Author: Serkadis

As Japan Airlines’ bankruptcy wipes out its shareholders, the nature of corporate Japan’s peculiar cross-investment tradition, investments between different companies in each others’ shares, means that a wave of write downs is ahead for a wide swath of corporations.

For example, the conglomerate Sojitz Corporation has already been forced to write off over half of their full year profit as a result of their JAL share holdings gone bad.

Many other firms face similar prospects.

Business Week: Sojitz Corp. wrote off a 15 billion yen ($165 million) investment in Japan Airlines Corp., becoming the first of 14 partner companies to take a charge on their preferred stock in the bankrupt carrier.

The Tokyo-based trading company is assessing the effect of the loss on earnings, according to a statement distributed through the Tokyo Stock Exchange today. Japan Airlines yesterday filed for bankruptcy, the nation’s fourth-largest, under a 900 billion yen turnaround plan after four government bailouts failed to revive Asia’s most indebted carrier.

Japan Airlines received a total of 151.5 billion yen in February 2008 from affiliated trading houses, banks and energy companies, including Sojitz, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Mitsui & Co., to help shore up finances. The writeoff by Sojitz represents more than half its projected net income of 27 billion yen for the year ending March 31.

Such knock-on effects resemble what happened to banks during the financial crisis, yet for Japan these knock-on effects are interestingly playing out in non-financial business space due to the nation’s odd corporate cross-investment tradition. Read more here >

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See Also:

• Kyle Bass: I Don’t See How Japan Has A Way Out
• Here’s What Will Trigger Japan’s Hyperinflationary Fiasco
• Why A Hyperinflationary Fiasco Is Brewing In Japan

Our friend Warren Benedetto of Transfusion Media has just released a spiffy Chrome extension that helps Internet users stay focused on the task at hand during the work day.

Akin to LeechBlock for Firefox, Benedetto’s StayFocusd attempts to correct fundamental productivity issues associated with the social web by allowing users to only spend an allotted amount of time on a “gray list” of websites. For example, if you give yourself 20 minutes a day to screw around on Twitter and Facebook, StayFocusd will block your access to those sites once it’s determined that your 20 minutes have been used.

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We’ve all experienced a problem similar to the one outlined in the StayFocusd intro. “You sit down at the computer, and you swear you’ll be productive. Next thing you know, it’s twelve hours later. You’ve checked your email, updated your Facebook status, browsed the trending topics on Twitter, read your RSS feeds, looked up your favorite band on Wikipedia, vanity Googled yourself, cyber-stalked your ex, looked at all your high-school crushes’ Facebook photos and lost a week’s pay playing online poker. What you haven’t done is WORK.”

The extension steps in where the average user’s self-control or restraint falls short. As one of many users who’ve switched from Firefox to Chrome and found they still wanted and needed certain familiar Firefox extensions, Benedetto said he lost several hours each day to Chrome’s unbridled browsing before realizing that LeechBlock’s absence was killing his productivity. So he took matters into his own hands, wrote his Chrome extension and released it to Google’s Chrome gallery.

The extension is highly customizable, letting users block or permit whole sites, only certain subdomains or even specific pages.

“That means,” writes Benedetto, “you can block delicious.com, while still allowing access to delicious.com/save so you can add new bookmarks. Or you can block Google.com/Reader while still having access to the rest of Google’s sites. Or you can block the entire Digg.com domain, and recapture 4-6 hours of wasted time per day.”

We’d install this awesome extension ourselves if our job didn’t entail, you know, wasting time on the Internet.

Transfusion Media is an a L.A.-based web studio specializing in graphic design, Facebook apps, Flash widgets and general interactive and web development. Benedetto has previously been a source for us, opining intelligently on the state of web design in a 2009 article directed toward startups.

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Sony is eating crow tonight as it announced it has postponed its new Motion Controller from the spring until the fall of 2010.

The new controller is a step up from the motion-sensing controller currently selling with the PlayStation 3 game console. This new wand-like device, showcased at the E3 show last June and paraded in front of fans in September, is much more accurate in its detection of body movements. Combined with a PlayStation Eye motion-sensing camera, it can thus be used in shooting, sword fighting, and other fast action games.

It was a cool demo, but few at E3 believed that Sony would be able to deliver its Motion Controller on time for a spring launch, mainly because game developers were just beginning to learn how to make games to go with it. This delay suggests Sony needed more time to develop good games and get its technology right.

Now Sony’s launch will be in lockstep with Microsoft’s holiday 2010 launch of Project Natal, which uses a 3-D motion-sensing camera to detect your entire body movements. Microsoft hasn’t delayed Natal, but at least it has set a more realistic schedule for getting games done. Microsoft’s launch plans were known for a while, but it didn’t really confirm that Natal would launch in the fall of 2010 until earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show.

