Author: Serkadis

Filed under: Hardware, Multimedia, Cult of Mac, Books

In my post yesterday I touched on the likely long faces at Amazon H.Q. in Seattle. The iPad is something I’m sure they wished hadn’t happened, but of course it did, and I thought I’d take a closer look at the competition between the Amazon and Apple devices.

First off, if you were thinking of buying a Kindle DX, I’d say forget it. The iPad is a knockout punch to that device. At just ten dollars cheaper than the low end iPad, there just is no contest. The two devices are the same size (both are 9.7″), but the iPad has a color screen and can do a lot of things that Kindle just can’t do. Yes, the DX has free 3G wireless for buying books, but the iPad has 802.11n, and for most common usage, it just isn’t that hard to find a place to hook up. Book prices may be a bit higher on the iPad, but they will be in color and multimedia with the promise of moving video, color charts and pictures, and so on. I also consider the on-screen keyboard an advantage for the iPad — the keyboard on the Kindle is basically a waste of space.

As a travel companion, all you can do on the DX is read, although there is a rudimentary browser, and more functionality coming Subscriptions are another Kindle selling point, but it’s not a stretch to believe that Apple has something like that coming as well. Comparing the iPad to the Kindle DX, I just don’t think there is any contest, and Amazon is going to be forced to think about how they are pricing and marketing the Kindle DX.

OK, on to the standard issue Kindle at U.S. $259.00. This decision is a bit trickier. It’s about half the cost of the low end iPad, has a smaller screen, but does have built in no-charge 3G. That’s mainly for buying books, as web browsing is pretty painful. Once again, books seem a bit cheaper on the Kindle at this stage, but I’ve noticed prices creeping up. Battery life with wireless off is about 2 weeks, and the iPad can never touch that.

For the immediate future, Amazon has far more books on offer, but that will likely change over time. If you have the smaller Kindle, I would not have anxiety about the iPad if you are mainly a reader. If you have the DX, I’d feel a bit queasy.

It’s likely you’ll be able to read your Kindle books on the iPad, just as you can on your iPhone or iPod touch, but they’ll be black and white, with no rich illustrations. Amazon will stress that the iPad will be a great place to read Kindle books, but I don’t think in the long run that’s a cogent argument.

Looking out to the future, I think the odds favor the iPad. As an author myself (of a book about a sixties film producer), the idea of converting my dead tree book to something with short film clips and even musical examples makes me giddy. As a consumer, I’ll want to get books that have those kinds of features.

In the early days of technology, new inventions tend to mimic the old. The TV was really a small movie screen, with radio quality audio. In fact, a lot of early TV was really old radio shows repackaged with pictures, i.e. Jack Benny and the Lone Ranger.

The Kindle mimics the book reading experience. It does it well, with crisp and ease of use. Apple seems to want to take the experience beyond just mimicking a book, and creating a new experience. Publishers will have to extend themselves to meet those goals, and so will authors.

In the short term, these gradual changes will be invisible, and I’ll happily keep using my Kindle. In the long term, devices like the iPad will win us over and evolve our relationship with our media, just as the iPod did.

How about you? Second thoughts about a Kindle? Or a Nook. Or a whatever?

TUAWiPad vs. Kindle: Which way to go? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vath Automobiltechnik has been putting out some exciting performance packages for Mercedes-Benz models for some time now. The tuner today revealed its new performance package for the new 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG giving it a total of 605-hp with a maximum torque of 509 lb-ft. The modifications allow the E63 AMG (know as the 63RS by Vath) to go from 0-62 mph in 4.1 seconds with a top speed of 211 mph.

The performance upgrades will cost you a total of €19,635 ($27,415 USD).

Vath is also offering a bunch of visual modifications, which you can learn more about in the press release posted after the jump.

Hop over to read the press release.

