Author: Serkadis

More than 1,500 out of nearly 3,000 cut by GM and Chrysler have filed appeals ahead of the midnight deadline set forth by congress not too long ago. A final number of appeals filed will not be known until Friday, as any application postmarked before midnight will be accepted. As of this afternoon however, there were between 1,550 and 1,560 already filed.

GM chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre, Jr., said on Monday that any decision to reinstate dealers would not hurt the company; between 500 and 600 GM dealers have filed appeals with the American Arbitration Association thus far. Acknowledging that perhaps GM did in fact err with regard to some of its dealer closings, Whitacre has said that GM is likely to reinstate hundreds of dealers, though he later said it may be as few as one hundred.

While Chrysler has so far been in compliance with the law, it has not publicly ruled out a legal challenge. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer commended GM and Whitacre, “With this decision, GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre has demonstrated GM’s commitment to having the strongest possible dealer network. It is also a recognition that GM must solidify that network as soon as possible so it can return to profitability and keep Americans on the job. It is my hope that Chrysler will follow GM’s lead.”

Originally strenuously fought against by automakers, the legislation passed in December that gave closed dealers the opportunity to appeal and receive a decision in six-months. The law gives the automakers until some point in June to hand down their decisions, and teh automakers must pay their share of the arbitration cases, which are all to be handled separately and could top $100,000 each.

GM has reinstated about 80 dealers so far and has set aside $600 million to pay closing dealers. Those dealership will have until October to wind down their businesses.

Chrysler however has heard no cases yet, and offered no cash compensation to its dealers, and gave them each just one month to close their doors.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Detroit News

With most gasoline powered vehicles, we are interested in how fast they will go from 0-60 mph. Think announced today that it has teamed up with AeroVironment, Inc., a leading developer and supplier of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, to demo the company’s level III fast-charge system and the Think City electric-car.

The team held a 15-minute news conference at the 2010 Washington Auto Show where they charged a Think City from 0-80% using AV’s fast-charge system in 15 minutes.

“THINK and AeroVironment are setting a new standard for extremely quick re-charging – zero to 80 percent in just 15 minutes,” said THINK CEO Richard Canny. “This is a major leap forward for electric vehicles. The development and deployment of very-fast-charge stations will help speed the electrification of automobiles in the United States and globally.”

The Think City will be sold in the United States later this year and will have a top speed of 70 miles. On a full charge, the Think City can travel a little more than 100 miles.

– By: Kap Shah

Google still can’t seem to get a Google Voice application onto the iPhone, so the company went ahead and launched it as a Web app. The mobile page was rolled out on Tuesday, optimized for both the iPhone and Palm’s WebOS devices, bringing users some of the same functionality that Android users already enjoy natively.

The Web app is an extension of Google’s already-existing mobile offerings for Gmail and Google Calendar, and requires the user to log in using his or her Google account. We gave the offerings a run through on an iPhone and came away happy with what Google has been able to accomplish without a native app.

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Capcom has announced that Super Street Fighter IV, an updated version of last year’s highly succesful fighting title, is due for release on April 27, 2010 in North America and April 30, 2010 in Europe.

Other Great AndroidGuys Posts

• January 26, 2010 — Walmart: No Nexus One for Us. Thanks for Nothing, “Technical Error” (5)
• January 26, 2010 — Nexus One, Other Android Phones to T-Mobile UK? (5)
• January 26, 2010 — Walmart to Offer Nexus One (11)
• January 25, 2010 — Conspiracy Theory: Is Apple Orchestrating a Media Attack on Google? (27)
• January 25, 2010 — What the #####! Nexus One Censoring Swear Words (11)

Looking for a psychologically significant, nice, clean multiple of 1,000 to multiple to fret about?

Forget about Dow 10,000. We’ve cris-crossed that one so many times we’re bored of it.

Your real focus should be on Shanghai 3,000, a threshold above which China’s benchmark index sits precariously above, opening this morning down .4% to 3,007.

As China remains the driver of global growth (see: the economies of Australia, Brazil et. al.), while also heading into a tightening phase, this remains the level to watch. It makes sense, too, given that Bernanke has been replaced by the PBOC governor on the world stage.

