Author: Serkadis

Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 1.29.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joining GM and Ford, Chrysler and Hyundai confirmed today that they will also offer Toyota customers an incentive on trade-ins.

Chrysler said that it will offer a $1,000 trade-in bonus cash for current Toyota Tundra, Tacoma and Sienna owners on a lease or purchase of any new Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge or Ram vehicle. The bonus cash is also available for those wanting to turn in a leased Toyota. Hyundai said it will also offer $1,000 rebates to Toyota owners who want to shop for a new Sonata, Elantra and Elantra Touring. The incentive lasts through Monday.

Honda said it will not be offering any incentives to Toyota drivers and “will not react in a predatory way toward either Toyota or Toyota customers.”

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Detroit News

NBC 5 Chicago debuts online service

NBC 5 Chicago and eVoter (evoter.com) today announced a partnership that connects Chicagoland voters to polling place locations, election information, candidate profiles and endorsements prior to Election Day.

eVoter is the first website where voters and candidates connect.

The non-partisan website allows voters to directly interact with candidates and access accurate, up-to-date information to make informed decisions on Election Day.

From statewide races like Governor and U.S. Senator all the way down to local county and municipal races, eVoter provides voters with a list of every candidate on their ballot.

Illinois, which has the nation’s first primary election on February 2, is the first state where eVoter is available.

NBC 5 Chicago now offers an online web tool that directs voters to their personalized ballot information powered by eVoter as part of their comprehensive online election coverage at: nbcchicago.com/news/politics/Chicago-Elections-2010.html

“We’re pleased to announce this partnership with one of Chicago’s local news leaders,” said Adam Kravitz, CEO of Political Technologies LLC, owners and operators of eVoter.

“Adding a broadcast media partner marks an important milestone in the expansion of eVoter, and this step will ultimately allow us to reach even more voters in the Chicago area.”

“Our partnership with eVoter provides a great service for voters and candidates,” said Frank Whittaker, Station Manager and VP of News, NBC 5 Chicago.

“Voters can log on to find their polling place, and see exactly what their ballot will look like on Tuesday.”

In addition to interacting with candidates, eVoter allows voters to locate their polling place, generate and print a customized ballot, access an absentee ballot, look up endorsements from registered organizations, and donate to campaigns.

Candidates can purchase and customize an online profile on eVoter, and registered organizations can publicize their endorsements to voters at a low cost.

Candidates or endorsing organizations that are interested in creating a profile should visit nbcchicago.com/news/politics/Chicago-Elections-2010.html and click on “Visit eVoter.com” in the eVoter search box or call (866) 976-0555.

About eVoter

eVoter is the unbiased, non-partisan election information site where voters can generate a personalized sample ballot instantly, view candidate profiles, make contributions, view organizational endorsements, find polling places, request absentee ballot applications, and more.

Owned and operated by Florida-based Political Technologies LLC (politicaltechnologies.com), eVoter is designed with the goal of providing voters with concise unbiased information on every candidate and measure on their ballot.

With 7000+ Illinois Primary Election Candidates listed and 11,000+ polling places, eVoter is the destination for 2010 Illinois Primary Election information.

About NBC 5 Chicago (WMAQ-TV)

NBC5 (WMAQ) is the owned and operated NBC station in Chicago. On October 8, 1948, the station, then called WNBQ-TV, transmitted its first telecast from the Merchandise Mart—the third game of the Indians-Braves World Series in Cleveland, Ohio.

The station’s current call letters, WMAQ-TV, were established in 1964. During NBC5 Chicago’s rich history, the station pioneered a number of television “firsts.”

On April 15, 1956, NBC5 became the world’s first all-color station. In September of 1986, NBC5 became the first Chicago commercial station to broadcast in stereo.

In 1989, NBC5 was the first Chicago station to present closed captioning of all local newscasts and in 2004 was the first television station to launch a street side studio at 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Studio 5.