Vath RS63 – Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG:

Press Release:

Energy shot for the new E-Class – E63 AMG with 605 HP

After high-performance cure at VÄTH Automobiltechnik, the new E-Class E63 AMG is exactly the right choice for those who like adrenaline rush. This E-Class vehicle is clearly a winner type – smart and spry, which becomes instantly obvious looking at huge 20″ forged three-part alloy rims (8,211.00 Euro for a set) with individually designed 245/30-20 or 285/25-20 high performance tyres and with sportive exterior carbon package.

Thanks to the new VÄTH grill for Euro 797.00 without the Mercedes star the face of the new E-Class has got a sportive outfit, but still keeps its face.

The powerful silhouette with the wedgelike rising side line and the muscular car tail is furthermore supported by a boot spoiler lip for Euro 333.00 and a carbon-diffuser for Euro 1,773.00. The distinctively arrow-shaped front bumper has become still more sportive now thanks to the carbon front apron suspension for Euro 1,416.00. The VÄTH optics package warrants for the perfect harmony of dynamics and sportiveness.

As a matter of tradition, VÄTH Automobiltechnik guarantees also a high level of road safety. The road holding capacity has been improved by VÄTH by lowering the airmatics by about 30 mm (Euro 821.00).

But not only elegance counts here, but also hard facts, such as an output of 605 hp, a torque of 690 Nm and maximum speed of 340 km/h. After engine retrofitting made by VÄTH for 19.635,00 Euro, the AMG V8 drive unit provides for an acceleration of 4,1 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h. Engine retrofitting includes special forged pistons, valves, sports cam shafts, as well as big intake and exhaust valves. In addition, the crank drive has been improved, the cylinder head channels have been enlarged by milling and engine software has been updated.

Without regard to its sportive appearance, tuned by VÄTH E-Class 63 AMG sports sedan offers comfort inside. For this purpose VÄTH Automobiltechnik offers a carbon interior set for Euro 2,737.00 and velour floor mats with the embroidered VÄTH logo for Euro 226.00.

Sports braking system with 390 mm brake discs and with 8 pistons fixed caliper for the front axle is already available for Euro 5,355.00.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: WCF

Anyone who has been using Facebook for a few years knows that even minor changes to an interface design can cause a wide variety of reactions from a loyal user base. When the popular social network has made design tweaks in the past, there is always some portion of their users that are upset, if not enraged, by the changes made. A couple of weeks ago, we told you how your registration process could be driving potential users away, and a large part of that has to do with the design.

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These days, the look and feel of a website or product is just as important as the features that it provides. One product with one of the hottest new interfaces available is the new Boxee Beta software which allows for streamlined local and Web media viewing. Whitney Hess is the user experience (UX) designer behind the framework of the Boxee interface, and recently on her blog Pleasure and Pain she described the systematic process she went through to design it.

When Boxee hired Hess to overhaul their UX, she began by interviewing eleven people, some of which were current users of the software, and others who weren’t. She asked them a variety of questions about their use of multimedia, including “Have you ever played music at a party you were hosting?” and “Have you ever displayed your photos on your TV?” among several others. Hess then held usability tests with five participants and gauged how they navigated around the software when asked to complete a series of tasks.

From this process, Hess was able to uncover what current users needed to make their experience better while at the same time discovering what potential users would find attractive. Her work led to the inclusion of several UX features and her wireframe submissions certainly influenced the final UI’s look and feel. The screenshot below demonstrates how the final design compared to her wireframe shown above.

“Overall, we wanted to provide users with greater ability to discover content across sources, easier ways to sort and filter lists, and quick access to their favorite programming,” writes Hess on her blog.

Boxee’s set-top product, aptly named the Boxee Box, was one of the most popular new products at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month. One of its most distinguishing characteristics is its beautiful interface design, which was raved about by reviewers on blogs and in the press. The design owes its positive reception to the framework it sits on, a product of Hess’s systematic approach to the redesign.

Discuss

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Looking for tickets to the Super Bowl? You might have a tough time outbidding one New Orleans twentysomething, who’s offering up his “rarely used” left testicle in exchange for a seat at next month’s big game in Miami.

