Author: Serkadis

Heidi Klum is the new face of Dannon Light & Fit yogurt.

The Project Runway host has teamed up with the food brand to endorse its popular 21-flavor low-calorie snakc. Heidi’s humorous new Dannon advertising campaign features the supermodel and mother of four devouring a 6-ounce container of Light & Fit during a workout.

“I’m very happy to partner with this brand,” Heidi glowed in a release last week. “I really love Dannon Light & Fit because it’s a great snack with a delicious taste.”

Get your coupons — and the full scoop on all 21 flavors @ LightAndFit.com…..

• Key Competitors: BMW 7-Series, Lexus LS, Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
• Power: 3.6L V6 direct-injected gasoline engine mated to a plug-in hybrid system – 350-hp / 295 lb-ft.
• Transmission: 6-speed automatic.
• Production: Nothing confirmed yet, but it’s pretty certain that it will.

Late last night we brought you details on the new concept from General Motors, the Cadillac XTS Platinum. Unveiled here in Detroit today, the XTS has yet to be confirmed for production. All GM is saying for now are things like these:

“The XTS Platinum concept is the next expression of Cadillac’s Art and Science execution philosophy, reflecting our drive to deliver the latest innovations in the most artful manner,” – Bryan Nesbitt, Cadillac general manager.

But then we heard Ed Welburn, GM’s design chief, talking to some other GM employee after CEO Ed Whitacre checked out the car for himself. “Looks like he likes it – let’s just hope the public likes it now.” With that in mind, the XTS is destined for production and should replace the Cadillac DTS and STS very soon.

Can we expect a XTS-V to go head-to-head with the Mercedes-Benz S63 (or S65) AMG? Only time will tell.

2010 Detroit: 2010 Cadillac XTS Platinum Concept:

All Photos Copyright © 2009 Omar Rana – egmCarTech.

2010 Cadillac XTS Platinum Concept:

– By: Omar Rana

The Illinois Arts Council is pleased to announce the new Individual Artist Support (IAS) initiative. Funds will help Illinois artists realize career goals, take advantage of professional opportunities, and/or produce projects or bodies of work for public viewing.

Due to a steep reduction in the Illinois Arts Council budget for Fiscal Year 2010, several grant programs have been suspended temporarily, including the Artist Fellowship and Ethnic & Folk Arts Master/Apprenticeship Programs.

The Individual Artist Support (IAS) initiative was developed to bridge the gap, and represents the Arts Council’s commitment to continuing to support the work of individual artists.

“The Illinois Arts Council recognizes that individual artists are the keystone to the creation of art,” says Illinois Arts Council Executive Director Terry A. Scrogum.

“The Artist Fellowship Program had continuously provided fellowships to Illinois creative artists for more than twenty years, and the Council remains committed to individual artists despite diminishing resources.”

The deadline for applications is Monday, Feb. 1, 2010.

Application workshop webinars are scheduled in mid-January:

• Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, beginning at 1pm CST
• Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010, beginning at 3:30pm CST

More information, including registration links for the Webinars, full guidelines, and the application are available now in the Individual Artist Support section of the Illinois Arts Council Web site, at state.il.us/agency/iac/Guidelines/IASI/includes/grant.htm.

Please email Encarnacion Teruel at [email protected] with any questions.

NASTAR Center

Suborbital spaceflight training includes sessions in the NASTAR Center’s centrifuge.

Researchers are going back to school this week to learn what they need to know to do science in a spaceship – including how to deal with jaw-clenching acceleration and how to avoid getting distracted by the out-of-this-world view.

Just a quick PSA: The PlayStation Network will be going under maintenance today, January 12th. Worry not, though, this maintenance won’t be interfering with your online play. If you’ve got downloads in your plans today, however, you’ll

Speaking of The Bachelor, the second episode of the show’s 14th season aired Monday, and fans got a firsthand look at the alleged “sex scandal” between a series producer and contestant Rozlyn Papa. Despite the 28-year-old single mom’s insistence that she did not have an inappropriate relationship with the show staffer, in a new blog about the series, Bachelor host Chris Harrison disputes that claim and offers to explain “what exactly happened.”