This is a little egg on the face for Sony in terms of its ability to execute, but there is nothing worse than launching a new technology that isn’t ready. Nintendo can breathe a sigh of relief, as its Nintendo Wii game console won’t looked old fashioned anytime soon, as its rivals are far behind having anything that matches Nintendo’s motion-sensing Wii controller.

Sony says the new controller will be able to detect the natural and intuitive movement of a hand. The Motion Controller is, thankfully, a temporary name. There isn’t too much more to Sony’s announcement. It looks like PS 3 fans will have to keep playing games with their old fashioned controllers for a bit longer.

Be sure to check out our latest announcements on GamesBeat@GDC, our video game conference taking place March 10 in San Francisco.

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Here’s the latest action:

Fisker motors on with $115M more — The maker of the luxury plug-in hybrid Karma vehicle, has raised $115 million in new funding, which will allow it to access the $529 million in low-interest loans it was guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy last fall. Raising more equity was mandatory in order for it to unlock this financing.

iPad? iTablet? What’s in a name? — Rumors are flying today about what Apple will call its highly-anticipated tablet set to be released in the next several months. Before now, iSlate seemed like the likeliest candidate but new trademark filings have pointed to a possible ‘iPad’ or ‘iTablet.’

Yelp gets big money after kicking Google to the curb — Sources say Yelp has raised as much as $50 million from Elevation Partners. Apparently the review web site almost got U2’s Bono as a member of its board of directors because he’s a partner at the firm.

Zune phone coming in two months? — Apparently,talk of Microsoft’s stealthy phone project has started to heat up again, one that would be running Windows Mobile 7 and be ‘Zune-like.’ Even though it has focused on mobile software in the past, the computing giant may be looking for hardware partnership like Google has with Motorola and HTC.

Microsoft wants its XBox to kill cable — Now streaming television shows and movies and even producing original content through partnerships with the likes of ESPN and Disney, XBox Live is become an even more formidable competitor for cable TV and shifting the emphasis of consoles away from gaming.

What happened to Tesla Motors’ general counsel? — The famed electric car maker seems to have lost its general counsel, Jonathan Sobel, just four months after hiring him. While the company hasn’t addressed his apparent departure one way or another, his LinkedIn profile and other evidence suggest he has moved on — but did he do so willingly? The San Francisco Daily Journal broke the story.

Bing Maps leaves beta behind – Microsoft has taken Bing Maps Silverlight into general release and has added a few new features at the same time, including integration of local event listings and vector-based routes on new map backgrounds. The Bing community blog has more.

Chinese government caught red handed in Google attacks — A few computer security companies have identified the algorithm that suggests the search engine’s recent breach was perpetrated by the Chinese government itself and not independent hackers. The New York Times has full details.

Spigit brings collaboration tools to small businesses — The company, which creates social networks allowing employees at large enterprises to collaborate on projects, has launched a version of its service for small businesses of 500 or less employees.

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Ready to get your Bing on, iPhone owners? That curious little Microsoft search engine you shrugged off just a few months ago could become a mainstay in your daily routine if BusinessWeek’s sources are correct. According to a pair of persons familiar with the matter, Apple and Microsoft are discussing dropping Google as the default search engine on Apple’s somewhat popular handset — talks that have been underway for “weeks,” apparently. BW paints the move as further evidence of an escalating rivalry between Apple and Google. In fact, one BW source claims that, “Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.” No doubt, the once cozy relationship has seemingly fractured with Google CEO Eric Schmidt vacating Apple’s board and Apple recently snapping up Lala and Quatro Wireless — acquisitions that some analysts see as defensive measures against a rapidly encroaching Google. Isn’t competition fun?

Apple bunging Bing search into iPhone? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Turns out it doesn’t matter if you took up Rogers on its offer to swap your Dream to a Magic after all, because the bug’s spreading: Canada’s first keyboardless Android set is confirmed to be suffering from the same dangerous malaise as its older brother. Basically, neither model can complete emergency calls to 911 with location-based services enabled, and until HTC is able to spit out a patch, the only fix is to disable GPS altogether — not exactly an awesome solution. In the meantime, a quick check of Rogers’ site confirms that both the Dream and Magic have been pulled from retail, so let’s hope this gets cleaned up on the double. And try not to have an emergency, of course. Ever… but especially right now.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Rogers’ HTC Magic having 911 call problems on Rogers, too originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last official word we had on the launch of Sony’s PS3 Motion Controller was Spring 2010. However, we just received a press release from Sony Japan with a revised availability of “Fall 2010.” The calendar push affects Japan, Asia, North America, and Europe. In the statement, Kaz Hirai avoids using the “d” word saying only:

“We have decided to release the Motion Controller in fall 2010 when we will be able to offer an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users.”