Anyone got an extra pinky lying around?

Taking one for the team has become a popular trend this sporting season. Last fall, police in Philadelphia accused married mother Susan Finkelstein of placing an Craigslist ad offering sex in exchange for tickets to see the Phillies take on the Yankees in the World Series.

The Indianapolis Colts face the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7.

Here’s All Things Digital’s photo slideshow from Apple’s iPad event in San Francisco on January 27, 2010. Click here for a larger slideshow.

View the slideshow

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Speaking to AutoCar at the 2010 Car of Year Award event held for the new Polo, Volkswagen AG chairman Martin Winterkorn confirmed that the automaker is considering a smaller Porsche sports car and a smaller SUV.

“The Porsche model range is firmly based on the 911, Boxster, Cayenne and Cayman, and it will stay that way,” said Winterkorn. “We are also investigating opportunities for a smaller sports car and a smaller SUV – but I cannot say more at the moment.”

When asked how likely it is those two new models will make it to production, Winterkorn said: ”Let’s just say we do not usually waste our effort…”

We’ve previously heard rumors of a new entry-level Porsche that will share components from the upcoming compact Audi R4 sports car. While Audi’s R4 is slated for a 2011 debut, the Porsche version will not arrive until 2012.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: AutoCar

First Drive: 2011 BMW 335is – Munich finally builds a special one for U.S.

With BMW’s twin-turbo inline six being dispatched in favor of a new single-turbo mill, the crew from Bavaria has created a special 3 Series packing even more punch. And for once, it’s only available in the States.

Bringing Sci Fi to Life: Tron Light Cycle is really real, kinda (w/video)

Tron Legacy is due to hit theaters later this year, and in advance of its release, a one-off concept of everyone’s favorite virtual bike landed at ComicCon to stoke the flames of fanboy’s hearts.

Did NHTSA know of Toyota woes back in 2004?

From the “This story just keeps getting uglier” department, a new report asserts that NHTSA was looking into Toyota’s ThrottleGate situation as early as 2004.

Also of interest:

• VW to announce formation of R performance division in Geneva
• Volkswagen head (kinda) confirms new entry-level Porsche 356
• Ferrari to show off 599 Hybrid, production model planned
• Confirmed: Toyota expands sticking pedal recall to Europe
• Ferrari leads the way with new F10 for 2010 F1 season

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Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 1.28.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Aftermarket, Performance, Motorcycle

Massimo Tamburini may have retired from his post as the head of Centro Ricerche Cagiva (CRC, a subsidiary of Italian motorcycle manufacturer MV Agusta) in December of 2008, but that hasn’t stopped brand-new and exquisitely designed machines bearing his family name from rolling down the streets of Italy. One of the best of these customs may be the Tamborini Corse T1, which is the company’s take on the naked MV Agusta Brutale.

Massimo’s son Andrea is heading up the T1 effort, and Tamborini Corse offers restyling kits and hop-up parts for the the Brutale and F4 from MV Agusta as well as the Ducati 1198 superbike and naked Monster. We don’t know yet what all goes into transforming a standard Brutale into a T1 or how much it costs to do so, but we see plenty of lightweight carbon fiber and aluminum bits hanging off the bike’s stock chassis. See for yourself in our high-res image gallery below.

[Source: Tamburini Corse via Faster and Faster]

MV Agusta Perfezionata: Tamborini Corse T1 ‘perfects what already seems perfect’ originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As we continue our collective foray into the brave new world of social networking, we keep learning the same lesson over and over again: don’t post photos of yourself doing stupid things. This is doubly true if said stupid thing is illegal, as yet another intellectually challenged Facebook user has discovered.

17-year-old Ashley Sullivan had been driving with her boyfriend in Tonawanda, a town in New York State near Niagara Falls, when she crashed into a brick pillar at 56 mph in a golf course. Her boyfriend did not survive the accident, and in November of 2009, Sullivan pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and driving while intoxicated.

