Author: Serkadis

The first generation Chevrolet Orlando is expected to see daylight in 2011 as model year 2012 and, although we all know that it will be based on the concept car displayed at the 2008 Paris Motor Show, there are no official details regarding the production version. However, this is the first set of spyshots with the production Orlando which might give you a glimpse into how the future car will actually look like.

In fact, there’s not much to see here as the captured model is completely camoufl… (read more)

Does it feel as though a lot of the economic data has been a disappointment lately?

It’s not just your imagination.

Goldman Sachs observes the same thing:

So far in January, the only strong data release of note has been the December ISM index for
the factory sector.  Meanwhile, the nonmanufacturing  ISM, the employment report, retail sales, the CPI, housing starts, the January Philly Fed, and the last two weekly jobless claims reports have all fallen short of expectations.  As a result, our GS Surprise Index for January is on track for its worst showing since the dark days of March 2009, as illustrated in Exhibit 1.

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See Also:

• Jobless Claims Jump For First Time In 19 Weeks
• Rosenberg: Housing Is In A Depression, And It’s Already Double-Dipping
• Homebuilders Index Slips Again In January, Confirming The Housing Double Dip

Article Tags: Alan Caruba, Cartoon

Once, very long ago, I used to be “a stringer” for The New York Times. My articles would appear in the New Jersey section and an occasional short book review would make it into the legendary newspaper.

My Father read the The Times more faithfully than an ayatollah reads the Koran or a Hasidim reads the Torah. Little did he know that, during the early years of Stalin’s regime, a Times reporter named Walter Duranty deliberately failed to report the deaths of millions of people in the Ukraine because Soviet communism demanded they obey or die.

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Things are heating up between China and Google now that the US government has more or less gotten involved. While China has stayed quiet and diplomatic so far, urged by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom in which she specifically called out China, officials in the country are going on the offensive and now claim tha… (read more)

Ducati Xerox rider Michel Fabrizio was invited to Rome’s Campidoglio last week to receive the Sportsman of The Year award from the Mayor of the city, Gianni Alemanno. The 25-year-old rider was awarded for his noteworthy contribution to the world of sport and results achieved during 2009, as Ducati says in a company statement.

I am very happy to received this award today as I am a proud Italian but an even more proud Roman! It is an honour to have been recognized by my city for my achievements… (read more)

Not only does Goldman say the fed won’t raise rates, but they even say that the Fed shouldn’t; which if Goldman-conspiracy theorists are right essentially means the Fed won’t.

Even for the rest of us, Goldman is basically setting themselves up so that if Bernanke raises rates before they forecast him to, it will be his error, not theirs, since they say U.S. isn’t ready for it yet.

While some economic data makes it look like it’s time to tighten, they argue that in reality it isn’t time yet:

Goldman: Data Argue Against Changes in the Statement

On the surface, the backdrop for the Federal Open Market Committee meeting next week looks quite encouraging for members pressing the case for a gradual “exit” from the current accommodative stance. Real GDP growth probably accelerated to nearly 6% (annualized) in the fourth quarter; despite December’s worse-than-expected payroll employment report, job losses have slowed sharply over the past year; the jobless rate has been essentially unchanged for the last three months; and the stock market is up more than 60% from the lows of March 2009.

Inflation is low and the economy hasn’t rebounded enough:

But in our view, serious consideration of a true “exit”—i.e., not just an end to the Fed’s liquidity support and asset purchases but an actual tightening of monetary policy—is still highly premature. Not only is inflation already modestly below the Fed’s 1½%-2% target, but the level of activity is so far below its potential that strong growth for an extended period is needed before tightening becomes appropriate. Put differently, the argument for continued accommodation would still be strong even if the economy was on track for solid above-trend growth in 2010, as some economists (and the Fed staff) believe.

Banks aren’t arbitraging ultra-low discount rates:

For one thing, the benefit of a hike is highly uncertain. It is difficult to believe that much arbitrage is currently going on given how sharply discount window borrowings have fallen in recent months. As shown in Exhibit 2, primary credit at the discount window was just $15bn on Wednesday, well below the $111bn peak seen in October 2008. Moreover, most banks are currently able to obtain financing at rates well below 0.5% in the interbank market.

