    A Seattle chef proves that traditional sushi and healthy oceans go hand-in-chopstick 
    http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-29-a-seattle-chef-proves-that-traditional-sushi-and-healthy-oceans
    Growing up in small-town Montana, two things just made no sense: vegetarians and sushi. Why eat tofu, or raw fish, when you could just as easily have a big juicy steak? Coming from generations of cattle rancher stock, I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s ringing defense of vegetarianism, Eating Animals, with trepidation. But the only beef I ended up having with Foer was that he ruined my ability to enjoy the raw and the rolled—right after I had moved to sushi paradise, Seattle.
    “Imagine being served a plate of sushi. But this plate also holds all of the animals that were killed for your serving of sushi. The plate might have to be five feet across,” Foer writes. At current rates of fishery depletion, scientists predict the demise of most seafood by 2048.
    Foer describes modern fishing as warfare. Hajime Sato has a similar take: “[It’s] like someone is beating somebody and I’m just walking by and noticing it but not doing anything about it.”
    But Sato isn’t an environmentalist author or even a vegetarian. He’s chef and owner of Mashiko, a Seattle sushi restaurant. Not wanting to throw punches himself anymore, he revised his menu to include only sustainable fish last August.
    Sato, who not only serves sushi but teaches others how to prepare it, knew the dreadful truth about certain fish. For a time, however, he served them anyway. But then he met Casson Trenor, author of Sustainable Sushi.
    Trenor knows just about everything that’s wrong or right about what can end up between your chopsticks. For instance, the most disgusting thing about shrimp isn’t even their visible poop veins: “Some shrimpers have been known to discard more than ten pounds of unwanted sea life for every pound of shrimp they keep,” he writes.
    After talking to Trenor about sustainability, Sato said, “Okay, within three months, I’ll change it [the menu] entirely.” Trenor didn’t believe Sato. But, Sato recalls, “I said ‘No, when I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it. That’s me.’” And he did.
     “Don’t do anything mediocre,” he says. Not a surprising personal motto from someone who races motorcycles and whose diners are greeted by a sign that reads “Please wait to be seated. Unless you’re illiterate.”
    Sato took a big risk with his 15-year-old, award-winning restaurant.
    The first few months were rocky; Sato couldn’t sleep for worrying. “Should I go back? Am I doing the right thing?” he asked himself, “People don’t get it.”
    But business rebounded and he continues to be resolute about sustainability. He finds careless pescatarians’ logic odd and is incredulous that there are international laws against eating cheetahs, but Bluefin tuna have only very limited protection. “You can basically wipe the entire species out in a week and say okay, next …”
    Although the plight of the Bluefin tuna has made headlines recently, Sato points out that eel (unagi) is the worst fish to serve. “Eel is actually [at] the category of extinction. It’s not even endangered anymore. But people are still eating it,” he says.
    The spooky thing about eels, besides their mean mugs, is their mysterious breeding habits. It’s not just that eel lovin’ is an unpleasant subject: “They [eels] go back and forth between fresh water and salt water about four or five times in their life. And we have no idea how they mate, how they reproduce at all. So let’s not really touch the eel.”
    Wild or farmed, eating unagi is never a good idea. In eel farms, they take the young from the wild and fatten them up. Those eels never even get the chance to do whatever only God knows they do in the dark.
    Eel is classified as a red fish in Trenor’s book. Helpfully, he divides fish into three color categories.  Green means chow down: “These fish and shellfish are caught or farmed in ways that don’t have any major adverse effect on the environment.” Nimbly nibble yellow fish: “Animals in this category are from fisheries that are either poorly understood or have some troubling characteristics. Limit your consumption of these animals.” And red, of course, means by all means stop: “Fish and shellfish are caught or farmed in a manner that is inordinately deleterious to the health of the oceans.”
    Sato mostly serves green fish, but he serves some yellow, too. Occasionally a customer will ask him, “Are you 100 percent okay with this?” “No,” he replies, “I eat the same as any other practice I do. I drive a car.”
    But what if every fish out there was classified red tomorrow?
    Then I’m not going to serve. I’m going to have a vegetarian restaurant. Which is totally fine. But I’m trying to prevent it. I’m trying to prevent it so we can do this. People tend to wait wait wait until the last moment and then freak out. Let’s freak out just a touch more right now.
    Keeping up to date on the status of each fish he serves takes a lot of time. “You cannot just stop learning about it,” he insists.
    Trenor and Sato’s relationship continues. Sato reads Japanese publications on sustainability and Trenor reads English sources. They talk three times a week to share what they’ve learned.
    Sato, the first traditionally trained sushi chef to go sustainable, can’t understand Japanese aversion to sustainable sushi: “The reality is, if you really read the history of sushi, tuna actually was not in there, [nor] toro, unagi … I’m basically going back to what traditional is. They didn’t have a huge fleet of boats.”
    Though he doesn’t intend to challenge veteran sushi chefs (“They’d kill me with a knife”), Sato hopes to promote sustainable sushi and bring more chefs into the fold. He understands the difficulties of switching to and finding sustainable fish, but he’s willing to share his experience and support those who face the same hardships.
    I had to say goodbye to distributors that I’d been using for 15 years, which is really tough. They sometimes helped me out when I was in financial trouble,” he says. He went from having four or five distributors to nearly 20 in order to fill out his menu.  He sees this as a plus for his diners, giving them choices far beyond the standard fare. “There’s so many other fish. But some people don’t get that,” he says. Sato recommends diners relax and expand their tastes. “Today eat this, tomorrow eat that. It’s good for the ecosystem, economy, everything.”
    In the past, his business philosophy was to make sushi affordable for everyone. He’s kept his prices low and his sushi delicious, but his philosophy has changed to something he calls egocentric: “I’d like to keep my business longer than the next five years.”
    Ultimately, Sato believes the fate of the fish and our ability to eat them in the future is up to the consumer. He hopes we choose wisely.
    If you’re not in the Seattle area, bring Trenor’s book with you to your favorite restaurant, the grocery store, the fish market. Ask questions.
    The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a good, simple pocket guide as well. And you can see how your local seafood restaurants measure up at Fish2Fork. Finally, check out Mashiko’s website sushiwhore.com, where you can read Sato’s blog about sustainability, peruse his mouth-watering menu, and watch silly sushi videos. (And it’s pointed out that sake is sustainable.)

