Author: Serkadis

China is the driver of the world’s economy. A day like today makes that clear.

Earlier it was reported that the government there had increased reserve requirements for banks, and just like that the entire China-dependent world from Australia to Brazil to, well, the US, is pointing down.

The S&P is down less than 1% pre-market, in part due to China, but also due to Alcoa’s after-hours miss (more bad news for commodities). The stock is down about 8% pre-market.

Don’t miss: Why investors are going crazy for Brazil — >

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See Also:

• The Next BRICs: Six Surging Countries You Must Pay Attention To This Decade
• Why Investors Are Going Wild For Brazil
• Why Investors Are Going Crazy For Australia

Kris Nissen, the head of Volkswagen Motorsport has put to rest, for the time being at least, hopes regarding a possible Volkswagen take at the IndyCar program. Despite the fact that VW, together with Audi, Porsche and Honda, have entered talks with IndyCar for future engine-rule packages, set to be introduced in 2012, Nissen says it is unlikely VW will enter the series in the near future. The main reason, as expected, is financial related.

"I am not 100 per cent sure of the l… (read more)

Wade Roush wrote:

Xconomy’s Battle of the Tech Bands has become a welcome wintertime ritual in Cambridge: every January or February we get a bunch of loud, enthusiastic musicians together with a loud, enthusiastic crowd at the Middle East Night Club for a night of hot tunes, bravura performances, and audience voting. But this year—on February 4, to be exact—we’re trying something a little different.

Usually, we invite bands from tech companies around the Boston area to apply to compete, with judges selecting the finalists—and we’ll likely return to that format next year. But this time we decided to bring together past standouts from all three of Xconomy’s previous battles in Boston and Seattle for a grand East Coast vs. West Coast play-off that should put an end to all future questions about which edge of the continent is the most talented.

And believe me, the Seattle bands are ready to strut their stuff for a Boston audience. One of the two bands, Juda’s Wake, offered a dose of trash talk in advance of the battle, while the other, Lions Ambition, is a bit more restrained.

“We’re getting’ prepped for it and can’t wait to bring some Seattle thunder to Boston!” says Jim Dixon, bassist/vocalist for Juda’s Wake, which represents Microsoft. The heavy metal group’s material is loud, edgy, and rhythmically intricate, showing the influence of groups such as Tool, Disturbed, Marilyn Manson, Rush, and Static X.

Lions Ambition, an upbeat six-member hip-hop/rap/rock ensemble representing Boeing, offers a slightly more lamb-like preview. “I think we do the best as the humble guest,” says Frankie Starr, who shares the group’s MC/vocals role with Marlon Turner. “We’ll let the music and our performance do the talking and have it speak for itself. Looking forward to seeing Boston and competing.”

A big shout-out to Brad Feld, the co-founder of Mobius Venture Capital, Foundry Group, and venture incubator TechStars, for picking up the tab for the two Seattle bands’ travels to Boston. TechStars recently announced, by the way, that it will host a Seattle startup bootcamp session this year—and TechStars Boston executive director Shawn Broderick will be on hand on February 4 as a guest-celebrity judge to help us choose our traditional “Most Innovative Band” prize.

I haven’t seen either of the Seattle bands play, but I have seen their competition, and it will be stiff. The Seattle groups are going up against DeadBeat Darling, a pop/dub/electronica band that won the Audience Favorite award at the inaugural Battle of the Tech Bands in 2008, and The Dirty Truckers, a country-rock-soul band that took the same prize in 2009. Deadbeat Darling formerly represented Akamai and now represents Pictela, a New York cloud computing startup funded by Avalon Ventures through Cambridge-based partner Rich Levandov. The Dirty Truckers represent Boston-based American Well.

You can get tickets for the showdown here. They’re $25 in advance at $35 at the door, and we’ll be donating the net proceeds to two local educational non-profits: Science Club for Girls and Year Up Boston.

As always, we’ll be giving away some fabulous door prizes at the battle, including Roomba robot vacuum cleaners donated by Bedford, MA-based iRobot. We’ll have more to announce on that front soon, and we’ll also be letting you know about the prizes for which our four bands are competing.

Buy your tickets now, and be sure to bring your cell phones to the battle, as you’ll be able to vote for your favorite band via text message, using an interactive display system provided by our event sponsor Aerva of Cambridge. Our other event sponsors include Microsoft and McNamee Lawrence & Co., and the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce is an event partner.

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Toyota has announced that by 2013 it will have 100 fuel cell vehicles on the road for demonstration and testing. This is two years ahead of the previously announced large scale rollout of commercial production hydrogen cars in 2015.

Up to this point, Honda, General Motors, BMW and Daimler are the automakers who have had large numbers of hydrogen cars on the road for demonstration and testing. BMW has already announced they are scaling back efforts on their hydrogen vehicles.

