Author: Serkadis

Italian world touring car driver Stefano D’Aste confirmed his return to Proteam Motorsport for the 2010 edition of the FIA World Touring Car Championship. The former winner of the 2007 independent title will therefore make his 3rd appearance in the Proteam garage in the last 5 years, after previous stints with the Italian outfit back in 2006 and 2008.

Following a decent campaign in the series in 2008, D’Aste decided to leave the team and head to Wiechers-Sport for the 2009 season…. (read more)

Google may be acting tough in the US and other places where it can get away with it, but in China it’s as docile as a puppy, or at least that is the impression it gave when it rushed to apologize to Chinese authors for copyright infringement no less. At the heart of the issue is, yet again, Google Books which scanned books from a number of Chinese a… (read more)

Apple is doing a fine job keeping shush about the tablet computer it has been working on for several years and which is due to be announced later this month in California.

But just in case anyone was still in doubt about its imminent launch, France Télécom / Orange executive Stéphane Richard this morning confirmed on air that the device is to debut in the ‘next couple of days’.

Richard, number two at the telecommunication services giant, told French journalist Jean-Pierre Elkabbach that the tablet would soon make its entry into the market, and that it will be equipped with a webcam (gasp!).

Here’s how the relevant part of the conversation went:

Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Selon Le Point … l’hebdomadaire Le Point, dans quelques jours votre partenaire Apple va lancer une tablette …
Stéphane Richard: Oui.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: … dotée d’une webcam.
Stéphane Richard: Oui.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Est-ce que les usagers d’Orange en bénéficieront aussi?
Stéphane Richard: Bien sûr!

Which translates to:

Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: According to weekly Le Point, in a couple of days Apple will be launching its tablet computer …
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: … equipped with a webcam.
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Are Orange customers going to be able to enjoy it?
Stéphane Richard: Of course!

Richard was clearly caught off guard, and it’s always fun when such a thing happens on video. The segment, available on NowhereElse.fr, is evidently in French, but if you want to listen in on the relevant part of the chat you can skip to the 6:10 mark.

For your reference: France Télécom is one of the world’s largest telecommunication services companies. The company owns Orange Group, the fifth largest telecom operator on the planet and primarily active in Europe and Africa.

France Télécom, through its Orange subsidiary, currently offers the iPhone in some 28 countries and territories. In September 2009, Orange UK announced that it had reached an agreement with Apple to bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers, bringing an end to the two-year exclusive agreement between Apple and O2.

In short, it’s an Apple partner whose management would be aware of plans to bring its new tablet computer to market. Anyone still in doubt over its existence?

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The members of the Cambridge House and Senate delegation announced that the city of Cambridge has been awarded $107.8 K by the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust’s Clean Energy Choice program. The Trust is providing Cambridge with …

A bunch of folks have sent in Randall Stross’ latest silly feature piece in the NY Times claiming that the classic use of the “buggy whip” as an example of an industry put out of business due to a changing marketplace is inaccurate. But, that’s not what the article actually shows. Oddly, the article barely discusses buggy whips at all, other than to say that other suppliers of horse-and-buggy parts did adapt and did change. In fact, the article highlights that many companies that were smart enough to adapt did fine:

There were 13,000 businesses in the wagon and carriage industry in 1890, Mr. Kinney said. A company survived not by conceiving of itself as being in the “personal transportation” business, but by commanding technological expertise relevant to the automobile, he said. “The people who made the most successful transition were not the carriage makers, but the carriage parts makers,” he said, some of whom are still in business.

One is the giant Timken Company, whose signature products, roller bearings, were first used in wagon wheels in the 1890s. They easily adapted to the automobile because they could be applied “to nearly anything that moved,” Mr. Kinney wrote.