  • Why not get the facelifted Chevy U-VA with the S-TEC II Beat engine.

    This is a good opportunity for GM.

    The Beat seems to have had a good start. Not sales chart topping but pretty decent.

    The Beat engine is extremely refined and performance is pretty much on par with the i10 1.2L Kappa.

    On the other hand their aging Aveo U-VA is barely moving out of the showrooms. The old 1150cc S-TEC engine has very mediocre performance and is not even efficient.

    This is a good opportunity for GM.

    GM can bring in the facelifted Aveo U-VA which is there in other markets like UK. I’m not referring to the Aveo RS concept shown in Detroit but the facelifted one shown in this thread:

    http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian…tml#post872953

    With this facelift they can plonk in the 1.2L S-TEC II Beat engine. It wont be a blazing performer but the USP of the U-VA is ride, space and solid build, now coupled with the new 1.2L engine should make it a decent package.

    With the aggressive pricing strategy GM has adopted recently with the Cruze and Beat they can easily undercut the i20, Punto and even come close to the Swift pricing.

    This should be a pretty good package.

    Another advantage is reuse. Same engine in Beat and U-VA would mean lower manufacturing costs.

    Remember Hyundai is already doing just this with the i10 and i20 both sporting the 1.2L Kappa engines.

    The GM hatchback lineup will be complete with this. The Spark to compete with Alto and Santro. The Beat to compete with the i10 and Ritz. Now finally they can have the Aveo U-VA to compete with i20 and Swift.

    Is GM planning to do this? If not why aren’t they looking at this option?

  • I, Robot. Brought to You by Toyotaaaa!…

    … Over the years I’ve owned a number of cars. For example, a couple of years ago I was the unhappy owner of a Mercedes-Benz ML. It was the latest model then, but some time had passed since the generation’s launch so I told myself it would be bug-free, just the thing for feeling the pleasure and relaxation brought by driving a Mercedes.

    The nightmare began from the first days after I bought it. The self-closing trunk had moments when it simply didn’t want to open or close. Even if I slammed … (read more)

  • Elba Tablets

    So much has been written about the contents of the Bible that it is excusable to think that it somehow operated in a vacuum.  In fact this was a world of city states built around a palace culture that provide the community a form of communal economy able to support metal buying and large scale trade.  That religion was codified in most such centers is obvious and that such was made somewhat unique to each city state was surely necessary.

     

    The material on the Elba tablets arose in the two centuries preceding the appearance of the sea peoples along the Mediterranean littoral. Thus the material dovetails nicely into the biblical narrative.  That a common language dominated along the Levant is also reasonable.  That it changed throughout the region with the advent of the sea peoples is also likely.  Then again, without a system of common education, language drifts seriously within five hundred years.

     

    In short the time frame fits the biblical sources admirably.  Elba is clear evidence of a common language and culture throughout the Levant.  Having only one source has raised the prestige of that particular source. It is much more reasonable that all the polities maintained their own records and histories and that the Bible is but an example of current custom.