“You heard me say in the episode that Rozlyn and one of our staffers entered into an inappropriate relationship. I realize this is somewhat vague and open to interpretation, so let me be more specific. It was an inappropriate relationship that got physical,” Chris writes.

“This was not just about one person’s “feelings” for another. We would never go to such extremes because of a schoolyard crush. After extensive research and doing our homework we came to the conclusion without a shadow of a doubt that an inappropriate relationship had occurred. Now the million dollar question: How do we know this? First of all, several girls in the house independently witnessed the inappropriate behavior firsthand, and they came forward and told producers what was taking place. Second, the staffer came forward and confessed everything himself. He told executive producers everything about his inappropriate physical relationship with Rozlyn. As I clearly stated on the show last night, we took what happened very seriously and this staffer was let go immediately. With what you saw last night and with what I just told you there should now be no doubt or questions whatsoever as to what really happened during Rozlyn’s short time on the show. I can also tell you here that since Rozlyn left the show she and the staffer have continued their relationship and have seen each other several times.”

Here’s a take I hadn’t considered on NBC’s Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien debacle: Good news for Time Warner!

So says JP Morgan’s (JPM) Imran Khan. He predicts that Jeff Zucker’s screwup is good news for Jeff Bewkes, since Time Warner  makes a lot of “scripted programming”, and that’s what NBC will need to replace Leno at 10pm.

The whole point of moving to Leno to 10pm, recall, was to save money on “scripted programming” — what you and I call “shows that aren’t reality shows”.

But it’s not as if NBC stopped running scripted shows altogether — at max, it’s going to need an additional 5 hours a week. Khan says this will represent “incremental spending” for Time Warner (TWX), but it’s not as if NBC’s pressure to save on programming costs is going to go away. And even if the network buys all of 5 of its hours from Time Warner, it’s hard to see how that does much for a company that generated revenues of $6.3 billion last quarter (not counting AOL).

Khan also thinks that the same logic means bad news for Disney (DIS) and News Corp.’s Fox (NWS), because increased demand for non-reality shows “could result in higher talent and production costs”.

Again, that also seems like a stretch: It seems like the lesson to draw from all this isn’t that expensive programming is good, but that bad programming is bad.

And as ad dollars inevitably leach out from TV to the Web, the pressure on all the networks will be to keep their eyeballs while spending less on content. The real winners will be the ones who figure out how to make good stuff, cheap.

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By Pui-Wing Tam, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Late last week, Lawson Software announced it would pay $160 million to buy Healthvision Solutions, a healthcare software maker owned by parent Quovadx Holdings and backed by venture-capital firm Battery Ventures. While the companies aren’t well known and the sums involved aren’t huge, the deal exemplifies how some venture capitalists are profiting by deviating from investing in young companies and instead doing buyout-type deals with more mature companies.

In this case, venture firm Battery has been making a push into more later-stage buyout-type deals for the past several years. At first glance, however, its return from pursuing this strategy with Healthvision doesn’t look so stellar. Battery originally took then publicly-traded Quovadx (later rebranded as Healthvision) private in 2007 for $136.7 million. Against that number, a $160 million sale yields barely any profit at all.

But Battery partner Dave Tabors says there’s more to the deal than that. He says Battery garnered about a 3.5 times return on its investment in Quovadx/Healthvision in less than three years.

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Filed under: Detroit Auto Show, Performance, Europe, Hatchback, Chrysler, Fiat, Electric

The tiny Italians are coming! That’s right gentle readers, Fiat has dropped two little baby 500s off inside COBO Hall – and one of them’s electric. Let’s start with that one, the uninspiringly titled Fiat 500 BEV (background). The suffix stands for “Battery Electric Vehicle.” Let’s call it truth in advertising. The powertrain is carried over from the work Chrysler’s now defunct ENVIgroup had been working on for the past couple years. We can’t say too much more (hint, hint), but rumor has it that this sucker is fast. Also, no tail pipe(s).

