Author: Serkadis

Remember this incredible 70-minute video review of The Phantom Menace? Well, while he works on his Attack of the Clones review, he decided to take on Avatar. It’s a much more manageable 20 minutes, but is just as great. [YouTube]

Fremont School District 79 physical education teachers are embracing the cold with a myriad fitness activities.

The Intermediate School students in grades 3 through 5 are enjoying the frigid temperatures and blustery winds on snow shoes, thanks to a $2,753 grant teachers received from the Fremont Education Foundation.

Students secure the snow shoes to their boots and take off into the Fremont Outdoor Learning Environment, a 40-acre parcel of wilderness behind their school on Fremont Center Road in Mundelein, accompanied by their teacher Cynthia Jeffries.

The Intermediate School isn’t the only school challenging students to fitness. Across the street, Fremont Middle School students are engaged in backyard games. The physical education classes are introducing students to a variety of games that they can play at home, in their backyards, basements and garages.

The games – Bags, Box Hockey, Kan Jam, Dual and Rackle-Ball – require minimal equipment, space and people, and are great alternatives to being a “couch potato.” Box Hockey and Rackle-Ball top the list for terrific cardio activities.

Other students at the Middle School are participating in the fitness distance challenge, in which students create their own teams and compete against other teams in the class as to who can go the farthest distance using cardio machines such as the treadmill, elliptical and the bike.

Teams work together and set goals.

This activity not only allows the students to use the available cardio machines, but also focuses on teamwork, staying active and being able to push themselves and their team to achieve at a higher level.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Michael Schumacher did not take long to get up to speed in the Formula One car on Monday, despite a long absence from competitive racing. The 7-time world champion took the wheel of the Mercedes W01 on Monday afternoon – taking over from teammate Nico Rosberg – and was immediately on pace.

Driving a 2010 car for the first time since his retirement back in 2006 – actually, he didn’t get to drive a 2009 car either in recent months – Schu lapped the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia in a little … (read more)

Four of the eighteen Royal College of Art (RCA) students have been shortlisted to refine their designs together with Bentley’s team, including Head of Exterior Design Raul Pires who played a key role designing the company’s new Mulsanne flagship. During the next few days the four designers will be working to refine their work before meeting with Raul Pires and Bentley’s design chief Dirk van Braeckel for the final review.

We’ve had invaluable support from Exa and their PowerFLOW software whic… (read more)

NEOGA — While protesters of a gentlemen’s club shouted out Scripture on a freezing weekend night, patrons of The School House handed over their dollars to join the fun inside.

Sheryl Long of an area Christian outreach group was marching with a sign “Come to Jesus” outside the club, about four miles east of Neoga along Illinois 121.

Long and several protesters were shouting “Jesus loves you!” and “Our God is a mighty God!” as they marched along the right of way by the highway in front of the old Pioneer School, which now hosts a gentlemen’s club that includes exotic female dancers.

“We are hoping to let people know God doesn’t want them to live this way. There’s a better way to live. If they would turn their lives over to Jesus and let him have control, then things could go a whole lot better,” Long said as she and a group of Pioneers for God shouted out words of Christian love or sang Christian hymns to customers pulling into the entrances of the former grade school.

Most School House patrons seemed to ignore the protesters Friday and Saturday nights. But a few visitors did fire back with sarcasm: “God made me naked!” or “And Jesus hates you!” But some motorists did slow down and honk as they drove down the road, which protesters said they considered a sign of support.

On Friday night, a Cumberland County sheriff’s squad car answered a complaint from the gentlemen’s club owners that the protesters were allegedly marching on private property and causing a disturbance.

Two officers later reminded the protesters to stay near the roadside ditch, which is a public right of way, and reminded them not to obstruct traffic into the business.

The protesters, numbering 10 to 12 and working in shifts to deal with the cold, assured the officers they had complied with those guidelines.

On Saturday night, one of the owners said business could not be better, and the protesters were not having a negative impact on the influx of customers that included men and women. That was evident with a full parking lot in the rear of the building.

Some customers came in pickup trucks, while some were driven in a limousine that seemed to be making a circuit of the area.