Some have criticized Toyota (the world’s leading car producer) of being behind the other automakers in development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Since Toyota has pioneered hybrid technology and presumably now plug-in hybrid technology it has made many wonder why the Japanese automaker has only been dipping its toe into hydrogen, so to speak.

But, while Toyota has not been a leader in hydrogen fuel cell technology they have not exactly been lollygagging either. Since 2002, they have kept improving their Toyota FCHV SUV’s and now have a fleet of 20 such vehicles in real world testing.

In fact, in August 2009, Toyota ran a couple of tests with their newest FCHV Adv and found the vehicle to have a range between 431 miles and 516 miles plus 68.1 mpg depending upon driving conditions. So, what Toyota has done, they have done well.

Now, Toyota has decided to scale up their efforts introducing 100 FCHV Adv SUV’s over the coming months in places that already have hydrogen fueling station clusters (California and New York) plus locations that will be building H2 fueling stations in the near future.

One reason is that like the other automakers, Toyota wants to put pressure on business and government to rollout more stations to refuel their vehicles. Another reason is that Toyota sees hydrogen as the future and wants to be right there in the thick of competition when FCV’s start to catch on quickly.

Celebutante Tila Tequila has sent out at least 160 tweets since the death of her fiancee, Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson, last week. While the reality starlet has fallen under fire for appearing more like an attention-seeking leech than a grieving widow, Tila says she’s turned to social networking and paparazzi photo-ops to deal with her grief because she has no one to talk to.

“Why do I tweet so much? Even BEFORE Casey passed away? BECAUSE I HAVE NO FRIENDS! THERE! THE TRUTH COMES OUT! Just pray 4 her please!” she posted on her Twitter account over the weekend, The Huffington Post reports. “PPL say I need 2 get off twitter & grieve with friends & family…WHERE? I DONT HAVE ANY! Casey was my only family & my Dogs! Worst day ever,” she added.

She has no family? Wait, didn’t Tila make a public announcement just last month claiming that she’s elected to be a surrogate for her childless brother and his sister-in-law?

The petite former MySpace pin-up has spent the better part of a week slamming her so-called “haters” in bitter Tweets and postings across the blogosphere. Her targets have included Casey’s childhood friends, Nicky Hilton and Bijou Phillips, who called in a police escort to retrieve the socialite’s two dogs from Tequila’s care last week.

Tequila told her followers the dogs were going to be euthanized, a claim Nicky and Bijou deny. Tequila has also criticized the Johnson family for torpedoing her now-axed appearance on Larry King Live.

Boston, MA (Vocus) January 12, 2010 — The Jenzabar Foundation today announced that it has opened the nomination process for its third annual Student Leadership Awards. The awards will honor ten student-led campus groups or activities that have made a significant impact beyond their own higher education institutions serving others.

»Read the full press release at International Business Times

With the launch of the Nexus One, the future of mobile gaming on Android looks bright.  Sporting a 1GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm that has on-chip graphical capabilities, the Nexus One is packing some promising 3D potential.  Future Android phones are likely to match or upgrade the speed to compete with HTC’s newest phone. In addition, the 3.7 inch OLED screen is very nice and has incredible contrast ratios.  Furthermore, it has about 25% greater pixel density than Sony’s beautiful 11-inch 1080p OLED screen.

On the other hand, one of Android’s advantages, namely backgrounding apps, could come to the rescue.  We’re starting to see hardware accessories for the iPhone go hand-in-hand with a software package on the device, but this only works when that app is open.  On Android, we might see third-party accessories that hook into games via a backgrounding “connector” app.  If a company like MadCatz made a slick controller that went along with an API to control games, and that became an industry standard, it could give Android gaming a major edge.

Ultimately, I think the direction Android is going will attract some great games.  It’s a powerful platform, and the upcoming devices are, as Google coined, “superphones.”  There’s a problem with the fractured versions of hardware and Android revisions, but if the market is fertile enough, developers will bite the bullet.

Source: MediaPost

Square Enix isn’t gonna let that bad review (qjnet/news/hong-kong-mag-rates-final-fantasy-xiii-4/10-biggest-swindle-in-history.html) get its sails down, at least not before Final Fantasy XIII hits the United States. To bring some (positive) hype for the game, a Final Fantasy XIII tour

Ed Whitacre is confident that the government made a wise investment when it decided sink money into GM and that American taxpayers will see a profit off of their investment, and sooner rather than later. He believes this so much so that he even made a promise to Nancy Pelosi to the same effect. The company promises to have a $6.7 billion loan paid back by June, but the company will have to go public in order for taxpayers to see a profit; the government holds a 61% stock in the company. The market value of GM would have to reach $67 billion for the public to recoup any investment.

Steven Rattner, former head of the Treasury’s auto task force, said that GM has progressed to such a point where a full return is vary likely possibility, but the amount of the return lies largely on how long the Treasury decides to hold the stock before selling.