Fast is good, however, and the Cinquecento that sets our hearts all a flutter is (obviously) the 500 Abarth SS. Or as they say in Italy, Abarth Esse Esse. That last part of the name is significant, as it indicates this particular 500 doesn’t have 133 horsepower, but rather 160 hp. The beauty part? After standing next to the Abarth for a few moments it becomes uncomfortably obvious that its much smaller than the Mini. Meaning… all sorts of wonderful things.

Other than that, the Abarth SS has five-point harnesses tied into racing seats and perhaps the best badging in the industry. Scorpions are every where. Take a close look at the shot of the wheel. Not only does the center cap sport a scorpion, but the valve-stem cap does, too. It’s all about sweating the small stuff. Lusting over it, too. No specific information is available on the time line/likelihood of either car ever showing up in a Chrysler dealer near you.

Detroit 2010: Fiat 500 BEV and Fiat 500 Abarth SS are in the house originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Convertible, Performance, BMW

We’re not sure why BMW is reticent to put forth a new Motorsports model of its Z4 folding hardtop convertible, but it has effectively introduced such a model in all but name here at the Detroit Auto Show. Inscrutably dubbed Z4 sDrive35is (we’re guessing you can hit extralegal speeds by the time you successfully spit out its name), the new model features a revised twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six that spits out 340 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque, with an overboost function capable of a momentary bump up to 369 torques. Paired with BMW’s seven-speed Sport Automatic dual-clutch transmission, the drivetrain is good for 0-62 miles-per-hour in in 4.8 seconds.

Additional alterations include a ride height that’s lowered by 10 millimeters thanks to the adaptive M suspension, a revamped front fascia with matte aluminum trim bars, Oxide Silver mirror caps, and 19-inch alloys among other niceties – you can check out the complete roster of changes by checking out the press release after the jump.

M badges or no, we want one.

[Source: BMW]

Continue reading Detroit 2010: BMW Z4 sDrive35is looks far more entertaining than its name

Detroit 2010: BMW Z4 sDrive35is looks far more entertaining than its name originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Celebrities

Getting the latest episodes of Top Gear on the revolutionary side of the Atlantic has always been a bit of a misadventure. Some episodes were aired on the Discovery Channel. BBC America ran a few as well. And of course there was the ill-fated NBC project to Americanize the program, much as they did in Australia, which never panned out. But with all these ups and downs, the internet has been the only reliable way of watching the show enjoyed by car nuts world wide.

Now reports indicate, however, that the show will be returning (hopefully on a permanent basis) to BBC America. FinalGear, the online clearing house of all things related to British car shows, reports that Series 13 – the show’s previous season – will begin airing on Monday, January 25 at 8 pm. Once 13 has run out, the Beeb’s Yankee channel will immediately commence showing the 14th season that’s currently on the air back in the Isles. That ought to start on March 15. And to sweeten the deal, each episode will be made available on iTunes for $2 apiece 24 hours after they’ve been shown on BBC America. So whether your cable box or your iTunes is your chosen purveyor of visual entertainment, you’ve got your options laid out for you.

[Source: FinalGear]

Top Gear returning to BBC America this month originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobile analytics firm Flurry said today it has raised $7 million in a second round of funding to fuel its services expansion.

The deal comes off last month’s announcement that the San Francisco-based company would merge with Pinch Media, a New York media analytics firm. InterWest Partners led the round and was joined by existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital and Draper Richards.

InterWest general partner, Doug Pepper, also joins the Flurry board of directors. Flurry launched its analytics service for mobile platforms such as the iPhone in January, 2009. The company now tracks over a billion end user app sessions per month on the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android cell phones. It has more than 15,000 developers.

The company is monetizing its analytics information through AppCircle, a platform that analyzes the tastes of an app user and recommends other relevant apps. If the user purchases a recommended app, Flurry gets a share of the revenue. This platform is important because its easy for developers to go unnoticed on the iPhone, where there are more than 100,000 apps available. The company says 130 developers are using AppCircle.