But that proves the point exactly (and goes directly against what Stross seems to think it says). Those companies, like Timken, that didn’t limit themselves by the exact final product, did fine. They recognized that the end market was changing and worked to make sure that the products they offered made sense in the new markets as well as the old. The buggy whip makers, on the other hand, didn’t do that. That’s exactly the point of the buggy whip analogy and it seems to be supported by this claim. No one said that it was impossible for companies to adapt — and the examples of companies like Timken, prove that. The problem was for the firms that didn’t do this… like the buggy whip makers.

The article also claims that many of the carriage makers did, in fact, try to make the shift from carriage making to automaking, with Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company being the most successful, before eventually going out of business. But, again, this misses the point of the story. The argument isn’t that companies can’t adapt, but that they will often be held back by legacy issues. Just look at the music industry and how it attempted to “adapt” to the online world by launching ridiculous music services that no one used like MusicNet and PressPlay years back. But, the vast majority of carriage makers were greatly hindered by their legacy business. The story of William Durant — who founded both General Motors and Chevrolet — is instructive (but makes no appearance in the Stross article). He worked for a carriage maker, and was one who spoke out against cars as being “smelly, noisy and dangerous.” But when he realized that the world was moving towards them, and that his current company wouldn’t be able to adapt due to legacy issues, he jumped ship to Buick.

So while Stross’ story is entertaining, it doesn’t seem to prove the point it set out to make, and does quite the opposite. It declares that “buggy whip makers never had a fighting chance” to adapt, but does nothing to support that claim, other than pointing to the fact that others did adapt. That doesn’t prove the point. It just shows that adaptation was possible and that the buggy whip makers didn’t do it. Whether or not they could have remains an open question.

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Rumors of a romance between MTV reality stars Whitney Port and Brody Jenner are heating up the blogosphere this Monday. Tipsters tell The NY Daily News that despite the newly-single Brody’s on-again off-again courtship with Whitney’s best friend, Lauren Conrad, the enterprising fashionista has reportedly begun secretly seeing the notorious lothario.

And that’s news that likely won’t sit well with LC.

“Lauren and Brody have an ongoing relationship,” a source dishes. “And she’s spoken about it with Whitney a lot, on camera and off. She’s definitely not going to be happy to hear that the two were getting so comfortable, especially when she wasn’t around.”

Brody called it quits with former Playboy Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole last month.

Average quality rating by the Stockhouse community. Karl W Miller, a senior energy executive and institutional investor,issued the following through his advisors, regarding the state of theUS renewable energy. Mr. Miller has issued a Sell opinion …

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) today unveiled the entries for three of the World Rally Championship’s support series throughout the 2010 season. Having already announced the manufacturers’ entry list of the WRC for the upcoming campaign, the ruling body gave us a glimpse of how the field will look like in the P-WRC, J-WRC and the WRC Cup for S2000 Teams.

In the Production Car World Rally Championship, there will be a total of 11 entries for the 2010 season, but only… (read more)

Car sharing provider Zipcar and social online ride sharing community Zimride launched an integrated car and ride sharing application on five new campuses at last week’s CES event. The new campuses include the UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maryland and George Mason University.

The integrated Zipcar-Zimride application allows members to share a ride by posting the date, time and destination of the trip to the Zimride campus community. Moreover, … (read more)

Mel Gibson, who split from his wife of 30 years last winter, is speaking out to offer words of encouragement to defamed golf star Tiger Woods.

The actor/director is now living with 39-year-old Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva – the mother of his 2-month-old eighth child, Lucia.

“Nobody is without sin,” Mel told The Daily Mail this week. “I did a pretty good hatchet job on my marriage,” he confessed.

His advice to Tiger: “You have to try to make amends if you can. You have to shut up and move on and not whine about it. And you have to deal with it like a man.”

Rust is a chemical reaction to  the surfaces of iron and steel becoming damp.  When iron and steel get wet, the surface reacts with oxygen in the air and the water (usually rainfall).  An acid is then formed by dirt and dust mixing with the chemical reaction caused by dampness and this acid eats away at the steel and iron, thus creating rust.