     

    Again Elba is a snapshot of the Levant before the advent of the culture of the sea peoples who would shortly own the coasts of these lands first as a foreign imperial power able to project force by sea and later as occupiers of coastal enclaves that largely integrated and intermarried with local clans after the empire itself disappeared in 1159 BCE.

     

    The Mystery Of The Ebla Tablets

    Ancient Ebla was located in Northern Syria, approximately halfway between the modern cities of Hamath and Aleppo.  Excavations at that site began in the 1960s, and in the 1970s a series of extraordinary tablets was discovered among the ruins of an ancient palace.  These tablets became known as “The Ebla Tablets”, and they were originally discovered under the direction of two professors from the University of Rome – Dr. Paolo Matthiae and Dr. Giovanni Petinato. At this point, about 17,000 tablets from the ancient Eblaite Kingdom have been recovered.  These tablets appear to have been written during the two last generations of ancient Ebla.  This means that they probably come from some time around 2300 to 2250 B.C.  But what is remarkable about the Ebla tablets is not how old they are, but rather the amazing parallels to the Bible that they contain.
    For example, one scholar was very surprised at just how close much of the language on the tablets is to ancient Hebrew….
    The vocabularies at Ebla were distinctively Semitic: the word “to write” is k-t-b (as in Hebrew), while that for “king” is “malikum,” and that for “man” is “adamu.” The closeness to Hebrew is surprising.
    In addition, a vast array of Biblical names that have not been found in any other ancient Near Eastern languages have been reported to have been found in similar forms in Eblaite (one of the two languages found on the tablets).
    For instance, the names of Adam, Eve, Abarama/Abraham, Bilhah, Ishmael, Esau, Mika-el, Saul and David have been found on the tablets.  Now, it is important to note that the tablets are not necessarily referring to those specific people.  Rather, what it does demonstrate is that those names were commonly used in ancient times.
    In addition, quite a few ancient Biblical cities are also mentioned by name in the Ebla tablets.
    For example, Ashtaroth, Sinai, Jerusalem, Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Joppa, Ur, and Damascus are all reportedly referred to by name in the tablets.
    Giovanni Pettinato says that he also found references to the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the tablets.  In fact, one key discovery appears to relate directly to Genesis chapter 14.  Some Bible skeptics have long tried to claim that the victory of Abraham over Chedorlaomer and the Mesopotamian kings in Genesis 14 was fictional and that the five “cities of the plain” (Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar) referred to in that chapter are legendary.  But it turns out that the Ebla tablets refer to all five of the “cities of the plain”, and on one tablet the cities are listed in the exact same order that we find in Genesis chapter 14.
    Amazing.
    But that is not all.
    Even more extraordinary was the discovery of “a creation hymn” in the tablets.
    In fact, three different versions of the Eblaite “creation hymn” were discovered. One of the creation hymns was translated by Pettinato as follows….
    Lord of heaven and earth:
    the earth was not, you created it,
    the light of day was not, you created it,
    the morning light you had not [yet] made exist.
    This clearly parallels the Biblical account.  In the Bible we also find a “Lord of heaven and earth” who created the earth and everything around it out of nothing.
    However, it is important to note that Ebla was primarily a pagan culture.  Pagan gods such as Dagan, Baal and Ishtar were very important to the people of that time.  But the truth is that these tablets do confirm quite a few historical details found in the Scriptures. 
    There is probably much more to be discovered about the ancient Eblaite people, but in recent decades progress has been slowed by religious and political conflicts.  Perhaps we will never know for certain where the people of ancient Ebla came from, how much they actually knew of the true God of the Bible, or why their language had such similarities to Hebrew.

  • Norbert Haug Had Thyroid Surgery

    It has emerged that Mercedes’ motorsport director Norbert Haug has recently underwent thyroid surgery. The news was unveiled by Germany’s Bild newspaper, during the last day of testing at the Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo Circuit, as several media representatives were wondering why the German boss’ voice was so weak when talking to the reporters.

    According to the same publication, the 57-year old official confirmed his thyroid problems and admitted he had surgery a few days ago. Additionally, he s… (read more)

  • Ford Focus RS Clubsport with 350 HP in the Works

    The Ford Focus RS range will receive some new goodies from its parent manufacturer, most of them in the performance area.

    First of all, the RS counterpart of the future generation Focus – recently revealed at the Detroit Auto Show last month – will rely on an EcoBoost – electric unit powertrain, which will thus transform the car into an all-wheel drive. The 2.5-liter turbo unit will be replaced with a 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine, which in turn will be connected to an electric motor, autoexpress… (read more)

  • Ram Gets Cummins Engines After All

    Good news for those who back in June 2009, when the cancellation of the contract between American manufacturer Chrysler and engine supplier Cummins was announced, felt saddened by the decision: Cummins will provide engines for Ram trucks after all, as a multi-year extension of the contract between the two was made public yesterday.