We don’t need to drain liquidity yet:

We also are not sure that Fed officials will need to raise the discount rate in order to facilitate draining excess reserves. It is unclear whether—and if so when—they will actually decide to undertake such a drainage operation. Our own view is that the volume of excess reserves does not have important effects on the broad financial system and the economy, at least now that the payment of interest on reserves enables the FOMC to raise short-term interest rates without having to match the demand and supply of reserves. Moreover, even if Fed officials do introduce a term deposit facility that is priced attractively enough to mop up a significant share of the current $1 trillion excess, the rate on this facility would likely be well below 0.5% given the current slope of the yield curve. This would make arbitrage unattractive even without a higher discount rate.

The argument that a higher discount rate would be a signal that liquidity conditions have normalized is therefore similar to the phasing out of the other emergency facilities. But against this, it is important to consider the potential tightening in financial conditions if markets view such a step as a precursor to a hike in the funds rate. Especially at a time when the economy clearly needs all the monetary stimulus it can get, this risk should not be overlooked.

(Via Goldman Sachs, U.S. Economics Analyst, 22 January 2010)

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See Also:

• Goldman: Fears Of Chinese Tightening Are Overwhelming Positive Earnings
• Is Goldman Materially Misrepresenting Its Prop Trading Exposure?
• Goldman Applicant: "I Will Work Non Stop To Make Sure Goldman Sachs Stays On Top For As Long As I Breathe"

As the recession is slowly fading away, classic car sales are reviving. If you have any doubts, one of the best arguments is the sale of a 1956 Jaguar D-Type Sports Racer for $3.74 Million during a Gooding & Company auction last Friday. Things get even better, as the Jag was not the only car which sold for more that $1 million.

"We had an outstanding day with a remarkably high percentage sold at 94%," said David Gooding, president and founder of Gooding & Company. "In addition … (read more)

Here are some stories from the past week:

Plug-and-play bomb system for radio-controlled model airplanes
Magic wand bomb detector deemed fraudulent, inventor imprisoned
The Apple Tablet rumors the other blogs are afraid to publish
SmartFish concept aircraft swims in the air
Clamshell home projector cheap, probably of poor quality
If you’re going to buy a desk vacuum, it might as well be a Zamboni

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By Drake Martinet, Intern, All Things Digital

A feature wherein All Things Digital talks with top players inside tech companies–much as we talk to emerging entrepreneurs in “Almost Famous” posts–who are perhaps not as prominent publicly as their influence suggests, but should be.

This week: We friended Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network, and had a sit-down with him at its Silicon Valley HQ to talk about–of course– the importance of platforms.

Who: Ethan Beard

What: Director of the Facebook Developer Network

Why: After stints in investment banking, Viacom (VIA) music service MTV Networks and most recently Google (GOOG), Ethan made the move to Facebook almost two years ago.

Where: Facebook Developer Blog (Web site); @ethanbeard (Twitter); Palo Alto, Calif. (analog place)

Who Else: Everyone has been trying to spread their social graphs deeper into the Web, but Facebook dominates.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile:

Worst Job: I worked one summer for the United States Postal Service, sorting mail at a post office in Bangor, Maine. Yeah, that was pretty bad. Basically, it was just endless piles of mail that you had to sort into different little holes. And you’d have, like, your timed break…10 minutes every couple of hours or something. You’d deal with these unionized people who’d been working at the post office forever, who would smoke cigarettes and play cribbage during their 10 minutes and then back to sorting.

Has a Geek Crush on: In the tech world, I’m a big fan of Alan Kay, both because he’s super geeky and super thoughtful.

Gadget of the Moment: Well, when I was at Google, I worked a lot with early Android stuff, so I’m very intrigued by the Nexus One. I’d like to get my hands on one, but haven’t yet.

What Do You Hope the Upcoming magic Apple (AAPL) Tablet Will Do?: Respond to my emails. Or at least delete some of them.

Fails At: I’m a miserable snowboarder. That’s not a good answer though. My wife would say that I never seem to stop working.

Bio in 140 Characters

Hails from Winterport, Maine. Got schooled at Wharton and NYU. He did time at an investment bank. Left for MTV, Google and now Facebook.

The Five Questions

We’ve heard “It’s not just a Web site, it’s a platform” before. What is Facebook offering today that sets it apart?

The Facebook platform is actually very different than many platforms that have come in the past. The app platform is actually a lot more like standard platforms. It’s a development environment with lots of different UI elements you can integrate and build this experience. But, really, what we’ve done with Facebook Connect is change Facebook platform to make it cross-platform.

Facebook platform is on Facebook.com, but it’s on lots of other Web sites, it’s on mobile devices, we’re pushing into gaming consoles. It’s less about a place you can build an application and more about features and functions you can add to any platform. We want to give users the tools and technology that allow them to connect with anything they care about, anywhere they are.