Justin March

The best way to get rid of rust is to try and stop it from forming in the first place.  To prevent rust iron or steel should be painted as soon as it looks a little tired and faded.  This should be done by removing any grease from the surface with white spirit, then applying a metal primer and finally a gloss paint or one designed for steel or iron.

If rust has formed then sand it down using sandpaper or a wire brush and then paint using the techniques indicated above.  But prior to painting make sure all rust is removed.

Following a 2009 when the German carmaker flooded the market with countless releases, 2010 promises to be even more action-packed for the Wolfsburg manufacturer. The year-opener for the carmaker was chosen to be the new compact coupe car which will be unveiled later today at the 2010 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit.

The New Compact Coupe (we hope this is just a provisional name) is a hybrid vehicle powered by a TSI gasoline-engine and an electric motor. … (read more)

Computers make our lives so much easier in so many ways, but there’s one important task they have not yet been able to do: make you coffee in the morning. Well, my lazy computer-addicted friends, that is about to change with the iMac CS.

A gentleman by the name of Klaus Diebel has taken it upon himself to create a computer that makes you coffee. Diebel used the shell of an old iMac and inserted a WMF1 single-cup coffee maker where the screen would be.

The Mac mod also includes a Mac Mini and a JBL Spot sound system so you can listen to beautiful music while sipping your morning joe.

The only downside is that the iMac CS has no monitor. But isn’t that a small price to pay for a fresh cup of coffee?

[via Technabob]

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1. How to Make the Best Cup of Coffee on the Cheap
2. What Does Your Computer Desktop Reveal About You?
3. Coffee Laced with Viagra Seized in Malaysia

If I may, I would like to propose a question for you to gnaw on: Who are you? Simple, terse, yet somehow strikingly elegant, these three words underscore the very foundation of student life and culture at Stanford. Allow me to clarify. I am not asking about your hometown, your ethnicity or your sexual preference, though these do tangentially play a role; what I want to know is your freshman dorm, your varsity or club team, your fraternity/sorority, what VSO you currently run and whether you prefer Stern to Lag Late Nite. In short, my inquiry is actually this: Here at the Farm, what is your identity–what set of masks do you wear for the campus to see?

So long as you have not spent the last several contiguous years living here without end, it is a bit difficult to miss the fact that Stanford exists as a bit, oh, how shall we say, disconnected, from the world at large. I am frankly of the opinion that the Stan feels more like some Zimbardian social experiment, whereby a coterie of twisted psych researchers concocted an alternate realm free of traditional social norms and replaced instead with Synergy, STS and the TOTOTTILSJUMB.

What this means for us pampered inmates is that our lives, the paths over which we tread within Campus Drive, are constructions we (the Stanford community, both past and present) have erected with our own hands. Being an ASSU hack has as little (though probably even less) relevance to society than if you are an Uj CTA or Dance Marathon VP of Development, though all three in some respect carry unique implications that we have invested them with here. I am not arguing that your activities and involvements on campus do not matter; rather, that it is easy to overlook the fact that we inhabit a place that exists very much unto itself and with very few parallels elsewhere.

The Stanford life is continually turned on “repeat.” It bears noting that, with a few notable exceptions, we are not special. In fact, we are marginal replications of archetypes that have passed through this place several times over. If you ever get a chance, go through your freshman year scavenger hunt pictures and then track down the albums of Stanford folks both a few years older and younger than you. When photos taken over a half decade apart look identical, the red flags start to arise.

I get the idea of traditions, really. I’m a history major. But we are not talking about traditions. Instead, those experiences and events that as wide-eyed frosh we are almost convinced are unique and special to just us take on a different light when placed beside the realization of their annual repetition for decades. My freshman year RA had a major impact upon my life and my understanding of Stanford, and currently in his old room is a friend of mine who is RA-ing for the same dorm, with frosh popping in for guidance and company and candy, not unlike what this old fool did two long years prior. Such a realization, while not detracting from my memories, certainly provides a new way of looking back at my time here.