Still no mention of Arc though Sony does concede that “Motion Controller” is just a tentative name. Full press release after the break.

Continue reading Sony PS3 Motion Controller delayed until ‘fall 2010′ globally

Sony PS3 Motion Controller delayed until ‘fall 2010′ globally originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it will release its new Motion Controller (tentative name) for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) in fall 2010 in Japan, Asian regions and countries, North America and Europe/PAL territories together with an extensive line-up of exciting software titles. It was originally destined to hit the market in less than a few months and there was very little indication that a delay was incoming. The new controller, combined with the PlayStation Eye camera, can detect the natural and intuitive movement of the hand and reflect the precise movement within the game, delivering a whole new entertainment experience on PS3. This is a huge shock for many who have been closely observing the Playstation strategy in the last year or so, as the original Spring release for the Motion Controller was a huge benefit for Sony to have in place before Microsoft could make a major play with their Fall timetable for Natal.

“We have decided to release the Motion Controller in fall 2010 when we will be able to offer an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users,” said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “We will continue to work to have a comprehensive portfolio of attractive and innovative games for the Motion Controller, not only from SCE Worldwide Studios but also from the third party developers and publishers, whom we have been working closely with. We look forward to soon unveiling the exciting software line-up that further expands and defines the PS3 platform as the ultimate entertainment system for the home.”

There really is an app for everything. Gaia GPS for Haitian Disaster Relief is one of the first apps that will give you real time information on the current situation in earthquake ravaged Haiti. Its initial intention is for it to help aid relief works in the area, but average consumers can download and use it just the same. The app can be used to download satellite images of the earthquake area, get up to date overlays of disaster sites and hospitals. This version of Gaia GPS is identical to its original form except for its content in regards to Haiti. The app is free and map data is being provided by Digital Globe, OpenStreetMap, GeoEye, and it’s hosted by the New York Public Library. Interestingly enough the app is only for those 17 and older.

If you’re anything like me and have been following Sony products its easy to tell that the model numbers associated with a device tell a story. Things seemed a little odd to me when Sony released the ultra-slim 1080 HD movie recording capable point and shoot camera DSC-TX7 at CES 2010, as it was a giant leap in model numbers from the original DSC-TX1 that they released last August. Well, I spoke to one of my major sources recently and there was some big hints towards a waterproof, underwater capable point and shoot camera coming called the DSC-TX5. When I heard this I was pretty amazed because such a feature like waterproof (presumably at realistic distances) is one thing, but to see it applied to a very slim, stylish camera such as the T-Series would be pretty wild. I decided to stay quiet about it but unfortunately the chatter has gotten too obvious now.

Sonyalpharumors, a site I have been noticing has been mostly correct lately about Sony’s camera strategy (and has been offering consistent leaks for a while) even wrote about the DSC-TX5 a few days ago. They stated,

The source says the TX5, Sony’s underwater point and shoot should be announced soon. “We can glean two things from the title. T means touch screen and since all of Sony’s touch screens are resistive they can actually work underwater and the X indicates the Exmor CMOS system, most likely the BSI R sensor. Don’t know pricing, or specs, though, based on other X series cameras it’ll be 10mp and likely the 4x Zeiss formula in the lens, though if it’s of the 25mm variety like the TX7 or the 35mm variety like the TX1, that remains to be seen. I am personally hoping for the former.”

I’m not going to say much more than I already have, and I find their words very interesting. I chose not to report on that because it wasn’t really enough to go with, but things got even worse when I noticed the DSC-TX5 on some Japanese tech blogs. Apparently the Apple Brothers blog uncovered it from a cached Colortec blog (C-TEC 3) link, where they basically state the images were available via Sony Europe’s press center for a limited amount of time. The images are no longer at the C-TEC 3 blog, but still exist at the Apple Brothers blog, and are the images you see in this post. We are very confident you will see this product soon, and will be available in Europe in the colors shown above – maroon, silver, black, pink and what appears to be a white color, but we’re unsure of what colors will hit the USA.

If we had to guess, price would probably be around $300.

On the last day of November, 2009, after the initial rush of excitement around Google’s Chrome OS launch had quieted a bit, Ryan Paul and I sat down with Matthew Papakipos, the engineering director for the Chrome OS project, and Eitan Bencuya, from Google PR. I had done my best to sort out the why’s and wherefore’s of Google’s first consumer OS effort in my initial launch coverage but I still had many questions about the past, present, and future of the project.