Simon Khalaf, chief executive, said in an interview that the company will use the money to build new services that increase its revenues. It will hire new employees and expand its infrastructure. Khalaf said the company started raising money in August, 2009. But it put that on hold as it merged with Pinch Media.

Previously, Flurry had raised $1.5 million and Pinch Media had raised $1.8 million. The company has 18 employees and it plans to add eight to 10 people in two months. Rivals include Medialets and Mobclix.

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With today’s launch of its Template Store, PBworks wants to make it easier for businesses to use its wikis and other collaboration tools.

The San Mateo, Calif, company describes its new feature as an “app store for collaboration templates.” Specifically, these are templates for PBworks workspaces — pages where you coordinate a project or team using PBworks’ different tools. The word “template” might make suggest that we’re talking about superficial customization, but the company is aiming for something richer here, because the design and structure of a workspace can shape how your company works together.

For example, the template for a management team workspace includes meeting agendas, monthly objectives and tracking, weekly department status reports, and more. By using the template, the customer doesn’t have to build the wiki themselves, and in fact can even spend less time thinking about how to structure all that communications. This  should be particularly useful for companies that are new to PBworks and to online collaboration in general. Instead of wondering, “Gee, what can I do with a wiki?” PBworks gives you a basic template to start with.

The templates can include wikis (where you can embed multimedia content), files and documents, folders, and project milestones and tasks. The Template Store is starting out 25 templates built by PBWorks, its customers, and consultants. They include a deal room, an intranet for a legal firm, and a handbook/FAQ workspace.

For now, templates are free to business and legal edition customers, but PBWorks says it wants to work with template creators to turn this service into a real store, where they can charge for templates.

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CES is Engadget’s biggest event of the year, but for the most part we don’t have any requirements on what editors should bring other than “a laptop” and “a camera.” That means there’s usually quite an array of devices and tools on hand — and every year we try some new things that make an immediate impression. We threw out some basic gear statistics in our annual CES wrap-up post, but we also wanted to highlight some super-useful new tools we brought to Vegas with us this year. Some of it is state-of-the-art expensive, some of it is brain-dead simple, but all of it helped us rock out our biggest CES ever. Read on!

Continue reading Engadget’s gear of CES 2010

Engadget’s gear of CES 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not a completely new idea, accelerometers have been enhancing GPS devices for a while now with additional velocity and directional information when the GPS signal is weak, but now Casio is giving it a shot in its new Exilim EX-H10 prototype camera. The “hybrid GPS” shooter does the regular geotagging thing with its onboard GPS, but when signal is weak (like when indoors, for instance), the camera augments the location data with guesstimates gleaned from its onboard accelerometers. The camera also has pretty detailed maps, so you could almost use the device for navigation, though the “pushpin” view is a good start. Hit up the source link for some more shots.

Casio EX-10HG ‘hybrid GPS’ prototype taps into accelerometers for pinpoint accuracy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philips’ 2006 spin-off Liquavista hasn’t exactly had a lot to show for itself since it earned its independence, but things seem to finally be coming together for the company, which had a suite of e-paper displays to demonstrate at CES last week, a show that was absolutely chock-full of e-readers. Our very own spin-off, Engadget Spanish, got a chance to peruse the company’s suite of offerings, including a prototype device called Pebble. It’s a lovely, thin reader that’s unfortunately not intended for production — at least not yet. The video after the break shows displays that not only redraw far more quickly than existing production screens, but also mix in RGP effects and even multi-color backlighting. It’s good stuff; you’ll want to check it out.

Continue reading Liquavista’s monochrome and color e-paper displays get demonstrated (video)

Liquavista’s monochrome and color e-paper displays get demonstrated (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why humans are not as “uniquinest” as we think. (Hint: similar equipment, different uses)

Bikers often encounter problems when it comes to choosing the right tires to suit their motorcycle and the road conditions they expect to face. Aside from creating the physical and visual connection to the road, tires are just as important as any other critical component of the bike. You cannot expect for your tires to go on forever, as they are a subject to depreciation. This is when various elements need to be taken into consideration, such as the category of the motorcycle you own and the rid… (read more)