Currently, NBC5 airs 30 hours of local news per week in HD. NBC5 News has over 30 reporters and anchors covering the Chicago area.

NBC5 News covers local news on-air and online at nbcchicago.com.

Filed under: Convertible, Tesla, Electric

You read that right. Tesla Motors will stop building the Roadster in 2011.

Wired‘s Autopia was digging through the papers filed by Tesla to the Securities and Exchange Commission for its IPO and came across with this nugget:

“We do not plan to sell our current generation Tesla Roadster after 2011 due to planned tooling changes at a supplier for the Tesla Roadster.”

As everyone’s aware, the current iteration of the Tesla Roadster is built in Hethel, England by Lotus using Elise/Exige underpinnings. Judging by the quote above, that means the Elise/Exige is due to be replaced by a new model (good news for enthusiasts), but that leaves Tesla up a creek without the proverbial paddle.

The other telling line is this:

“As a result, we anticipate that we may generate limited, if any, revenue from selling electric vehicles after 2011 until the launch of the planned model S…”

The Model S is due to come out in 2012, which means Tesla might not have any revenue coming in until the all-electric sedan goes on sale. If there’s a snag with anything in the launch of the sedan – design, production, engineering, you name it – then Tesla’s in serious trouble. That might make investors wary when the upstart automaker finally begins offering shares.

So, bottom line: If you want the current Roadster, order now, or wait until the all-new Roadster goes on sale in 2013.

[Source: Autopia]

Tesla to kill the Roadster in 2011, new version coming in 2013? originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobile devices such as Apple’s iPad, announced this week, are providing new ways to see the crown jewels of space science: glorious views from the frontiers of the universe. However, getting to the good stuff sometimes requires a little sleuthing. Check out some of the brightest gems – and feel free to pass along your own favorites.

…(read more)

The owners of an Elgin house that exploded and burned to the ground earlier this month after an apparent natural gas leak have filed a lawsuit against Nicor Gas.

Isaias Montes, 50, and Rutila Morales, 48, claim in a lawsuit filed in Cook County Court that Nicor Gas employees failed to ensure residents’ safety while they inspected and tested the house on the 700 block of Elma Avenue for a natural gas leak.

The ranch home exploded just after 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 12, causing a fire that destroyed the home.

The family is seeking more than $50,000 in damages from the utility company.

Montes and Morales were in the house at the time with their children, Caroline Montes, 23, and Christian Montes, 7, along with family friend Fabiola Martinez, 23.

The five were sent to area hospitals suffering injuries ranging from bruises to first- and second-degree burns. All have since been released.

In the three-page suit, the family claims Nicor workers were negligent when it failed to evacuate the home after the homeowners alerted Nicor of apparent gas bubbles emanating from the home’s paved driveway.

Upon inspecting and testing the ambient air in the basement, workers told the residents the house was safe and instructed them to stay in the basement with an open window, the suit says.

The suit says Nicor workers then began to dig into the driveway using powertools. That’s when the “low order explosion” occurred, “knocking the walls outward and causing the roof to pancake to the floor,” the complaint says.

The suit says Nicor workers failed to ensure the area was safe and failed to shut off the gas to the area before digging into the driveway.

“If only Nicor had turned off the gas to the area or had told the Moraleses to leave the house, the horrible injuries and damage to the house might have been avoided,” the family’s attorney, Francis Patrick Murphy, said in a news release.

“As a result of Nicor’s incompetence, there has been tremendous suffering and a wonderful family’s life has been changed forever.”

Richard Caragol, a Nicor spokesman, said he could not provide details regarding the lawsuit, but acknowledged the company had received notice of the suit.

The city of Elgin has yet to issue a cause of the explosion; officials say the investigation is ongoing.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

ManCrunch.com — no relation to PopCrunch.com (LOL) — has a bone to pick with CBS. The dating site, which caters to homosexual men, says they’ve been royally dissed by network, which is accused of snubbing the site’s bid to broadcast a commercial during next weekend’s Super Bowl. The network told the Web site that the ad roster was already full, but sources say that a number of spots still remain unsold. The controversy comes just days after the network agreed to air a pro-life abortion spot, featuring college football star Tim Tebow.