That didn’t stop Sullivan from posting a photo a month later to her Facebook page with the caption of “Drunk in Florida.” It just so happens that she had just gone to Florida on a trip, and the judge in her case took notice. Judge Matthew J. Murphy III denied Sullivan youthful offender status, noting that she hasn’t “earned it,” and sentenced her to six months in jail with five years probation. “I’m troubled by your conduct since the crash, and that’s the reason for the jail sentence,” Judge Murphy III told her, according to the Buffalo News (via SAI).

This is just one of (what’s now becoming) a pattern of stories about people making poor Facebook decisions, especially when it comes to posting pictures. Employers don’t like to see you partying at the club, insurance companies don’t like to see you dancing at your birthday party when you’re missing work due to depression, and judges most certainly don’t like to see you posting pics of you drinking after you killed someone in a drunk driving accident.

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This week, the Apollo Alliance released a series of reports in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin that identify components of those states’ workforce development infrastructures that can be better integrated and scaled up to help fill jobs in the clean energy sector. As readers of the weekly update are well aware, over the past decade, clean energy jobs have grown at more than twice the rate of overall jobs, according to a study released last June by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The reports, Mapping Green Career Pathways: Job Training Opportunities and Infrastructure, recommend strengthening existing training infrastructures to build workers’ skills to fill green-collar jobs that are being created in the construction and manufacturing sectors, which are projected to account for 55 percent of all new jobs in the emerging renewable energy and efficiency industries. Overall employment in construction and manufacturing declined sharply over the past decade and has been particularly hard hit by the recession. Ohio lost 106,000 manufacturing jobs and 31,000 construction jobs last year; Michigan shed 94,000 manufacturing jobs and 31,000 construction jobs in 2009; and Wisconsin has lost more than 25 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 2000. 

“The demand for clean energy workers is real and will only grow as federal, regional and state climate and energy policies move forward,” said Elena Foshay, research associate for the Apollo Alliance and a co-author of the report. “However, for these states to take full advantage of this job creation potential, they will need workers whose skills match the needs of the employers and industries of the clean energy economy.”

Mapping Green Career Pathways identifies existing training programs that represent key elements of an integrated green workforce development system. According to the reports, many of the elements of a green training infrastructure already exist in each state, but there are still gaps along the green career pathway that must be filled through stronger, more integrated training programs.

On a telephone press conference announcing the release of the Michigan report, Ken Gawlak, a former General Motors worker, described how the report’s findings relate directly to his experience. He was laid off after working for GM for ten years and decided to explore other career options by talking to counselors at his local community college, Delta College. They recommended that Gawlak enroll in a new training program the college created in collaboration with three local solar companies that were having trouble filling chemical process operator positions. His tuition was paid for by a new program in Michigan called No Worker Left Behind.

After completing a 16-week course, Gawlak got a job working at Dow Corning in solar manufacturing. “Out of the 23 students in the class, 11 had job offers before the class even concluded,” Gawlak said. “There’s definitely a need there, and employers are making use of the students and the program and gobbling them up even before they finish.”

To read the Mapping Green Career Pathways reports, go to www.ApolloAlliance.org.

Creating Clean Energy Jobs Still a Priority for President and Senate Leaders

During Wednesday’s State of the Union speech, President Obama often mentioned the clean energy economy and the need to put Americans to work in clean energy manufacturing facilities and jobs improving the energy efficiency of people’s homes. He also called for the passage of a comprehensive climate and clean energy bill.

“I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy; and I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change,” the president said. “But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future—because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.”

Read the State of the Union speech.

In response to the State of the Union address, Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides praised the president’s ongoing commitment to clean energy job creation and announced that Apollo will host a series of events in the Midwest to help chart this clean energy course. “Over the next several weeks, Apollo Alliances in Michigan, Indiana and Missouri will host forums to discuss how these states can reap the economic benefits of the global movement toward clean energy production,” Angelides said. “These forums will bring together a diverse array of businesses, labor leaders, political officials and economic development experts who can speak to the job creation potential of federal investments in cleaner, more efficient energy technologies, as well as to the role that federal climate and energy policies must play to drive demand and spur economic growth.”