By the way, if you haven’t read it, and you want to read something scary before bed (for Americans), do read this description of what the shock tightening has done to Chinese trade in just the last few days. Those prone to nightmares may opt to wait until morning.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Sorry, China, There Is No Short Cut To Economic Greatness
• Inside China’s Tightening: Banks Literally Tearing Up Letters Of Credit, Importers In Disarray, Orders Cancelled
• January 12, 2010: THE DAY BERNANKE GOT REPLACED

I’m getting this for my dog. He’s soooo dramatic. He hears people screaming, he barks. He hears a gunshot, he barks. He hears explosions, well you get the idea.

Plenty of people have resorted to spray bottles or squirt guns to curtail canine barking, so this seems like a natural extension of that.

Oh wait. You can’t slide this $50 apparatus onto your dog’s existing collar and it uses special “unscented water-based solution” instead of plain old tap water.

And the battery only lasts four weeks? And the spray refill costs $10?? And a new battery costs $5??? And shipping costs $8???? I just talked myself right into a $1 squirt gun.

Still, though. Cool idea if you’ve got the money to spend on stuff like this.

The Bark Deterring Spray Collar [Hammacher Schlemmer]

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Does the world need another Mortal Kombat movie? No, probably not, but that won’t stop Hollywood from attempting to exploit a license that was last hot in 1994. Word on the street is that Warner Bros. wants to, yes, “reboot” the series. (Note: You cannot reboot a dead computer, so I don’t know if it’s possible to reboot a dead movie franchise.) To that end it has hired Oren Uziel to write the script. You’ve probably never heard of Uziel, but he wrote Shimmer Lake. You’ve probably never heard of that, either.

This is good news for, well, Uziel, who does, to be fair, have quite a bit of lore to work with. Granted, most of that lore is a hodgepodge of flimfam, but I’m sure a long weekend can be spent parsing through Outworld this, thunder god that.

Of course, this is all what horror site Bloody Disgusting was told. If it ends up being false, blame them.

Or, actually, don’t blame anyone, because I’ve been reading about a third Mortal Kombat since a 1997 issue of GamePro magazine.

Clearly we need a YouTube clip to remind us of godawful Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was. (The first movie wasn’t terrible. It can be watched without wanting to jump out a window.)

via Destructiod

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Toyota announced today that it is temporarily suspending sales of eight models that are involved in the recall for sticking accelerator pedal. The vehicles include the 2009-2010 Toyota Corolla, 2007-2010 Toyota Camry, 2010 Toyota Highlander and others.

“Helping ensure the safety of our customers and restoring confidence in Toyota are very important to our company,” said Group Vice President and Toyota Division General Manager Bob Carter. “This action is necessary until a remedy is finalized. We’re making every effort to address this situation for our customers as quickly as possible.”

Toyota said that it will recall approximately 2.3 million vehicles to correct sticking accelerator pedals on specific Toyota Division models.

Click through for the list of 8 vehicles that will be discontinued.

Toyota’s accelerator pedal recall and suspension of sales is confined to the following Toyota Division vehicles:

2009-2010 RAV4,
2009-2010 Corolla,
2009-2010 Matrix,
2005-2010 Avalon,
Certain 2007-2010 Camry,
2010 Highlander,
2007-2010 Tundra,
2008-2010 Sequoia

– By: Omar Rana

Marcus Carab writes “VANOC (the Vancouver Olympics organization) has a 22-page booklet on their site covering trademark issues around the Olympics.

Most of it isn’t new, but I found the description of their method (starts on page 12) to be very interesting. They describe a rubric with six categories that they use to determine if any given reference to the Olympics is potentially infringing. There are a few things about the method that stood out to me (beyond the broader fact that they are essentially attempting to rewrite trademark law as they see fit):

• Each category is scored from 1 to 3, with a lower score being ideal. There is no option for zero in their ranking, and yet the final grading scale begins with “Unlikely to Infringe” rather than “Not Infringing”
• They offer a bunch of examples and walk you through the math, then they ignore the outcome in some of them. Seriously. A bakery called “Olympic Bakery” that has existed since 1965 scores a 10 out of 18 on their system (“potential infringement”). Almost as if they realized how ridiculous that was while writing it, they decided to say it falls under “unlikely to infringe” even though it very clearly doesn’t by their own math. A few pages later, a Winter Festival scores a “potential infringement”, but they class it as “likely to infringe” with no explanation given.