    In conclusion, the 21 year long partnership will continue in the years to come with Cummins supplying 6.7l turbo diesel engines for Ram Heavy Duty pickups and Chas… (read more)

  • Splinter Cell Conviction Hits April 13

    Splinter Cell Conviction

    Splinter Cell: Conviction was pushed back to allow for more polish, and now Ubisoft has sent word of the new official release date. The drop date is now set in stone — literally — for April 13, 2010. This gives it a relatively quiet release period, next to Dead to Rights: Retribution. Moving it away from the uncharacteristically full February schedule may do it some good in the sales charts.

    A demo had been planned for the game to come in January, in preparation for a February release. Obviously that didn’t happen, but now we can probably expect the demo to come in late February or early March. In the meantime, check out our hands-on preview for more details on Sam Fisher’s latest outing.


    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • A final tweet from Sun Microsystems chief executive

    Jonathan Schwartz let the world know about his resignation as the chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems via Twitter.

    The New York Times said that Scwhartz was the first Fortune 200 CEO to tweet his resignation. Schwartz did so in a haiku as he exited Oracle, which finished its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun last week. He wrote, “Financial crisis/stalled too many customers/CEO no more.”

    Schwartz was also an early blogger as a CEO, pushing the Securities and Exchange Commission to recognize the blog as an official press release for disclosure purposes. Schwartz had been CEO since 2006, when he took over from Scott McNealy, who remained chairman and who is also expected to resign. Schwartz said he planned to spend time with his family in the short term and get back to work in an Internet-based business in the long term.


    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Sony posts sharply higher earnings and offers upbeat outlook

    For the first time in a while, Sony blew away earnings forecasts for the quarter ended Dec. 31 and predicted a much better outlook for its fiscal year that ends March 31.

    After years of restructuring under chief executive Howard Stringer, the company reported net profit of 79.2 billion yen ($861 million), up about eight fold from a year ago and more than twice the amount that analysts expected (33.73 billion yen) according to Thomson Reuters. The profit was the first in five quarters.

    The Japanese electronics giant said that revenue rose 3.9 percent to 2.24 trillion yen while operating profit was 146.1 billion yen, up eight-fold from a year ago. Sony expects to report a full fiscal year operating loss of 30 billion yen, down from its previous forecast of 60 billion yen.

    Sales of the PlayStation 3 grew after the redesigned PS 3 Slim version hit the market in August at a price that was $100 less than the previous version. During the past year, Sony has closed 18 percent of its plants and eliminated 20,000 jobs in an effort to cut costs. At the same time, the company is overhauling its product lines to connect them to online services. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony executive Kaz Hirai said that the company’s PlayStation Network online service was the model for the whole company to follow.

    Sony’s Network Products and Services business, which includes the video game business, Sony reported a profit of 19.4 billion yen, compared to a loss of 5.9 billion yen a year earlier. Sales rose 1.9 percent to 606.1 billion yen. Sony’s flat-panel TVs recovered, and the company saw a profit in its joint venture in TV screen manufacturing with Samsung. But its Sony Ericsson joint venture in cell phones reported a loss.

    Sony sold 10.8 million PS 3 units in the first nine months of its fiscal year ended Dec. 31, and it expects to sell 13 million by the end of March 31, 2010. That compares to 10.1 million units sold in all of fiscal 2008. The PlayStation Portable is hurting, however. The PSP is expected to sell 10 million units in the year ended March 31, 2010, compared with 14 million units in the prior year.


    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Mercedes Admits Lack of Pace for W01 in Valencia

    Needless to say, after the first test of the winter, only one or two teams can really be happy with what they’ve achieved in Valencia (in terms of lap times). While Ferrari dominated the entire meeting at the Ricardo Tormo circuit, BMW Sauber F1 positioned themselves well enough in second place.

    Mercedes GP, on the other hand, only scored the 7th best time of the week on the Spanish venue, and that can’t be overlooked by the German officials at Brackley. The motorsport director for the Stuttg… (read more)

  • Cheap Trick Audi Super Bowl Ad Track Available to Download

    Shortly after launching the social media campaign for supporting its Green Police Super Bowl ad, Audi decided to make the music soundtrack by Cheap Trick available for download. But what is so special about the song that would make viewers look it up?

    Well, Cheap Trick has made a remake of its classic rock hit "Dream Police," which became a song that combines the message of the A3 TDI Green Car of the Year win and the high-energy beat of the original tune.

    According to the carma… (read more)