Read the announcement about Apollo clean energy job creation events in Michigan, Indiana and Missouri.

Next week, the Senate is expected to announce its own plans for clean energy job creation when it introduces a jobs bill. The bill is said to include funding for many of the projects Apollo has advocated for in the New Apollo Program and the Apollo Green Manufacturing Action Plan, including home energy efficiency retrofits, manufacturing plant retrofits, transportation and infrastructure projects, and other measures.

Ubisoft has this bizarre and misguided obsession with DRM. Rather than focusing on providing value, it’s always looking to take it away in a fruitless battle to “stop piracy.” The company doesn’t seem to understand that if it gives people a reason to buy, they will. But limiting value doesn’t help anyone. In the past, the company has made a series of bad choices about DRM and suffered because of it. The company also seems to misunderstand how unauthorized file distribution occurs and what it means. In cases where it finally came around to scaling back its DRM, it seemed to do so petulantly, with a passive-aggressive “open letter” about it.

The latest move, sent in by a whole bunch of you, is to require copies of games to call back home to Ubisoft every time they’re used. Yes, you will need to be online, and the game will need to phone home before you can use it. Of course, if Ubisoft actually thinks this is going to hold back those getting unauthorized copies of the game, it’s mistaken. The Ars Technica article above quotes one file-sharing gamer:

“This is fine. I only have to access the Internet once to get Ubisoft games. You’re the ones paying for a broken copy.”

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Following General Motors move, FoMoCo is also offering $1,000 trade-in cash on Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles to lure in Toyota owners that are facing recalls on sticking accelerator pedals.

“The offer is eligible to Acura, Honda, Toyota, Lexus and Scion owners,” Robert Parker, a Ford spokesman told Inside Line on Thursday.

Ford did not say when the incentive program will end.

GM said yesterday that it is offering a monthlong incentive to Toyota and Lexus owners after “thousands” of them called and e-mailed dealers asking for help.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Inside Line

Everyone has an opinion about the iPad, even at Davos. Michael is there this week at the World Economic Forum, grabbing video interviews with the people he is running into (like Michael Dell showing off a yet-to-launch Android device). In the video above, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff talks about the iPad (what else?). Other people might be wowed by the touchscreen or the 140,000 apps or the iBooks, but not Benioff. He’s impressed by the battery:

“The most important feature is the 10-hour battery life. That he was able to get that kind of capability in such a robust device, I think we have a game-changer.”

He also gives Michael a hard time for not getting into some CEO dinner. Watch the video.

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This week, social networking site MyYearbook launched a revamped design, changing some key UI elements to better reflect the way people use the site. One of the more interesting points of the redesign isn’t its appearance though — it’s how it was actually put together. Rather than simply rolling out a new design, MyYearbook actually polled its userbase for suggestions, then drafted some mockups that users voted on. The result? Users favor the new design by a factor of over 3 to 1, without the kind of backlash other sites have seen from their redesigns.

The most obvious change to the site is the logo, which has gone from cartoony to something a little more professional (though it still has a couple of smiley faces). The navigation bar has also been simplified. CEO Geoff Cook says that over time MyYearBook had integrated a bunch of gaming menu options into the main navigation area, without doing much to differentiate the core features that actually make the site a social network. Now, they’ve been moved to a different section of the header.

This is actually only Phase I of a two-part change; soon MyYearBook will be modifying profile pages to more prominently feature Chatter streams. A Chatter stream looks visually similar to Facebook’s News Feed, but features a more heavy emphasis on meeting new people rather than only seeing content from your friends. The default Chatter feed displays recent content updates from other users in your vicinity (assuming you’ve told MyYearbook where you are), and there are tabs to see updates from just your friends.