Mostly this is just the same old Olympic shenanigans, but I found this booklet quite illustrative of just how ridiculous things can get.”

It sounds kind of like the way they judge some of the events in the Olympics themselves.

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Filed under: Apple Corporate, iPhone

There was quite a bit of discussion from Apple yesterday about their sales in China (you can see that in our liveblog from yesterday afternoon), and AppleInsider points out that Apple is changing priorities over there, from straight up sales to brand quality.

Tim Cook said yesterday that Apple has activated more than 200,000 iPhones since the release in China last year, and only in relation to the iPhone can anyone think that number could have been better. Apple is behind the pack in China — there are a significant number of competitors over there, and unlike the market in the West, multifunctional smartphones have been popular for a long time already. But Apple recognizes the potential overseas, and Cook says the company does “…realize we must do well in these markets to continue to grow.”

What changes can they make? Price for one — Apple says that as a premium brand, they’re going to have to tweak a little bit to fit into the lower-income middle class in China while still competing on user experience. Apple didn’t say that they weren’t happy with what’s happening in China, but compared to other countries in Asia (Japan came out of last quarter with a 400% year-over-year growth), Apple has a little more work to do there.

TUAWApple shifts focus from sales to quality in China originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to data released earlier this month by the US Census, the growth of the nation’s software and IT tech sectors dramatically slowed in 2008 – the first such drop since the dot-com crash. Overall, revenue still grew, just at a slower rate – 7.7% – than in 2007 when growth hit 13.2%. The 2008 numbers (PDF) are the agency’s most current figures, and they reveal an industry that earned significantly less on design and development work than it did just a year before. Revenue growth from other services, as well as exports, also slowed.

At least one industry analyst says that, based on antidotal evidence, the Census numbers are too low. But others say that it was clear that many sectors were changing their spending habits and feeling the pangs of the building recession. The question is, are we out of that dip or will 2010 produce similar numbers?

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2004 was the first time the tech sector saw positive revenue growth following the crash. After that, year-to-year growth hovered at between 7% and 8%. Then came 2007 when revenue boomed 13.2% to $229 million. In 2008, revenue topped $246 million, a 7.7% growth rate.

“I’m skeptical of that ‘08 number,” says Toan Tran, associate director of the technology team at the research firm Morningstar. “That’s not something that jives with what we saw.”

Drop Due to Spending Cycle, Recession

Steve Cakebread, former president and chief strategy officer of Salesforce.com not only thinks there was a drop, he says it’s part of a long-term cycle. Between 2005 and 2008 companies spent a lot on upgrades and replacements, which is similar to what happened at the end of the 1990s. Once the upgrades were made, companies stopped spending money.

“This [decrease in] spending thru mid-2008 also accounts for some of the slower growth in jobs, as tech spending does improve productivity,” Cakebread says.

2008 is also when tech first began having cash flow problems due the slowing global economy, says Anirban Dutta, a director of global strategic business development at the consulting firm CSC. Big contract deals – which drive significant growth in the IT services industry – as well as mid-market deals took a hit.

So What Happens in 2010?

The 2008 data is based on an annual survey of 60,000 businesses from 11 broad industry categories. The tech section of the survey covers companies that write, modify and support software, as well as those that design systems that integrate hardware, software and communication technologies. It also includes companies that do on-site management of computer systems and data processing facilities.

It isn’t likely any of those sectors will struggle this year. There are always risks. But if cloud computing may affect the companies that manage IT, then it opens up opportunities, too. That’s a point that Cakebread, Dutta and others make when talking about what will happen this year: Whether it’s cloud, SaaS, or mobile, the growth of cheaper, easier-to-use services and technology will have a decided impact on how tech grows. Cakebread goes so far as to predict that we’re on the doorstep of a “new decade of growth.”

“To be fair, not without its stops and starts,” he says, “but it is starting again.”

What do you think? Did 2008 mark the beginning of a slowdown in the US tech sector? Or did your company do better than ever? Let us know in the comments.

Photo credit: Sigurd Decroos.

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That pay wall that Newsday put around its Web site last year? Crazily effective–at keeping people from buying an online subscription.