What followed that afternoon was an interview that was so candid, in-depth, and informative about not just Chrome OS, but about the present and future of the Web as a distributed application platform, that we chose to sit on the results until the holiday and CES madness had passed. So, in this brief pause between CES and the coming iSlate hysteria, we present our Chrome OS interview.

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China is trying to temper rampant loan growth this year, in order to stave off potentially dangerous asset market bubbles and inflation.

Yet despite the government’s expected efforts to get tough and tighten monetary policy, even the country’s own regulators still expect total yuan loans outstanding to grow at a torrid pace in 2010.

Market Watch: Chinese regulators expect the nation’s banks to issue about 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) in new loans this year, reflecting efforts to rein in bank lending after nearly doubling lending levels last year.

China Banking Regulatory Commission Chairman Liu Mingkang cited the figure during an investment forum Wednesday in Hong Kong, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

The new lending target means that outstanding yuan loans will rise about 16% to 18% this year, Liu said.

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See Also:

• China: Here’s 10 Ways We’re Kicking The World’s Ass Right Now
• Uh-Oh: Now Jim Rogers Is Warning About The Chinese Property Bubble
• China Just Restricted Smoking, And Philip Morris Just Got Smoked

Continue reading LG’s X300 ad strikes an amazingly familar tone

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LG’s X300 ad strikes an amazingly familar tone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Readers seem pretty split about what to think of Blippy, the service which allows you to share your credit card purchases online. About half think it’s the next logical step in sharing data online. The other half think it’s just about the worst idea ever. Retailers, it seems, are starting to lean towards the former.

Blipply has reached agreements with three partners to promote and use Blippy on their sites: Woot, Groupon, and Overstock.com. The latter is particularly interesting because as you may remember, Overstock.com was an initial Facebook Beacon partner — something which caused some controversy, and caused the company to pull away from Beacon. Now, they appear ready to revisit the idea.

Not that Beacon and Blippy are exactly the same. Beacon’s main problem was that it was opt-out rather than opt-in, which Blippy, as a service, is. But both at their core involve the sharing of purchasing data. And clearly from the get-go this has been an idea that intrigues retailers. After all, people sharing what they’re actually buying should pique the interests of others that may do the same. That was why many of them bought into the idea of Beacon.

But Facebook users felt they were being tricked into sharing this data, and worse, giving it over to Facebook to use for advertising purposes. Blippy, which makes it very clear that the sharing of this data is whole idea of the service, gives these retailers an outlet to perhaps do it right this time.

The amount each service will use Blippy varies. Some simply have a link telling users they can share their data on the service. Others are using OAuth to actually send purchasing data over to Blippy. How exactly Overstock.com will use Blippy is still being discussed, and should be in place by the end of the week, we’re told. But Woot and Groupon integration has already been finalized and should be live shortly.

Depsite its controversial idea, Blippy has seem some great initial traction among users. And they’ve been able to attract a choice group of investors. This interaction between users and retailers on Blippy may be the key to the future of the service. And if it goes over well, it may leave Facebook kicking itself for what might have been.

[photo: flickr/ken dyck]

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People just find more and more interesting ways to use Lady Gaga’s image for other creative endeavors. An extremely creative person from Etsy has not one but two vinyl decals displaying Gaga’s likeness from her debut album The Fame holding the Apple logo. Her style is there for all to see even though its changed now but it’s still awesome. The Lady Gaga Decal will fit on any 13″ to 17″  Macbook or Macbook Pro and supposedly is made from a 7yr high quality vinyl and the designer will even make it any other color of your choice. You can always leave it to someone at Etsy to blow our minds…The Lady Gaga Decal retails for $12.99.

A man was found fatally shot tonight in the city’s Little Village neighborhood.

Police found the unidentified man laying in the street in the 2700 block of South Christiana Avenue at about 9 p.m. with a gunshot wound to the head.

The victim, believed to be in his late teens or early 20s, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police had no other further details.

–Staff report

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This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com.
Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

A couple years ago, we noted that the old claim that “insiders” were the biggest data breach threat was no longer true, as other threats were becoming a much bigger deal. While that study seemed to use very different methodology, a new study is out that agrees that insiders are a much smaller threat, but notes that outside hacking surpassed “human error” as the cause of data breaches in 2009. While it’s good that human error issues are decreasing as a percentage, is it worrisome that outside hack attacks are now becoming such a major problem? The good news in the data is that there were supposedly fewer reported attacks in 2009 (by a pretty large amount) compared to 2008 — so one possible reading of the data is that people have been effective in preventing things like human error breaches much more often, which is what allowed outside hack attacks to take the lead on a percentage basis. However, with recent stories of things like China’s hack attack on Google it seems like we’ll be hearing more and more stories about these sorts of attacks for one important reason: in many (certainly not all) cases, they can be quite effective.

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