Because MyYearBook is a social network, it obviously knows some key demographic information about each of its users. With that in hand, the site pulled together some interesting data analyzing exactly which members were in favor of the new design, and which ones weren’t. The conclusion? While the new design was favored over the new design by over 3 to 1 when averaged across all members polled, there was an obvious trend when age was taken into consideration: the older the user was, the more averse they were to the new design. That may not be especially surprising, but it’s interesting to see just how consistent the graph below is.

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Pentax’s Optio I-10 point-and-shoot gets the hands-on treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve wanted proof that we in the professional press are as crazy as a pack of Mac fanboys when it comes to reporting on Apple, here it is. Late Tuesday, the night before Steve Jobs walked on stage to unwrap the iPad, baby-faced entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, who made bank in the 90s as editor of Silicon Alley Reporter and again in the 2000’s with Engadget, began goofily tweeting that he was a beta tester for Apple’s about-to-launch tablet.

Calacanis, who has 95,000 followers, made up features at random: “Yes, there are 2cameras: one in front and one in back (or it may be one with some double lens) so you record yourself and in front of u.”

Like us, you probably missed this tale in the tidal wave of noise around Apple’s launch. But Calacanis’ faux specs were reported on by several mainstream media publications normally known for better horse-sense about technology.

Valleywag editor Ryan Tate made a “collage of shame” below with screenshots from the sites that should have known better: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, CNN Money, Reuters, Macworld, and Joystiq. Yes, Joystiq!

I write for the NYT, WSJ and Wired, so it’s kind of awkward to report this.  But as Tate’s screenshots make clear, the coverage Calacanis got was definitely too credulous. I’ve worked with Jason now and then, and I believe him that he wasn’t trying to pull off a big hoax. The solar panels should have been a giveaway.

[Photo: Flickr/doctorparadox]

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Citi’s Reclassification of Core Assets Just Window Dressing – … in Moody’s view,  and has no impact on its credit rating.  In Citi-speak, this change in mind is expressed as a transfer of assets from Citi Holding to Citicorp with Citicorp being a business mix that the company wants to retain.” … – Research Recap

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going beyond the ratings agencies – Fixing the Ratings Catastrophe Through Transparency -  By David Goldman – interesting 7 point plan – Inner Workings Blog at Asia Times

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Traders Aggressively Buying Credit Default Swap Protection Against Sovereign Debt Defaults – Vincent Fernando – Money Game at Business Insider

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Shorting the Long Treasury Is This Fund Manager’s Highest Conviction Idea – David McMillan -  Seeking Alpha

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Banks Again Peddling Derivatives, as Investors Head for the Exit – By Alain Sherter – Bnet

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Exchanges to Petition SEC on Sub-Penny Pricing – By JACOB BUNGE – WSJ Business -    I never thought this would happen. Thanks to HFT and Dark Pools – BC

Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides Announces Midwest Forums of Business, Labor and Environmental Leaders to Chart Course Toward Clean Energy Economy

SAN FRANCISCO – In the wake of President Obama’s State of the Union call for creating clean energy jobs, Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides announced that the coalition of business, labor, environmental and community leaders which he leads will host a series of Midwest forums to help chart this new course:
 
“America’s jobs of the future will be created through today’s investments in energy efficiency and renewable power sources. By bringing together diverse interests to chart the course toward our clean energy future, we can strengthen American businesses and create a new generation well-paid jobs.
 
“Over the next several weeks, Apollo Alliances in Michigan, Indiana and Missouri will host forums to discuss how these states can reap the economic benefits of the global movement toward clean energy production. These forums will bring together a diverse array of businesses, labor leaders, political officials and economic development experts who can speak to the job creation potential of federal investments in cleaner, more efficient energy technologies, as well as to the role that federal climate and energy policies must play to drive demand and spur economic growth.”
 