Last year, when executives from Cablevision (CVC) announced plans to turn their  paper’s Web site into a pay-to-play proposition, I dreamed up a way it could work: Maybe Long Island residents who wanted to peruse  the paper’s classifieds would pay up. Nope.

Since the wall went up three months ago, only 35 people–as in not quite three dozen–have paid the $5 a week fee for Web access, the New York Observer reports.

The Observer’s John Koblin quotes a Cablevision PR person who says that the “modest” pickup isn’t a surprise, but that’s some very unconvincing spin. Putting up a paywall isn’t cheap or easy: Why bother if it only generates an extra $9,000?

As PaidContent notes, Cablevision can also argue that the real idea behind the pay wall is that it’s supposed to make existing subscribers feel like they’re getting something of real value (advertisers too, supposedly). But it’s hard to argue that online access is a “value-add” if only 35 people value it.

It’s also hard to argue that Cablevision’s problems offer any clue about the prospects of the New York Times’s (NYT) coming pay wall. Because the Times is a different beast than any other paper in the country.

I would be interested, though, in learning how the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune did with :Access Vikings Premium,” a $20-a-year pay wall it put up around most stories about the home team last season.

I could see the thinking behind this one, which showed up around the same time Brett Favre joined the team. And this was the year to try it, since the Vikings had a great season until they blew the NFC Conference game, as is their wont.

But in my personal one-man focus group, the pay wall only served to keep me from visiting StarTribune.com at all. I’m now noticing that the paper seems to have dropped the wall around content it used to ask me to pay for, so perhaps I wasn’t the only one. I’ve asked the paper for more details.

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Filed under: Hybrid, Manufacturing/Plants, Toyota, Green Daily, North America, USA

Toyota has announced that it will halt sales of eight models due to its ongoing problems with unintended acceleration. The hot-selling Prius hybrid is not included in the sales suspension, though the Camry and Highlander (we’ll update when we hear if this also *UPDATE: The sales stoppage does not include the Camry and Highlander Hybrids) are on the list.

At issue are accelerator pedal mechanisms that could get stuck in the open position due to wear, causing the vehicle to accelerate uncontrollably. Earlier this month, Toyota announced a recall of 2.3 million vehicles with the possible defect.

Late last year, the Japanese automaker recalled nearly four million vehicles for floor mats that could trap accelerator pedals, also causing unintended acceleration. The two issues are apparently unrelated, though 1.7 million vehicles are affected by both issues.

The following eight models are included in the sales suspension:

• 2009-2010 RAV4,
• 2009-2010 Corolla,
• 2009-2010 Matrix,
• 2005-2010 Avalon,
• Certain 2007-2010 Camry,
• 2010 Highlander,
• 2007-2010 Tundra,
• 2008-2010 Sequoia

No Lexus or Scion sales have been halted, and due to the sales suspension of the above eight models, a number of manufacturing plants will be shut down for at least the week of February 1st. Click past the break for all the details on the recall and the plants being shuttered in North America.

[Source: Toyota]

Continue reading BREAKING: Toyota temporarily halts sales of selected models, Prius not affected *UPDATE

BREAKING: Toyota temporarily halts sales of selected models, Prius not affected *UPDATE originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The ink-on-paper version of Newsday is America’s 11th-largest newspaper. It serves Long Island and Queens a workingman’s view of the news more akin to the New York Post and Boston Herald than the New York Times or the Boston Globe. Typical headline: “Cops: Doc Bought Cocaine From Nursing Assistant”

Still it’s a serious and influential newspaper, read by an estimated 377,000 people daily — possibly the largest audience  of any suburban paper. Bill Moyers used to work there.

But Newsday’s attempt to drum up Wall Street Journal-style paying subscribers for its website has turned into a comedy far beyond the failure of The New York Times’ TimesSelect. Newsday’s $4 million redesign launched last October, forcing visitors to sign up for a subscription to read Newsday online. The price for an online-only subscription: $5 a week.

The number of people who’ve signed up in the past three months? 35.

Newsday execs said, in a dryly giddy report written by the elitist New York Observer, that part of the problem is that 75 percent of Long Islanders qualify for a free subscription. Newsday.com is free to anyone who subscribes to the paper or has Optimum Cable service, owned by the same company that bout.

But obviously, Newsday’s management knew this going in, and they planned to sign up thousands of subscribers.