This year’s Super Bowl will see the Indianapolis Colts take on the New Orleans Saints in Miami Sunday, Feb. 7. The NFL’s championship game is expected to reach an estimated one-third of 300 million Americans.

In a letter to ManCrunch, CBS said that it refused to air the commercial because it “is not within the network’s broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday.”

“After reviewing the ad – which is entirely commercial in nature – our standards and practices department decided not to accept this particular spot,” the statement continued.

CBS maintained that it would consider an alternative ad, should ManCrunch opt to submit one.

“If the ad showed a man and woman kissing it would have been accepted. You see ads for erectile dysfunction morning, noon and night. It’s discriminatory that they won’t show this,” ManCruch spokesperson Elissa Butcher remarked. “If the ad doesn’t air on the Super Bowl, it will air on another network. It’s not like it plays like Adam Lambert [kissing another man on the AMAs].”

Adobe is not going to take Flash’s exclusion from the iPad lying down. Their latest salvo: enlisting their friends at Bang Brothers to show just how badly you’re going to miss Flash video on Apple’s new device.

Lee Brimelow over at TheFlashBlog provides ten examples of pages that will be incapacitated on the iPad due to the lack of Flash, ranging from Disney to Google Finance to… well, to hard core pornography. In fact, it’s near the top of the list, at the intersection of Hulu and CNN.

Low blow? Possibly. But the iPad is at heart a content delivery device, and last I heard pornography was pretty popular on these here internets. Then again, given the lack of built-in kickstand, trying to watch porn on the iPad might give a whole new meaning to tablet sutra. [The Flash Blog via Wired]

An Aurora music producer and his Chicago-based client, Phoenix Phenom, are looking to put “that boom boom pow” on the Black Eyed Peas for “jackin’ their style.”

A lawsuit filed this week in federal court claims the group’s 2009 hit, “Boom Boom Pow,” is a plagiarized version of a song titled “Boom Dynamite” written by Chicago artist Ebony Latrice Batts, also known as the Phoenix Phenom, and her producer, Manfred Mohr.

According to the suit, Mohr submitted a copy of “Boom Dynamite” to executives at Interscope Records, the Black Eyed Peas’ record label, in January 2008 after company representatives expressed interest in Batts’ music.

In March 2009, the Black Eyed Peas released the song “Boom Boom Pow” as the first single off the group’s fifth studio album, entitled “The E.N.D.”

According to the lawsuit, the song was number one on the Billboard chart and sold more than 4.6 million downloads. It held the top spot on the singles chart for 12 weeks.

“‘Boom Boom Pow,’ as a whole, is substantially similar to ‘Boom Dynamite,’ and the hook portions of both songs are so strikingly similar that there can be no other reasonable explanation but that the Black Eyed Peas copied plaintiffs’ song,” the suit states.

Reached at his Aurora home Friday, Mohr declined to comment at the instruction of his attorney, Ira Gould, who did not return a call placed to his office Friday.

The suit asks that the Peas be prohibited from performing the song publicly, that Mohr and Batts be allowed to profit from the song and that both be given songwriter’s credits in regard to the song.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Is it true that Jersey Shore’s Jenni “J-WOWW” Farley has decided to “wow” us in her birthday suit as part of a $200,000 deal with Playboy? Well, the well-endowed J-WOWW told DJ Sean Green in an interview for his radio show, “The Green Room,” that she’s ready to bare it all! “Not at all!” the tattooed bike enthusiast exclaimed when asked if she would have any reservations about stripping nude for the men’s mag, saying she’d want, “a celebrity centerfold and cover.”

“I think it’s already in the works,” she added.

John Pistilli was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday for molesting a young Highland Park girl inside a Gurnee store.