The need to create new American jobs has never been more acute. Nationwide unemployment remained at 10 percent in December, and the U.S. manufacturing sector has been in severe decline over the past decade, shedding 5.5 million jobs since 2000. The one bright spot in the economy has been the expansion of clean energy jobs, which have grown at more than twice the rate of overall jobs over the past decade, according to a June 2009 analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
 
In December, Apollo released a clean energy investment plan that would create up to 1.2 million domestic jobs while increasing U.S. energy security and climate stability. The 5-point plan to spur economic recovery and create jobs focused on several areas the president and the Senate have identified as being critical to domestic job growth, including transportation infrastructure, energy efficiency and renewables, and domestic clean energy manufacturing. 
 
CONTACTS: Sam Haswell: (415) 371-1700 x201
For more information, visit ApolloAlliance.org.

###

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs.

Fed Weighs Interest on Reserves as New Benchmark Rate – By Scott Lanman – … The central bank has been unable to control the federal funds rate since the September 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., when it began flooding financial markets with $1 trillion to prevent the economy from collapsing.  … “One option you might want to consider is that our policy rate is the interest rate on excess reserves and we let the fed funds rate trade with some spread to that,” Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker told reporters on Jan. 8 in Linthicum, Maryland. … – Bloomberg

Fed May Take Chance End to Debt Purchases Won’t Hurt Housing – By Steve Matthews and Vivien Lou Chen – Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve may take a chance the housing market can stage a comeback without its support by announcing today it will stick to the plan to end a $1.25 trillion program of mortgage-debt purchases in March. … “This raises a huge risk to the recovery,” said Eisenbeis, now chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Vineland, New Jersey. “You don’t want to risk cutting off the recovery in housing by essentially pulling the rug from under it.” … – Bloomberg 

U.S. May Retool Mortgage Program to Help Underwater Homeowners – By Dawn Kopecki and Theo Francis – … The changes would be at least the third lease on life for the program, which began in October 2008 during the Bush administration and has so far helped just 96 of the 400,000 homeowners originally targeted.  The U.S. Federal Housing Administration is considering ways to make the program more effective, Commissioner David Stevens said in an interview. While he wasn’t specific about any changes, he said Hope for Homeowners could be expanded to more directly help borrowers with negative equity. … – Bloomberg

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If Geithner Goes, The Top Two Contenders – By: Lee Brodie – … And although nobody is tossing their hat in the ring officially, Clifton tells the desk that insiders are whispering about a short list; and the names being floated are Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and former NJ Governor Jon Corzine. … – Fast Money CNBC

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Pimco’s Gross Says U.S. ‘Needs’ Bernanke to Stay as Fed Chairman – By Eric Martin – Bloomberg Business Week 

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Portugal next? – This Little PIIGy Is About To Get A Sovereign Downgrade – Joe Weisenthal – The "P" in PIIGS, Portugal, is the next euro nationa to bring heartburn to the union.  Fitch has come out with a negative rating on the nation’s debt, according to ForexLive … – Money Game at Business Insider

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Freddie Mac may finance Stuyvesant Town purchase – Bloomberg – U.S. residential mortgage company Freddie Mac (FRE.N) (FRE.P) may consider providing finance to the buyer of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complex in Manhattan, Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter. – Reuters

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Fannie Mae Economist: US Home Price Decline Not Over Yet – By Judith Burns, Of Dow Jones Newswires – The rebound in the U.S. economy will be weaker than usual, with housing likely remaining a drag on it through 2012, Fannie Mae (FNM) chief economist Doug Duncan said Tuesday.  … Duncan forecasts that U.S. growth will be half the typical 6.5% annual rate seen coming out of a recession, with the economy weighed down by excess housing supply and cautious consumers and lenders. … – NASDAQ

Compromat.ru, a notorious Web site that publishes controversial dossiers on various Russian politicians and businessmen, has been allegedly closed following a court order, Elena Tokareva (a.k.a. LJ user elena-tokareva2) reported [RUS]. There are no further details on the issue but a mirror site kompromat.ru has been launched with some of the materials from the previous version of the site.