The Observer article goes off topic on a pile-on of everything not right at the paper, and skips the important analysis: The Wall Street Journal has proven it can sign up online subscribers by the million. The New York Times will probably be able to do the same. But the same won’t be true of every other publication.

I’m hoping Newsday turns up on Apple’s tablet tomorrow, so we can see how many people read it there.

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Unveiling more of its social platform for Flash games, Heyzap is announcing today that it is launching a social menu bar that can be used to simplify the process of signing into casual online games.

The menu bar is a simple gray stripe that runs along the bottom of a web page and is only 25 pixels high. It gives a user instant access to functions such as virtual currency, which can be used to pay for virtual goods inside the game. The value of the bar is that it is persistent. It can be used in any Flash game that uses the Heyzap platform.

Heyzap makes a platform that is aimed at developers of Flash online games. It is targeting Flash games because the category has grown up from a hobbyist market to a big business. Simple Flash games such as Bloons have proven addictive in recent years and some of them are drawing huge audiences. If developers use Heyzap’s platform, they can have an easier time marketing and monetizing their games. That’s important, since there are tens of thousands of Flash games available.

In the past year, Heyzap has launched tools that allow developers to monetize free games with virtual goods and virtual currency purchases. In December, it launched Heyzap Achievements, which lets users gather their rewards and achievements from games and show them off to their friends.

With the Heyzap Social Bar being introduced today, users will be able to tell their Facebook friends or others what Flash game they’re playing. They will also be able to purchase goods in the Flash game without having to sign into an account every time they play the game. In some ways, it resembles the Meebo chat bar, which lets users chat with friends across a bunch of different applications, or the YouTube social bar that lets users share videos with their friends easily.

“We have made the equivalent of a Meebo bar for games,” said Jude Gomila, co-founder of Heyzap, which has eight employees in San Francisco. “Your identity can travel with you. It effectively makes existing Flash games more social.”

The company competes with rivals such as Mochi Media, which was just acquired by China’s Shanda Games for $80 million.

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Without any mention of hardware or software, The Doghouse Diaries pretty much nails a list of what we can expect from the tablet. Or rather, how we’re all going to react to it. Look out for 19! [The Doghouse Diaries]

Okay, we’re pretty sure Apple’s going to announce a tablet tomorrow, and now we’re pretty sure it’ll be running some version of the iPhone OS. (Thanks, McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw!) But the one thing we don’t have any inkling about — even after nearly 10 years of rumors — is what this thing is going to be called. Sure, there are some trademark applications floating around, and even some crowd favorites, but arguably the single biggest surprise coming tomorrow is what Steve Jobs has decided to officially name his mythical tablet. Honestly, we have no idea — so we’re putting it to you. Let’s run down the main contenders:

• iTablet: The most obvious name, but Amtek’s had the US trademark since 2006 and has been selling the various actual devices like the iTablet T221 (pictured above) under the brand for a while. Of course, trademark issues have clouded Apple product launches before, so anything’s possible.
• iSlate: Popped up in some trademark and domain name filings a while back and then applied for in the US by a shady company called Slate Computing, LLC that only seems to exist on paper. The registration can’t be granted until the USPTO receives an example of the name being used in commerce, and that hasn’t happened yet.
• iPad: The least likely, and only because Apple’s had the most to directly do with it. Fujitsu sold a Windows CE-based iPad retail handheld for a few years, but let the trademark application lapse until June of this year. When the USPTO published the application for review by other mark holders, Apple stepped in and filed an opposition, presumably because “iPad” sounds too much like “iPod.” That’s the only real claim Apple has, as far as we can see — it can’t just get oppose the registration because Steve wants to call it the “iPad” really bad. And if he does, all he’s got to do is pay Fujitsu some of the billions in cash Apple has lying around — so why tip his hand with the USPTO filing?
• Slate: The NYT’s Bill Keller referred to it as “the impending Apple slate.” Maybe he meant it as a proper noun?
• Canvas: Panic’s Cabel Sasser tweeted this after the paint-spattered “latest creation” invite went out. It’s certainly nice, but there’s no evidence that it’s real at all.
• Tablet: The Apple Tablet. Might as well at this point, right?

So — what’s it going to be?

View Poll

Poll: So… what’s the Apple tablet going to be called? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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