Outside of the occasional presidential election, football upset or campus controversy, Stanford culture operates within an unspoken, albeit highly apparent and relatively predictable, set of norms. The arbiter of long-term success for any and all student organizations and activities hinges on the capacity to provide a sustainable model that can be replicated years down the line. I know that I sound like Waldorf and Statler here (if you know the reference, I’ll bring you to Bagel Day), but chances are that whatever wonderful and dynamic activities dictate your Stanford experience have been doing just that for others before you so many more times than any of us want to accept. We are not some massive state school that makes no claim to puffing up our individuality–here we are told that we are special. However, those grand NSO illusions lose their luster at some point.

My aim is to not depress the hell out of the campus or crush any naïve dreams. The winter gloom, our own respective demons, and the Biocore seem to accomplish that far better than I could ever manage. As the Dude would ask, then, “What’s your point Walter?” The acceptance of our own miniscule and ubiquitous roles at Stanford, I contend, is actually beneficial to succeeding and thriving here. When inane and superficial social demarcations are seen to be just that, unexpected characters and opportunities arise. Discarding prevalent campus tropes makes this strange and utterly bizarre place all the more fascinating. In short, it really ties it all together.

Several ways to translate web sites, texts or documents online have emerged in the past few years, with Google Translate probably being the best-known tool. Google’s service is free and works for most quick and dirty translations, but when it comes to delivering truly accurate results, nothing can beat a human translator. In 2008, Google itself toyed with the idea of establishing the so-called Google Translation Center, a marketplace that was supposed to match translators with people who need texts translated.

The concept was shelved later, and now it’s a startup called MyGengo that tries to become the world’s Mechanical Turk for translations. MyGengo offers human translation services between English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Russian. And it does work much like Amazon’s crowdsourced marketplace: The site’s 600 “certified” translators wait for a customer to upload a document or text and take care of those jobs they can deal with. Customers can choose between three quality and pricing levels and usually get the translations back within a few hours, saving up to 70% in costs when compared to professional translators.

MyGengo says their system makes it possible to accept just about any job size, including those usually denied by traditional translation agencies. Customers can have books, office documents, newspaper articles, blog posts or even tweets translated. (MyGengo itself translates selected English tweets from TechCrunch, Ashton Kutcher and others into Spanish to show how that looks like.)

The service offers two specific solutions for people who need to localize a website or an application: Starting March 2010, an API will speed up the process of requesting the translation of frequently updated content, for example blog posts or comments. Another solution dubbed String lets developers manage all language “strings” of a multilingual website through a dashboard during the localization process. This hosted service will link to the API, but using String by itself is completely free (more background).

Founded in Tokyo in 2008, the startup can count on the support of Silicon Valley-based investor Dave McClure in its efforts to conquer the American market for web-powered translations. McClure, who discovered MyGengo during the previous Geeks on a Plane trip to Japan, decided to make a personal (seed) investment in the company just last week and became an advisor, too.

MyGengo and their new investor are looking at a large market: The language service market as a whole is worth over $14 billion dollars already (MyGengo estimates web-based translations are worth around $3 billion), with some sources predicting it will balloon to $25 billions by 2013. (See this industry report for details).

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HD Radio technology seems to be to automotive manufacturers just like the little black dress is everywoman’s closet: a must-have. After Ford, Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Volkswagen, Audi is the next to include HD Radio as a standard feature on its 2011 models, namely the A6, A8 and Q7.

The technology will also be available as an optional feature on the 2011 A4, A5 and Q5 models. All models will be available at US Audi dealerships by fall 2010.

We are dedicated to provid… (read more)

euronewsFuture Capital Eyes Biofuels PlantNew York Times (blog)A global animal feeds business has also made a commitment to purchase the feed produced as a by product of biofuel production process worth around £500 …North East biofuel venture target…