Owners of The School House are Travis Funneman of Effingham and Bob Kearney of Mattoon, both of whom have declined to go on record with the newspaper under the advice of their attorney.

Some patrons have confirmed the club requires a cover charge and that several female dancers perform each night.

Cumberland County officials are looking at legal options for shutting down the business.

But the protesters during the weekend gathered to use prayer as a way to counter what some said is “degrading” the community.

Read the original article from Herald & Review.

El anuncio del iPad ha puesto la lucha por los estándares en la web, Flash y HTML 5 bajo el foco del “hype” que siempre rodea a los lanzamientos de Apple. Lo cierto es que aunque ahora esté en su momento de apogeo en lo que a cobertura informativa se refiere, la toma de posturas respecto a qué tecnologías se utilizarán para la web del futuro viene sucediéndose en los últimos años. En esta película hay varios actores y, aunque Apple va a tener su peso, lo cierto es que apostaría por Google y Microsoft – además de Adobe – como principales protagonistas de la trama. “El bueno, los feos y los malos”, versión estándares web

El bueno, HTML5

El rol de bueno de película está siendo otorgado casi sin discusión a HTML5, el nuevo estándar que trae la vaga promesa de librarnos de los runtimes propietarios en la web. Y es que aunque Adobe ha hecho esfuerzos liberando herramientas, el runtime de Flash sigue siendo código propietario y no está en las quinielas que lo liberen. Su apuesta es que los algoritmos de procesamiento de gráficos vectoriales siguen siendo una ventaja competitiva y guardan las patentes como oro en paño.

HTML5 trae la posibilidad de que el vídeo – terreno dominado casi por completo por Flash – pueda distribuirse sin pasar por el aro de Adobe. Curiosamente esto hace que otro debate sobre estándares abiertos en los codecs cobre mayor actualidad, Youtube y otros actores están apostando por la fórmula “HTML5 + H.264 como códec”, algo que Mozilla entre otros no aceptan al no ser un codec abierto (JaviPas lo resume). Aquí tenemos otra batalla económica, quienes han optado por codecs abiertos como Theora+Vorbis+Ogg no pagan las patentes de H.264, pero pueden sufrir los costes de mayor coste de ancho de banda al perder en compresión (más información al respecto en el blog de Dailymotion y aNieto2K.

No se trata en todo caso, sólo del vídeo, HTML5 es muy relevante en otros aspectos del desarrollo web, desde las RIA (aplicaciones ricas), como soporte offline, gestión de errores, unificación del renderizado de la página… Víctor hace tiempo hizo un especial con las novedades de HTML 5 en Anexom.

Los malos, Flash de Adobe y Silverlight de Microsoft

A Microsoft y a Adobe les toca el papel de malos en esta película. Ambos tienen una apuesta firma por runtimes propietarios como motor de la web, algo que rompe la propia naturaleza de la red: acceso desde cualquier nodo, sea cual sea la tecnología cliente. Flash ha logrado un nivel razonable de calidad multiplataforma y como explica Enrique un porcentaje de instalaciones brutal en ordenadores personales. Su frontera más significativa son los móviles (a pesar de ofrecer “Flash de verdad”) y las plataformas cerradas, donde no es ni de lejos tan relevante. En vídeo se han convertido en la tecnología por excelencia, con un gran negocio de licencias y herramientas de desarrollo, pero los últimos movimientos hacen aparecer negros nubarrones en su visión de ser el nuevo Java.

En el lado de Microsoft, llevan años con lo misma tónica con Silverlight, maravilla técnica que casi nadie utiliza. Apostar por una tecnología propietaria de Redmond para construir el futuro de la web es algo que muy pocos están considerando una buena idea, a pesar de que como producto Silverlight es brillante. Aunque parezca un disparate, veo antes a Microsoft liberando Silverlight que a Adobe, que tiene mucho más que perder.