Many believe that things in the American auto industry are looking up. Erich Merkle, president of automotive analytics firm Autoconomy, also mention that even if the investments in GM and Chrysler do not turn a profit, they were a good idea, as they helped deter economic catastrophe.

-By: Stephen Calogera

Source: CNN

Startup PBWorks, which was formally known as PBwiki, specializes in helping businesses, non-profits, and educational institutions collaborate via wikis. The startup has steadily added innovative, real-time features to its platform, most recently integrating Twitter-like microblogging and tapping into the real-time stream. Today, the startup is launching a PBworks “Template Store” that lets users adopt pre-built apps and workspaces that anyone can distribute.

With over 25 different apps, the template app store will include PBWorks forms and community-generated templates. Companies can create, share, and apply workspace templates to solve specific business problems or manage specific industries, including advertising and PR. PBWorks offers apid and free templates.

PBWorks, which had an overhaul of its user interface and features last year, offers businesses with a project management application and a customized wiki workspace, with mobile support, document management, access controls and more. With a real-time makeover, the platform became more attractive. So if a user is editing a page and realizes that he or she needs the input of other team members, the user can request fellow employees to join the appropriate page using IM Collaboration, start a Live Editing session, and use Voice Collaboration to initiate an instant conference call.

Currently, PBworks manages 50,000 wiki groups with over 3 million users and has accumulated a loyal client base. The company serves teams at over a third of the Fortune 500, and was home to three presidential campaigns, the United Nations, The Financial Times and Harvard University.

Like Salesforce, PBworks is a paid subscription service, with no advertising. The company has raised nearly $2.5 million in funding, with its most recent funding round of $2.1 million announced in 2007. Competitors include Microsoft Sharepoint, Jive, and Socialtext.

And of course, we can draw comparisons to Google Wave, Google’s much-hyped new collaboration platform.

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According to just released Dow Jones LP Source figures, U.S. private equity fund-raising closed out its worst year for fundraising since 2003, with 331 funds raising a mere $95.8 billion in 2009. That’s down 68% from the $299.9 billion raised by 508 funds in 2008.

Zooming in on the past quarter (Q4 2009), Dow Jones LP Source figures show PE firms raised $20.5 billion in 75 funds, down 80% from the $102.7 billion raised by 188 funds in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Jennifer Rossa, managing editor of Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst, isn’t overly optimistic for 2010 either, and says we’ll not be seeing a return to levels seen before the economic downturn even though limited partners are likely to become more active this year.

Leveraged buyout and corporate finance funds raised just $53.7 billion across 133 funds last year, a 73% drop from the $195.5 billion raised by 204 funds in 2008. Despite that drop, it remains the biggest slice of the capital pie. Mega funds (funds of $6 billion or more) had most difficulty raising capital in 2009. Six mega funds raised $14 billion, but more than half of the year’s total for mega funds was raised by a single firm, Hellman & Friedman, which raised $8.8 billion for its seventh fund last year.

One silver lining in the report: the secondary market was the only subsector of private equity to turn in a strong performance, collecting $17.5 billion in 2009, up 83% from 2008 and a new record.

It wasn’t a stellar year for venture capital either, as you may have heard. Still, Dow Jones LP Source says, VC firms did not have as difficult a year as buyout firms. Venture fund-raising fell 55% to $13 billion across 120 funds from the $28.7 billion collected by 204 funds in 2008. In the fourth quarter, 21 funds raised $4.4 billion, a 56% drop from the same period last year. We’ve spotted an increase in VC funding deals in Q4 2009 based on CrunchBase data as well.

A few of the big winners in 2009 were New Enterprise Associates, which raised $1.2 billion, taking the total amount raised to date for the firm’s 13th fund to $2.5 billion, and Norwest Venture Partners which closed its 11th fund in the fourth quarter after raising $1.2 billion. Outside of Hellman & Friedman’s mega fund and Goldman Sachs Private Equity Group’s secondary fund ($5.5 billion), the fund that closed on the most capital last year was TA Associates’ eleventh fund, collecting $3.5 billion for its $4 billion fund in 2009.

(Image via Flickr / Oxfam International)

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Most online publishers are at least vaguely familiar with affiliate programs, which can help them generate revenue from the stores and products they link to. Unfortunately, actually managing accounts with these programs can be a bit of a pain, and many people simply forget to use them. VigLink is a new startup that’s looking to help by automatically inserting affiliate links whenever you link to a product from your site. The company has just disclosed a $800K funding round it raised last summer that was led by First Round Capital and Google Ventures, with a number of angel investors including Reid Hoffman, Dipchand Nishar, Niel Robertson, Hadi Partovi, Ali Partovi, Carlos Cashman, and Micah Adler.