Associate Judge Daniel Shanes told Pistilli that after he completes the prison sentence, he will have to register as a sex offender and will be on parole for the remainder of his life.

The former Grayslake man pleaded guilty Dec. 4 in an agreement that assured him of a prison sentence of at least six, but no more than 18 years.

Pistilli, 54, was inside the Community Thrift Store, 3440 Grand Ave., on Aug. 21, 2008 when he encountered two girls, ages 5 and 7.

He approached the girls and put his hand inside the younger one’s pants and then quickly left the store.

Police were called but were unable to locate Pistilli until a store employee recognized him when he returned about a week later.

The girl was shown a picture of Pistilli and identified him as the man who had attacked her.

Police said Pistilli confessed to the crime during an interview.

He was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and criminal sexual abuse, although the sexual abuse charge was dropped in exchange for his guilty plea to the more serious charge.

Defense attorney James Schwarzbach said Pistilli served a probationary term in Florida after a 1994 conviction for child molesting there.

Without the agreement that led to his plea, Pistilli would have faced a maximum of 30 years in prison.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Now you can own a waterjet system starting at $70,000

OMAX Corporation ®, the leading manufacturer of precision abrasive waterjet systems, introduces a new waterjet system arrival, the MAXIEM product line.

Now you can own a waterjet system starting at $70,000. Manufactured entirely in the USA, MAXIEM Waterjets broaden the abrasive waterjet product market and integrate proven technologies in a cost-efficient package to provide users with an affordable, highly productive solution for part production.

Modular Assembly Technology Co., Ltd. Specialized in providing high quality aluminum profile and accessories.
We offer the most perfect one-station service in the high-end field such as:
LCD,Clean Room,Solar machine,pharmaceutical machine
Machine guard and safety system;OEM service.
We supply the series products and perfect service to the world leading end users such as BMW,BENZ,CHANEL,TOSHIBA,CANON and so on.
Our Advantages:
Excellent Quality: Is same as Bosh,Item ;
Lower Price: Rely on lower labor cost and directly sales to you;
Special Service: Offer assembly and competitors’ products conversion service

Quick and accurate clamping thanks to the special adjusting ring-nut.

From the renown principle of the cam operated lever used to adjust bicycle saddles, ELESA developed a new product provided with a special knurled ring-nut fitted on the clamping mechanism base, which is used both to adjust the force applied to the lever, in order to always achieve the best possible clamping, and to rotate the lever to the desired position.
The slightly curved handle and the shape of the end add some stylish design and offer an ergonomic, safe and convenient grip.
The lever body and the base, consisting of an adjustable ring-nut with bushing and a connection bushing are made of glass-fibre reinforced polyamide based technopolymer that considerably increases rigidity and resistance. The plug with threaded hole and the threaded pin are made of glossy galvanised steel.

The adjustable cam operated lever LAC-R is available with 80 mm lever and clamping device (hole or pin) with M8 threading.
The range is completed with the LAC version, without adjusting ring-nut.

For product sheets including drawings and part number/size tables, see our website www.elesa.com

Chopped strands ER 2011 are made of boroaluminosilcate glass, comprising less than 1% alkalies. It is characterized by good strand integrity. Chopped strands are not stuck together, and their ends are not fuzzy. Chopped strands have the same, repeatable length of fibre sections. The size type put on the filament enables to process it with non-saturated polyester resins as well as phenolic and melamine ones. Chopped strands ER 2011 are for producing polyester moulding compounds of DMC and BMC type. Products made of these compounds can be formed by pressing or injection. Chopped strands ER-2011 can be used to produce articles from phenolic, amino resins and poly-amides as their reinforcement.

The founding of the Krosglass company is closely related to the history of Krosno Glassworks. The establishment of the first glasswork plant dates back to 1923. Successive plants have been constructed since 1950s and further developed into a glassworks’ industrial unit. The last constituent, Glass Fibre Plant, was founded in November 1971. The production of glass fibre in Krosno had started based on TBA Bishop’s license, an English company, the then leading producer of construction glass fibre.