Los feos, Google, Apple… y de nuevo Microsoft

Apple lleva años rechazando Flash en iPhone y vuelve a poner el debate sobre la mesa con iPad. Sin embargo, los actores principales en la lucha entre HTML5, Flash y Silverlight son, en mi opinión, Google y Microsoft. El primero con una apuesta decidida por HTML5 desde hace años como explica este artículo de O´reilly, a pesar de lo cual algunos como Scoble le señalan como posible salvador de Flash atendiendo a su competencia con Apple. No lo creo, Google lleva mucho tiempo detrás de HTML5 en cuyo desarrollo ha influido y rechazando Flash y Silverlight a la hora de construir sus aplicaciones web.

Pero quien tiene gran parte de llave que puede acelerar la adopción de HTML5 es Microsoft con el soporte en Internet Explorer actor sin el cuál no se puede pensar en llegar al gran público en la web “de verdad”. Apple puede restringir qué tecnologías se ejecutan en sus dispositivos cerrados, Google y otros pueden intentar empujar HTML5, pero hoy día desarrollar una aplicación web que no funcione en Explorer es renunciar a gran parte de los usuarios… y no sólo a los poco expertos, también a muchos corporativos en cuyas empresas sólo está hmologado el uso del navegador de Microsoft.

El desenlace de la película

Todavía no sabemos el final, pero sí mucho de los intereses que se entretejen en ella. En 2010 probablemente no sepamos cómo acaba, pero sí es probable que asistamos al continuo acose y derribo de Flash, para el que Adobe no parece encontrar socios de garantías que lo defiendan. Si no hay un giro inesperado en el mercado de los navegadores – que tiende de una forma pausada al fin de la hegemonía de Explorer – será Microsoft quien tenga la llave para acelerar un proceso en el que parece que tiene poco que ganar: imponer Silverlight se antoja muy complicado y salvar a Adobe tampoco es su sueño hecho realidad.

Remember a while ago we announced that the Australian built Skelta G-Force was coming to the UK? Well, the car is here and it made quite an impression. The car, which was on display at the Autosport International, will compete in the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship.

It was tested last week by five times Irish Tarmac Rally Champion Eugene Donnelly, and will be driven by Matt Cummings of Stratton Motor Company.

"The test was unavoidably subjective as the car was not fully set up for ou… (read more)

Google has sure managed to stir up a diverse group of people with Google Books. They come from all over the world and from various backgrounds, but these individuals, organizations and companies have one thing in common, they really don’t like what Google is doing with the Books project and they’re making themselves heard. Google’s competitors file… (read more)

ACAL Energy is attempting to do what few others have managed which is to eliminate the expensive platinum used on the cathode of its hydrogen fuel cell. Instead the ACAL FlowCath uses a durable liquid chemical cathode in its hydrogen FC. This reduces the platinum content by 80-percent overall in the fuel cell.

Besides this one step making the fuel cell less expensive and just as durable as a platinum based FC, ACAL Energy is also taking other measures to make their device more ready for commercialization, “The technology also inherently addresses the balance of plant costs by eliminating the need for hydration, pressurization, separate cooling and other expensive mechanical sub-systems commonly found in conventional PEM fuel cells.”

ACAL is intending for their fuel cell to first go online in the second half of 2010 supplying continuous electric power at a chemical manufacturing plant in the UK. When the field testing succeeds, ACAL sees its FlowCath fuel cell capable of replacing gasoline and diesel engines in both the stationary fuel cell market and in the transportation sectors.

ACAL will exhibit their new fuel cell in early March at the FC EXPO in Tokyo, Japan. Besides speaking at the conferences, ACAL will have representatives at their both speaking in both English and Japanese.

The next generation Jeep Grand Cherokee is not quite here yet, but all the details regarding the model have been leaked by jeepgarage.org. The new model will be made available, according to the source, in three versions, Laredo, Limited and Overland (yes, with no SRT version in sight, apparently) and will come with eight option packages.

Pricing will start at $31,480 (including destination charges) for the base Laredo and reach as much as $45,770 for the Overland.

The new Grand Cherokee … (read more)

State Invests $60 Million in Rail Passenger Service and Jobs

Gov. Pat Quinn today visited Rockford to award $60 million in state capital funds to establish passenger rail service from Chicago to Rockford.