What industries haven’t caught on yet, or could be using social connection tools much better than they are today?

I’d point to two things. I think the media consumption space is changing very rapidly; like the TV industry is changing very rapidly. I mean, NBC is being sold not for NBC, but for all the cable assets in it. The printed news businesses is just begin turned on its ear. I think there are some really great opportunities for layering in the social graph that could affect consumption habits. It can bring a different lens to what is news. Also, I’d love to be able to go to Pandora and see the stations my friends are listening to. I have some specific friends who are great at picking music. What we want to do with Facebook platform is tie those two together, so I can connect with that friend who always picks great music.

I think the DVR is a good example [of the possibilities]. I would like to be able to see what my friends are watching and interact with them based on that.

Yeah, let’s talk music for a second. I looked on your Facebook profile and saw all these bands and said to myself, “Either this guy has a music-savvy intern in his office, who went to college in the 2000s, who made this profile for him, or he is a legit music fan.” Which is it?

I’m a BIG fan of music. A HUGE fan. I don’t really remember what’s on there…probably Radiohead, the Decembrists, the Killers, maybe Sufjan Stevens. I like to stay current. I just bought a Sonos music player. I love having it all at my fingertips, with a little touch screen.

Lots of big-time geeks have some strong memories of early experiences with technology. Do you have an “ah-ha” tech moment like that?

Yeah, sure, absolutely. So, when I went to college, this is a couple of decades ago now, pre-Web, my father, who worked at a university, gave me a 1200-baud modem when no one had modems. You’re probably going to read some deep rooted psychology into this, but he was like, “This is how we’re going to communicate–we’re obviously not going to see each other and don’t expect me to talk on the phone with you. You should be sending me email.” And so, in 1990, I had this modem, and there wasn’t anything you could do with it except like log on to university computers.

There was Telnet and FTP. I didn’t need to go to the lab. I could log into Michigan’s computer from right here in my dorm room at two o’clock in the morning, which is what I tended to do. I’d log on and try to download some random shareware at two in the morning at 1200 baud, which basically meant leaving your computer on overnight, getting up in the morning, seeing that it had failed and trying again.

You’ve seen all kinds of arenas tap into the social space. What has been the sleeper hit for Facebook?

I’m gonna say the games. They didn’t catch us by surprise, but their size, success and the success of the gaming companies wasn’t something that we all saw coming. That was one that, in retrospect, makes a lot of sense, but wasn’t one that we all saw coming. Currently, I’m addicted to Bejeweled. It’s like crack on the iPhone, it’s 60 seconds long, and you’ll look at the score and realize that your mom has a higher score than you. Its not like FarmVille, where you can just say to yourself, “Well, she just has more time to farm.” It’s the same 60 seconds, so its just about how good you are.

The In Living Color Interview

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Article Tags: Andrew Bolt

Now the heat is going on professional alarmist Lord Stern, too. Stern not only relied on a false IPCC claim but quietly slashed his scary predictions of hurricane damage without publicly acknowleding he’d got the (still exaggerated) figure wrong by a factor of 10.

Roger Pielke Jr explains the fiddling.

Also: From WUWT: The purge continues (I have changed the location of chart in text)

The top figure shows Table 5.2 as it was originally published in the Stern Review (from a web archive in PDF), and I have circled in red the order-of-magnitude error in hurricane damage that I document in my paper (the values should instead by 10 times less).

Now, have a look at the other figure which shows Table 5.2 from the Stern Review Report as it now appears on the UK government archive (PDF), look carefully at the numbers circled in red:

Source: blogs.news.com.au

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We already know that the entire auto industry is slowly migrating to the electric vehicle market and there’s no surprise to see Volvo doing the same thing. Besides several projects prepared by the Swedish manufacturer, the soon-to-be-Geely’s company is apparently working on a brand new electric vehicle that might be launched in the next years.

Volvo tried to keep all things secret but, according to the insideline.com, the adjacent picture was revealed during a supplier event as part of an Ene… (read more)

I’ve been quite fascinated by electric car firm Better Place since I read up on how the company was founded by former SAP executive Shai Agassi in the excellent book ‘Start-up Nation’, which tells of Israel’s historical entrepreneurial DNA and tech success stories.

Basically, Better Place aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a market-based transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles, relying on renewable energy from solar arrays and wind farms instead of oil. The startup, founded just 2 years ago, is currently building its first electric vehicle network in Israel, and plans to deploy the infrastructure in other nations on a country-by-country basis with initial deployments beginning this year, and commercial sales beginning in 2012.