PRECISION PLASMA CUTTERS HELP SPEED PRODUCTION OF ROYAL NAVY’S NEW AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

Baldor high performance digital servomotors and drives used on all four axes

Techserv Cutting Systems Ltd, the specialist manufacturer of CNC profile cutting systems, has delivered four HS 4000 hi-definition precision plasma cutters to the UK’s Aircraft Carrier Alliance (ACA). Each cutter employs an advanced fully-synchronised four axis motion control system – based entirely on Baldor Electric Company digital servomotors and drives – to provide the precision of movement needed for tight tolerance, large-scale profile cutting. The plasma cutters are being used to help fabricate the steel plate bow sections of two new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, the first of which is due to enter service with the Royal Navy by 2016, with the second to follow by 2018.

The plasma cutters are installed at the Appledore (Devon) shipyard of Babcock Marine Division, one of the principal members of the ACA. The Appledore shipyard is involved in building the steel bow sections of the warships, which are then transferred to Babcock’s Rosyth (Fife) shipyard for integration and final ship assembly. The first of some 20 consignments from Appledore, comprising 11 fabricated units weighting between 20 and 36 tonnes each, were shipped by barge to Rosyth in August.

Techserv’s HS 4000 plasma cutters are very high performance machines, capable of producing high quality cut parts from steel plate sheets up to 5 metres wide and up to 35mm thick. They employ precision extruded aluminium for the chassis and main beam to ensure rigidity and low mass, and use a machined track – with racks to both rails – which can be mounted on mid-level pedestals or on a customer-supplied beam. Depending on the thickness of steel plate being processed and the type of plasma unit that is fitted, HS 4000 machines offer cutting speeds of 50 to 16,000 mm per minute.

HS 4000 plasma cutters are four axis systems, with rack and pinion drives to both the transverse axes and the synchronised longitudinal axis. The fourth axis controls the height of the cutting torch above the steel plate. Each of the four axes is powered by a Baldor BSM series AC brushless servomotor, driven by a Baldor MicroFlex 500 watt digital servo drive. The servo drives are controlled by a 4-axis version of Baldor’s NextMove ESB-2 machine controller. According to Techserv’s Technical Director, Mike Cowley, “We elected to use exclusively Baldor motion control products for the HS 4000 primarily because the combination works so well at providing the extremely high level of positioning accuracy that we require. In this particular case, the servomotors are fitted with BiSS encoders, which provide completely unambiguous absolute position data whenever they are polled by the controller”.

Mike Cowley also points out that Baldor’s multitasking Mint programming language is very easy to use, “This helped speed the development of our motion control programs, and the fact that the language uses the same API (Application Programming Interface) naming conventions as ActiveX commands further simplified integration with the front-end control PC. We found the HTA (hold to analogue) command to be especially useful, because it allows us to handle the plasma height sense function entirely within the NextMove controller, in real-time.”

Overall control of each plasma cutter is handled by an on-board industrial-grade PC. Designed specifically for shape-cutting machines, this PC features a 15-inch touch-sensitive full colour HMI, and employs graphical shape representation to ensure ease of use. The software runs under Windows XP and provides real-time control of all the cutting machine’s advanced motion functions, including contouring, as well as its Kaliburn Proline 2200 plasma unit. The software also controls the torch height system on the HS 4000, monitoring the arc voltage and automatically adjusting the torch-to-work distance to provide optimum cutting performance and to ensure machine safety.