The new service could result in as many as 2,000 new jobs, including more than 650 construction jobs.

“This week, we were happy to receive $1.2 billion in federal money for high-speed rail that will take people between Chicago and St. Louis,” said Gov. Quinn.

“Now we want to make sure people can travel from Chicago to Rockford and beyond. This new line is going to connect Chicago to the western part of our state, create jobs and bring more visitors to the city of Rockford.”

The Chicago to Rockford project is one leg of a planned passenger train service extension that would connect west across northern Illinois to Dubuque, Iowa.

Trains would depart Dubuque early in the morning, arriving in Chicago in the late morning. Trains would depart Chicago in the evening, arriving in Dubuque before midnight.

“It is important that we continue to invest in our state’s rail system,” said Illinois Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig. “We hope to get this project started this year and are very excited about what the future holds for passenger rail in Illinois.”

Despite being the second largest city in Illinois, Rockford has not seen passenger rail service since 1981.

Preliminary work will start immediately with construction slated to begin in 2011, creating new jobs that will benefit the city with the highest unemployment in the state.

Federal officials announced Thursday that Illinois will receive $1.2 billion through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to begin track and signal upgrades for high-speed passenger rail service between Chicago and St. Louis.

The funding for this passenger rail project is part of Illinois Jobs Now!, a job generation and capital improvement program that will revive the state’s ailing economy by creating and retaining over 439,000 jobs over six years.

Filed under: SUV, China, Government/Legal, GM, Hummer, Earnings/Financials, Off-Road

As readily illustrated by the dramatic and protracted sale of Saab to Spyker – a process that itself is not yet concluded – it’s clear that extracting brands from General Motors is a time-intensive process. No surprise, then, that GM and Chinese manufacturer Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery have reportedly decided to extend the deadline on a Hummer sale until month’s end.

The two companies have been working to sew everything up on the SUV brand deal since it was first announced last October, but the original deadline expired yesterday without a resolution. According to the AFP, the holdup actually stems from the fact that the sale needs to get approval from Chinese regulators, an issue that has been noted before. As you may recall, China’s commerce ministry previously went on record as saying that they hadn’t received an application for approval from Tengzhong, and it is just one of the Chinese government agencies that need to sign off on the deal.

In a related news, Reuters notes that Suo Lang Duo Ji, a Chinese entrepreneur considered to be the mastermind behind the tie-up, hopes that the Hummer deal can be completed by this spring, an admission that could suggest that further extensions could be in the cards.

[Sources: Just-Auto, Reuters | Image: Scott Olson/Getty]

Report: GM, Tengzhong extend Hummer sale deadline until end of February originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

There’s been no love lost between Apple and Adobe for a while now, ever since Apple decided to not allow Flash on the iPhone. But since the iPad was announced with an equal lack of Flash, things have gotten ugly.

First, Adobe posted a screed about how lame it was that Apple wasn’t including Flash on the iPad. Then, Steve Jobs himself called Adobe “lazy” and blaming Flash for most Mac crashes. Now, Adobe is back to its Flash blog with another salvo by Flash Marketing Manager Adrian Ludwig.

First, he addresses and attempts to debunk the various reasons Apple has for blacklisting Flash. Then, he goes for the heart of the matter:

But I want to be very clear. My concern isn’t just about Flash on the iPad. It’s about a disturbing trend where Apple is starting to inhibit broad categories of innovation on their platforms. On the iPad, it looks like developers won’t be able to write applications in Java, .net, Python, Ruby, Perl, or any number of other languages (including Flash). And users won’t be able to install Firefox, Opera,IE, or any third party browser. There are countless other examples of applications and technologies that Apple doesn’t allow. Why? Apple won’t say.

And innovation isn’t just about technology, it’s also about business models. Developers on this new platform aren’t able to innovate there either. At best, developers targeting the iPad are subject to a 30% Apple Tax in the App Store. And at worst, developers invest time and money building a product that can never be brought to market, because the only channel is one that is centrally controlled and entirely opaque. In every case, Apple is a gatekeeper on how developers are able to deliver content to their consumers.