As of April 2009, it had already raised $400 million, with several countries offering tax breaks in favor of the ambitious venture. This morning, Better Place announced that it has raised a massive $350 million follow-up venture funding round to lay the groundwork for these deployments, valuing the company at a whopping $1.25 billion.

HSBC led the round with a $125 million capital injection (buying them approx. 10% of the company), with eight other investors participating, including Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Lazard Asset Management, Israel Corp., VantagePoint Venture Partners, Ofer Hi-Tech Holdings and others.

Better Place says it intends to expand into markets where the business model economics and investor returns are “optimized”, citing Europe and Asia specifically. The company also reaffirmed its original target to begin full commercial operations at the end of next year, when industry partner Renault plans to offer the first car with a replaceable battery.

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After wisely avoiding being drowned out by the din of CES product launches Oppo has made official its new BDP-80 Blu-ray player. A lower priced version of the existing BDP-83 hardware (a comparison that should be familiar to owners of the company’s DV-980H/DV-983H DVD players,) it still features BD-Live compatibility, DVD-Audio and SACD playback but drops the ABT2010 video processor, aluminum faceplate and some of the audio capabilities of its big brother. Other items sliced to get the price down to $289 from $499 are IR in/out, RS-232 control interfaces, and a backlit remote. Assuming one doesn’t want to wait for the rebadged $2,500 Lexicon edition, it should be on sale “soon.” Universal player fans looking to save a couple of bucks or bring their own video processor to the party can check Oppo’s comparison page or the press release after the break.

Continue reading Oppo adds a second, cheaper, Blu-ray player option with the $289 BDP-80

Oppo adds a second, cheaper, Blu-ray player option with the $289 BDP-80 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not the first N900 KIRF we’ve seen but it’s definitely the truest fake physical reproduction of Nokia’s flagship “mobile computer” to date. Not necessarily a good thing since its the raw power and OS that makes the N900 such a compelling handset — not its looks. Nevertheless, the industrial design, port placements, and QWERTY layout of this “N900 Style” handset is a near exact physical knock-off of its Nokia inspiration. Critically absent is Maemo 5 riding an ARM Cortex A8 processor, 32GB of integrated storage, WiFi, 3G data radio, Carl Zeiss optics, and the peace of mind you get when purchasing a genuine Nokia handset. Besides, even with dual-SIM support, do you really want to spend $120 for a JAVA-built S60 5th-ish user experience on a 3.2-inch display pushing 240 x 320 pixels? Oh hell no. One more shot after the break if you’re feeling surly.

[Thanks, Drew]

Continue reading Keepin’ it real fake, part CCLII: Nokia N900 commits S60 5th fraud

Keepin’ it real fake, part CCLII: Nokia N900 commits S60 5th fraud originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With futures pointing up, you can take a quick breath for relief, but we’re not out of the woods yet, most likely.

As Doug Short notes, this is the market’s third real swoon since the rally began last march, and each time we’ve rebounded right around the 50-day moving average line. Pay close attention.

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See Also:

• Stocks Tank Around The World, But US Rallies After Dodging The Bernanke Bullet
• Dow Ends Down 220, Largest Three Day Drop Since March ’09
• The End Game: This Time Isn’t Different

While there are only a few days left until the Buell liquidation sale starts at the East Troy, Wisconsin factory, the newly-born Erik Buell Racing company recorded its first sale this month, a pair of 1190RR-B European Spec superbikes, to a privateer team. The Pegasusraceteam.com team will campaign the new 1190RR-Bs in the European Sound of Thunder Series, along with Buell 1125Rs and XBs in support classes.

"We are extremely pleased that the Pegasusrace team will be the first team in the… (read more)

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released back in June 12, 2008, but it’s fairly obvious that Solid Snake is still a hot commodity. The Japanese fans only needed a little push, specifically in

Article Tags: Andrew Bolt

Yet more evidence that the IPCC cooked the books. Here’s its 2007 claim that global warming could devastate African agriculture:

In other [African] countries, additional risks that could be exacerbated by climate change include greater erosion, deficiencies in yields from rain-fed agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000-2020 period, and reductions in crop growth period..

In fact, that claim comes from a non-peer-reviewed and non-scientific paper which looked at just three African countries, and was produced by a sustainable development lobby group. How did this end up as IPCC gospel?

Call in the auditors. Now.

Source: blogs.news.com.au

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