The Magician machine is a small footprint, multi-torch cutting machine designed to deliver precision, high definition plasma cutting, oxy-fuel cutting and drilling. This small, robust, reliable machine is currently operating successfully in many companies, from job shops to contract cutting and OEMs. The Magician can achieve profiling speeds of up to of up to 20m/min and can accept up to 6 torches for multi-torch plate cutting of 150 mm thick. With this being said it achieves accuracy and high productivity by utilizing single piece fabricated beam construction, which eliminates bolted joints.
The low rails on the magician enable rigidity and higher productivity as well as improving accuracy and stability while reducing the chances of damage from swinging loads on cranes and forklifts. These rails also improve operator access, speeding up and loading and unloading and reducing potential safety problems. Other options and features that can be included on the Magician are break away torch mounts, data monitoring and management reporting, arc writer, raise/lower water table, marking and engraving and much more.

To find out more information please visit http://www.farleylaserlab.com/magician-plasma/

Specialist analytical thermal desorption instrumentation manufacturer Markes International Ltd. has announced the launch of a new higher temperature and larger capacity version of its popular Micro-Chamber / Thermal Extractor™ (¼-CTE™) for the measurement of (semi-) volatile organic compounds (SVOC) such as formaldehyde from materials. The innovative new Micro-Chamber / Thermal Extractor will enable the manufacturing industry to achieve in-house product testing to assist compliance with new legislation such as REACH, CARB and EC Construction Products Directive/Regulation.
The new instrument complements the Markes range of chemical emissions monitoring technology and allows four samples (each up to 100 ml volume) to be evaluated simultaneously at temperatures up to 250°C. Bulk or surface-only emissions of (S)VOC, including key phthalate plasticisers, can be sampled from a whole variety of materials including construction products, semi-conductor/PC components, car trim, carpets, paints, textiles and children’s toys. The ¼-CTE is usually used in combination with sorbent tubes and offline thermal desorption (TD)-GC/MS. Additionally, Markes ¼-CTE units are compatible with DNPH cartridges for formaldehyde emissions screening by HPLC.
New legislation such as REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals), Californian green chemistry initiatives (AB 1879 & the CARB formaldehyde rule) and the EC Construction Products Directive/Regulation is driving industry to monitor the release of (S)VOC from its products. These new regulations require products and materials to be sent to independent test laboratories for certification of chemical release and additional quality control of chemical emissions. However, QC of chemical release from materials requires much faster and lower cost tests than the three- and 28-day reference methods used for product certification; the Micro-Chamber / Thermal Extractors are particularly useful for in-house QC/screening of chemical emissions levels.

You would quickly like to realise your needs for space? With the patented construction of the FLADAFI® Building and Sanitary Containers your requests can easily be implemented.

FLADAFI® Building and Sanitary Containers are cheaper as buildings are cheaper than massive construction buildings. They can be used more quickly and can, if required, be relocated or quickly and economically be enlarged.

FLADAFI® Building Containers are available in two series:

1. Turnkey building containers acting as office, living, sleeping or social rooms for associations and industry, in factories, at exhibition sites or at construction sites as cheap durable solution or as temporary accommodation.

2. Sanitary containers ready for connection – for the installation of the legally required showers, wash and toilet facilities in industry, at event sites or at construction sites.

A heat protection package according to the Energy Saving Enactment (EnEV) dated 2 December 2004 enables low operating costs, also due to high all-round heat protection including heat protection glass.

Further services: cheap delivery, offloading and assembly service up to the turnkey handover of the building, quick supply time table.

HDR is a new data recorder the next step in the evolution of data recording and analysis.

Combining the ease of use and compact size of traditional data recorders such as the Sony SIR1000 and Teac RD series, and the functionality and flexibility of modern data acquisition systems such as the HGL Hawk series, the new HGL HDR3200 provides the best of both worlds in a powerful and cost effective package

HDR features 16 and 32 analogue input / Output channels:

– 24 bit delta sigma A to D converter per channel
– Synchronous sample rates 5-200 kHz (up to 80kHz bandwidth)
– All inputs are configurable for AC, DC, ICP, strain gage or Tachometer signals
– Each channel includes selectable ranges up to +/-1, 2, or 10 volts
– Synclink interface to allow multi-unit operation
– < 10kg weight