For those that aren’t familiar with them, affiliate programs are often offered by online retailers who pay you a commission to drive traffic (and purchases) to their webstore. Amazon is best known for their program, but many other businesses now feature them as well. VigLink looks to help you use as many as these programs as you’d like with a minimal amount of effort. The site is currently in a private beta, but plans to launch publicly in the next few months.

To start using VigLink, publishers simply drop a snippet of JavaScript into their pages. Then, whenever the publisher links to a valid product (say, some shoes on Amazon), VigLink will automatically convert that standard link into an affiliate link. The publisher still determines which stores and products they’re linking to — VigLink simply modifies that link to include the proper affiliate program URL.

VigLink further streamlines the process by maintaining its own account with these affiliate programs, and any publishers using VigLink are housed under these accounts. This makes it relatively easy for a publisher to get started (they don’t have to sign up for anything other than their initial VigLink account). But I’m not sure it’s a foolproof setup: if one publisher using VigLink starts behaving badly, there’s a chance that the affiliate program being abused will ban the entire VigLink account, which would affect all publishers using it.

CEO Oliver Roupe says that the company is being as transparent as possible with affiliate programs to make sure that doesn’t happen. He also says that VigLink has a system that constantly monitors its publisher sites for spam, even long after they’ve signed up for the service (he likens it to the system Google’s AdSense uses).

VigLink generates revenue by taking a percentage of the affiliate fees it generates (the company hasn’t settled on an exact amount yet). Roupe wouldn’t comment on any features that are in planning stages, but I suspect that they’ll eventually help publishers monetize by suggesting when they should insert affiliate links at logical places in their blog posts (say, when they mention a product). Likewise, VigLink could potentially offer a feature that would poll all of the affiliate programs in its system before inserting an affiliate link to determine which one would generate the most money for the publisher.

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Japanese carmaker Daihatsu is facing new economic difficulties on the Chinese Market. The company has announced its withdrawal from the joint business with its Chinese partner, FAW Jilin Automobile Co.

The joint-venture (FAW Daihatsu (Jilin) Body Parts Co., Ltd. – FDJB) was established to manufacture automotive parts and Daihatsu Motor Co. owned 50% of it. This stake will now be transferred to FAW Jilin Auto, as a result of a change in the Japanese automaker’s sales plan for Chin… (read more)

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Following the official presentation of the Ducati Marlboro Team at the Wrooom – Press Ski Meeting 2010, MotoGP rider Casey Stoner stepped up and declared himself very pleased with how the new season looks from the height of the Alps and from the saddle of the new 2010 Ducati Desmosedici GP10.

"In the last test in Valencia we tried to the new bike, the new engine configuration, and I really loved it. We had a lot more traction," Stoner was quoted as saying by Autosport. … (read more)

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Firefox: Late last month, a Mozilla contributor showed us how Firefox 4.0 might look. The Strata40 theme and add-on gives your browser that same look, without having to wait or install pre-pre-alpha Firefox builds.

Strata40 and its required side add-on, StrataBuddy, offer many of the same tweaks to Firefox’s interface that Firefox 4.0 will likely offer, like moving your tabs to the top of the window or just under the address bar, consolidating the address and page loading bar, and updating the various graphical bits around the browser frame.

The top image shows off the developer’s own screenshot of his add-on in action. He’s got a nice-looking olive-type Windows theme going on; here’s how Strata40 looks installed on a stock Windows 7 copy of Firefox 3.5, with the tabs moved up top:

The developer “requires” about three other add-ons to get Strata40 running “at its best,” like Fission, App Tabs, and Tab Progress Bar, and suggests that Firefox 3.6 is actually a better fit for his theme than 3.5. Still, with Strata40 installed, Firefox 3.5 can move forward in design time a bit without too much incompatibility risk or, seemingly, add-on drag.

Strata40 and StrataBuddy are free downloads, and StrataBuddy is an experimental add-on. Both work wherever Firefox 3.5 or 3.6 do.

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The Nexus One burst onto the scene rocking Android 2.1 and now developers can finally get their hands on the SDK for this latest Android release. The SDK offers minor improvements from Android 2.0 and includes new APIs to develop animated wallpapers, a new SignalStrength class which contains phone signal strength data and new methods to add geolocation, improved video handling and more to Android’s WebKit-based browser. It’s available now for developers to download via the Android SDK and AVD Manager and gives developers a small headstart on making their apps compatible with Android 2.1, which is expected to roll out to the current crop of handsets later this month.

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Tempted by Google’s new Nexus One phone but having second thoughts? If you’re going to break your two-year contract on the subsidized model, make sure you do it in one of two ways: within 14 days of acquiring the phone or after four months of phone usage. Canceling at any point between 14 days and 120 days subjects you to a set of terrific fees, payable both to Google and T-Mobile.

And these go far beyond just paying back the device subsidy.

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