Over time, restrictions on technology and business opportunity have a chilling effect on innovation on closed platforms.

In the end, this is a tricky situation. On the one hand, Flash is a relatively insecure and resource-heavy plugin that would invariably cause some problems if used on the iPad. In a year or so, HTML5 will be replacing it for most of its biggest uses, such as streaming video.

However, it isn’t a year from now, and Flash is still heavily used all around the web. It’s just a fact of life that if you want a full internet experience right now, you need to have Flash.

So neither side is entirely right or entirely wrong. But something tells me that Apple isn’t going to cave, and as HTML5 gets rolled out over the next year, they’ll have fewer and fewer reasons to even consider it. Sorry, Adobe. [Adobe]

Toyota placed full-page ads in newspapers in more than 20 major media markets throughout the United States yesterday. The Jan. 31, 2010, ad focuses around Toyota’s actions involving the sticking accelerator pedal recall.

The ad reads:

Why we’ve temporarily stopped some of our plants:

As you may have heard, in rare cases, sticking accelerator pedals have occurred in some of our vehicles. We believe we are close to announcing an effective remedy. And we’ve temporarily halted production at some of our North American plants to focus on the vehicles we’ve recalled. Why have we taken this unprecedented action? Because it’s the right thing to do for our customers.

Toyota Pedal Recall Ad:

– By: Omar Rana

While Beyonce and Taylor Swift may have outshone Lady Gaga at the Grammy’s, it doesn’t change the fact that Gaga has become quite a music industry sensation. But similar to what we saw with Mariah Carey, the details behind Lady Gaga’s business model success shows how even today’s superstars are embracing more nuanced business models that make use of free music and focus on selling unique scarcities. When it comes to free music, apparently that’s been a huge part of Gaga getting attention:

In fact, much of Gaga’s audience got her music for free, and legally. They have listened to free streams–by the hundreds of millions–on YouTube and the other online services that Gaga currently leads, according to research firm BigChampagne. On MySpace, Gaga has had 321.5 million plays. By contrast, singer Susan Boyle tallied only 133,000 plays, despite scoring the No. 2 selling album of 2009.

And while she has been able to sell music, she’s also making a ton of money from live gigs and corporate deals, including Polaroid and Estee Lauder — which are examples of Gaga selling the attention of her fans, as well as some tangible goods (such as makeup, similar to Mariah Carey).

Again, nothing about this is revolutionary at all. But it again shows that even today’s megastars are figuring out how that just selling music isn’t the only way to make money these days, and, in fact, having the music available for free can often be quite helpful in getting even more attention in ways that aid the other parts of the business model.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

It is very common these days to see various computer or manually drawn car concepts, created by amateur designers and linked to top automotive manufacturers as rhetoric proposals.

However, the design study presented here is a real model created by four Volkswagen Brazil interns (the winners of the "Talento Volkswagen Design 2008"): Kauré Martins, Rogério Okabe, Guilherme Motta and Wadson Gomes Amorim.

The team, supervised by Oscar Mendoza and Marilia Biill, set itself the goal … (read more)

Buying a supercar has never been as easy as it is today, and you have the recession to thank for that, though you can just as easily blame the recession for repossessing your car also. Either way, the matter of the fact is that you can easily get the supercar of your choice from a dealer, as a lot of very expensive cars are for sale. And most of the time, the prices are quite appealing – as compared to a new car, of course.

If one of the reasons you might have second thoughts when it comes to… (read more)

YouTube is, by far, the largest video site in the world, but in some respects it looks like it’s only just beginning. This may very well be because online video is still very much in the early days and its potential reach and usage is well beyond anything we’ve seen so far. Whatever the case, Google’s video site has been adding new content partners lately at … (read more)

Filed under: Aftermarket, Sedan, Performance, Geneva Motor Show, Porsche

Porsche Panamera by TechArt – Click above for high-res image gallery

Continue reading TechArt’s take on the Porsche Panamera is almost ready, but not quite

TechArt’s take on the Porsche Panamera is almost ready, but not quite originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments