You have eight weights – seven of them weigh 1 kg, but the eighth is slightly off. You also have a set of balancing scales. How can you determine which is the dodgy weight, only using the scales twice?
Did you hear about the two blondes who froze to death in a drive-in movie? They had gone to see, “Closed for the Winter.”
I had my standard “beginning of the year” meeting with the family. My soon-to-be 18-yr old son reported that this time in his life is “unprecedented” for him, and that he is working on his “exit strategy” from high school. He then said that this would be an “historic opportunity” for me to provide him working capital. My 15-yr-old daughter (going on 25) said that although she is seeing “green shoots” in the economy, she will need to continue to spend in order to assist her Personal Consumption and that I shouldn’t let “uncertainty” keep that from happening. My wife thought that we should “circle back after the first quarter”, during which we can continue to “reach out” to our partners and vendors. Is this kind of talk the “new normal”?
OK, eventually the Fed will either end their $1.25 trillion mortgage-security purchase program, or extend it. Everyone, including the shoeshine boy, knows this – don’t pay any high priced consultants to tell you that. And rates will react accordingly. But heck, not only do we have several more months of the program, but we also have the possibility that either they will extend it, or that an investor-based market will re-develop – just like “the old days”. Let’s cheer for the private investors coming back in.
Do you have money in the bank? Probably. Do banks and money managers have lots of capital? Sure they do. Most recognize that the core of the problem is not a lack of capital, but rather a lack of willingness to deploy/invest it. If everyone is saving for a rainy day, they’re happy just to have the return of their capital rather than earn a good return on their capital. And a solid housing recovery relies on mortgage credit, decent rates, and a private mortgage market.
Where does warehouse lending stand these days?
Yesterday, I told you about a new Consumerist investigation into the huge ripoffy nature of Best Buy’s computer optimizations. But hoo boy, $40 to enter a username into a new Mac? That’s tough to justify.
Just what do you get when you give the Geek Squad $40 to optimize your new MacBook Pro?
As even a computer novice might expect, “Mac optimization” is useless. One supposed benefit is putting the user’s name on the computer, according to Best Buy representatives I spoke to. Presumably, anyone who is buying a computer knows how to type in his or her own name, or follow the prompts to do it. Another supposed benefit: checking the Mac’s network connection. This has no value because it is done in the store, while the buyer will use the Mac with a different network at home. Yet a third step involves loading the Geek Squad’s own proprietary software on the computer to scan drives-drives that have never been used and so don’t need to be scanned for trouble. An anti-virus program is also part of the mix, which is an insult to the virus resistance of Macs. “There’s nothing of that sort that any brand-new PC needs, and Macs less so,” Gottheil said. “Apple requires far less configuration.” Best Buy’s hard sell on “optimization” is like peddling mythic unicorns based on the value of their horsepower.
If there’s a more transparent retail scam aimed at vacuuming money out of the wallets of old and naive people, I’ve never heard of it. This is downright shameful. [The Big Money]
Apple has spent $275 million to jump into the world of mobile advertising by acquiring Quattro Wireless. It remains to be seen what changes Apple will make, and how they plan to compete with ad giants like Google. [BGR]
The Google/Apple war appears to be in the arms race stage at the moment, with the Nexus One set to be unveiled today as the latest weapon in the Google arsenal. Apple, for its part, appears to be momentarily playing catch-up, with plans to acquire another mobile advertising company now that Google is in the process of snatching up AdMob.
Quattro Wireless is the advertising company in question, and while it is much smaller than AdMob, which is by far the industry heavyweight in the mobile space, it will allow Apple to stay in competition with Google in this increasingly lucrative market.
Apple is said to be paying around $275 million for Quattro Wireless, according to several sources speaking to Kara Swisher of BoomTown. That’s considerably less than the $750 million bid that won Google the AdMob acquisition. Quattro is still by far the smaller company, though it still caters to high-profile clients like the NFL, Ford and Disney.
Swisher claims the acquisition is a done deal at this point, and will be announced as soon as this afternoon. Even counting this and the AdMob acquisition, there are still many players in the booming mobile ad field, and Swisher expects many more similar deals to take place in the future between other major hardware and telecom companies and the advertising startups.
The acquisition will have an immediate impact on the smartphone economic ecosystem, since both companies are now set to become major players on the hardware, software and advertising side of Internet-connected mobile devices. But the real boon for consumers will come as the overall competition between Google and Apple continues to deepen.
As much potential as there is in a continued close working relationship between the two companies (the Maps alone should be the only example you ever need, though there are many more) for iPhone users, I still believe even more exists in a widening gap between the two tech industry stars.
The Nexus One is a great example. By all accounts, it will at the very least be the best Android device available, and best of all, it seems like it could bring in a new ultra-competitive pricing model that will shift the uneven balance of service contract power away from cell service providers and towards consumers. Contracts likely won’t go away, but telcos will have to offer much more significant incentives to get people to sign on, like truly unlimited plans.
Apple’s position at the top of the smartphone heap won’t be nearly as comfortable as before, and a position of discomfort is much more likely to breed innovation than the alternative, both in terms of hardware and sales strategy. So pull up a seat and watch the sparks fly. Can’t wait to see what new goodies are forged in the heat of battle.
MobileTechReview has given the HP Glisten a hands-on and have published this video review.
Calling it a plain vanilla Windows Mobile handset, they note call quality was however very good, the keyboard worked well, and the smartphone had plenty of RAM at 256 MB.
Of note is that most of the features appear relatively easy to control using the keyboard and other keys, which should make up to some degree for the small screen.
Read their full review here.
Getting a title like Sportsman of the Decade would mean a lot to anybody, no matter the sport, so Audi’s factory driver Tom Kristensen has some serious reasons to celebrate as he got the distinction not once, but two times in Denmark, his native country.
Both the TV2 tv channel and the Berlingske Tidende decided to award the Sportsman of the Decade to the Dane who won the Le-Mans race for eight times. In his run for the title he had serious competition like tennis pro Caroline Wo… (read more)
For more than a quarter century now the countries of the world have been dreaming the neoliberals’ dream. They have been trying to shrink their states back to their core competencies to promote economic efficiency, global economic integration, and growth, and to slash through red tape, rent-seeking, and simple corruption. They have been actively privatizing state holdings. They have hugely reduced their ownership and their active involvement in “national champion” companies. They have cut back on interventions to affect market outcomes and on regulation to scrutinize and control market players.
But now they are waking up. And the neoliberals’ dream is at an end.
To understand why, we need to journey back to the mid-20th century. The coming of World War II ensured that whatever money still remained in Britain left quickly. Franklin Delano Roosevelt ruled an isolationist country that he wished to cajole into engaging in the war with Hitler as early and as completely as he could. But part of Roosevelt’s strategy (and a not-altogether unwelcome consequence, for many who worked in the State, War, and Navy Building-a Victorian-era structure just west of the White House that looked like a French brothel) was to make Britain broke before American taxpayers’ money was committed in any way to the fight against Hitler. Only after Britain had sold off the family silver to pay for the nozzle would America “lend” Britain its garden hose to fight the Hitlerian fire.
America did come to the aid of its closest, cherished, and most important embattled overseas ally after Britain was broke. The Grand Alliance was the great moment in the grand story of the English-speaking nations. It does remain Churchillian in the inherited grandeur of its narrative. And America did come to the rescue of England, and together-with enormous although unloved assistance from the Red Army of the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin-America did save the world from the horrors of the Nazis. But while we were gearing up to come to the rescue, we squeezed the British, and when World War II was over, the United States, not Britain, had the money. When the British borrowed money from us, it had to be repaid in dollars, not in sterling. And imports into Britain had to be rationed well into the 1950s.
Will the United States be similarly squeezed? No. We are not engaged in a total war. We do not domestically produce only 1,200 calories of food per citizen per day. We are still by far the world’s largest national economy. The United States is technologically powerful and resourceful and is still the center of world finance. World finance is still transacted in dollars. And the United States remains the world’s only military superpower, whatever that may turn out to mean.
But the United States is losing the money. America is now massively in debt to foreigners and will be more in debt with each passing year as far into the future as forecasters can see. It will not be squeezed as it squeezed Britain, but it will be constrained.
Back when the United States had the money, it used it to pay attention to other governments only when it chose and to make certain that other governments paid attention to the United States even when they wished to not so choose. With the Marshall Plan, America made Western Europe an offer that all but forced Western Europe to adopt the mixed-economy social-democratic order of the post-World War II North Atlantic. It financed and arranged “regime change” in lesser countries to remove governments that seemed to be veering off into serious error. In all this, the United States used the leverage of having the money exclusively for the global greater good.
Who has the money now? What can they do with it? What are they holding? The smallest big batch of money held by other people is simply cash: greenbacks. Perhaps $450 billion, perhaps more, circulates abroad in cash, in hundred-dollar bills. Some countries, such as Panama and Ecuador, have formally gone over to a dollar economy. In other countries (such as Lebanon), cash dollars are widely used. Then, of course, many individuals and organizations prefer the anonymous convenience of hundred-dollar bills: drug dealers; arms merchants; Russian operators; Argentines and Eastern Europeans with doubts about their local currency; rich and not-so-rich Chinese, who live in a cash economy where the largest Chinese currency note in circulation is 100 yuan (about $15). Though not often discussed in polite company, seigniorage, that is, the ability to coin or print cash (the right held by a feudal seigneur) and have other folks hold it, is valuable: Those who hold the $100 bills have, for many, many years, been providing a substantial loan to the U.S. government — and it’s interest free!
The bigger big batches of dollar-denominated and U.S.-located assets — and they are very big indeed — are not cash but are rather investments. A great deal is held by private foreign individuals and organizations: Japanese housewives, German doctors, Scottish pension funds, Dutch companies, Colombian drug lords, Japanese insurance companies, sons of Gulf sheiks, and Russian “businessmen.”
This money is private money. It belongs to market players — people, companies, organizations, and institutions looking for the highest returns at the lowest risk. Much of the money is in the hands of the governments and rulers of oil-producing states (or in the hands of whatever or whoever holds their money). Truly great piles of U.S. obligations are in the hands of the governments of Asia. Japan holds about $1 trillion in reserves (which comes to almost $9,000 per U.S. household). Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore together hold something like $500 billion. Korea sits on another $200 billion.
But it’s China that is the biggest holder of U.S. obligations, with some $2.5 trillion in “reserves,” the lion’s share of it in U.S. debt obligations. America owes unimaginably large amounts of money to lenders (such as China), about $20,000 per American household, three-fourths of China’s GDP, a fact worth repeating, a fact that makes rapid repayment impossible.
Proverbs 22:7 instructs us: “The borrower is servant to the lender.” But the lesson requires some exegesis to fit smoothly into context. The burden of the U.S. foreign debt may be better explained by the oft-repeated Wall Street wisecrack, which we repeat: When you owe the bank $1 million, the bank has got you; when you owe the bank $1 billion, you’ve got the bank.
Neither side can walk away; we’re locked. The debt binds China especially and other governments that have the money. Selling the debt would send the dollar way down and thereby destroy the value of their dollar holdings and severely damage their economies’ massive export-based sectors. Worse yet, sell it for what? Their “reserves” are so huge that there is nothing else they can hold them in, not at that scale. From a Chinese viewpoint, it’s exasperating.
The U.S.-China economic imbalance has forced the two powers into a very intimate and not very desired embrace, something Lawrence Summers once called a financial balance of terror. This is all to the good: The two powers must learn to work as partners, and not just in economic matters — global warming and global order also need positive Sino-American cooperation, and they are much more important long-term issues. Sino-American partnership, in managing the complex mess of their imbalanced economic codependency, can constitute a good beginning for managing the utterly unhinged problems of world balance and order. We have no acceptable choice but to get good at it, and that will take some doing on both sides.
As money alters power relations, the United States is not simply becoming dependent — but it is no longer independent, either. That is a major change. And China is no longer helpless and cowed in face of the superpower hegemon; it has got a grip on it. Indeed, while the world peeks in, the two countries are realizing that they have thrown themselves into an intimate economic embrace with, to say the least, very mixed feelings.
For the past 30 years, America rather successfully propagated to itself and others a worldview of unfettered markets and “re-fettered” states: Expand the realm of markets in society and roll back the reach of other institutions, especially government. They backed that worldview with money and, until it crashed, this American outlook was willingly adopted by more and more people and governments around the globe. Soft power — not military might, not straight-out money, but the ability to inspire acceptance and imitation — was a vital component of American international dominance. It soothed the abrasiveness of military and economic power and made the wielders of such power feel good.
Money, of course, is power. Because America had the money — had it solidly, rightfully, self-assuredly, and durably — for about 100 years, people all over the world wanted to be like Americans: successful, modern, loose-jointed, efficient, democratic, socially mobile, leggy, clean, powerful, and, of course, rich. Money brings a nation power, not just the power to command, or at least influence, the behavior of other nations. And when the money accumulates over time and as a result of real economic success, and not just windfalls from guano or oil deposits, it brings the power to propagate, consciously or not, the ideas, concerns, fashions, norms, interests, amusements, and ways of displaying and behaving that come out of its culture. These penetrate deep down into other cultures as well as its own; they become part of daily life. This is luxuriant power: It doesn’t have to be exercised willfully or even consciously, and it doesn’t even cost anything extra. It was clearly the way to be.
As the United States emerged in the aftermath of World War I as the top power and giant money master, American jazz swept through Europe, faster than Ford and Kodak. Later, especially after World War II, Europeans eagerly welcomed the onslaught of American movies. Most Europeans encountered America at the movies, but two generations of rather privileged Europeans traveled to America to see for themselves (many sponsored by the State Department), to behold the skyscrapers of New York, the George Washington and Golden Gate bridges, and the houses of rather ordinary people with huge shiny cars, washing machines, televisions, and the orthodontically enhanced smiles on tall, milk- and meat-fed women.
American cultural dominance has continued to grow. Teenagers around the globe now uniformly dress in styles pioneered by American teens and have even adopted the same body language. They eat on the street. The American-designed, Asian-manufactured iPods fill their heads with the same harsh music; they instant-message, blog, and Tweet. And the English language — not altogether an American cultural invention — is not merely the international language, but also the second language for a vast global population: Languages carry more than their words and grammar; they carry cultural form and content.
America will be less and less the origin of new cultural trends or global memes: First, because the others now have the money. But also, because while America remains especially modern, the modern is no longer especially American; it is rapidly becoming semiglobal and if not old, at least very mature. There is no need to leave China to see skyscrapers; there are more of them in Shanghai than in New York, and they are newer, taller and bolder. The energy — that key element in New York 1920s literature (e.g., Dos Passos) has, with the money, shifted its residence. For the foreign traveler now arriving at New York’s Kennedy airport, the ride into Manhattan is still eye-opening, but in a new way: litter and slums line the Van Wyck Expressway through Jamaica, Queens, where rust and graffiti festoon the old transit trains and bridges; the roads are poor; there is no proper train into town — let alone something as sleek and fast as in Hong Kong or Shanghai. Hollywood no longer has an inherited, built-in meganarrative — the presentation of life in modernity in all its weird and quotidian forms: How women walk and speak, houses, murder, seduction, sex, kitchens, raising children, “making it,” excursions, courtrooms, shopping centers, schools, hospitals, universities, and office buildings — the world, perhaps of your future.
The culture created by America and exported by its movies is not gone; it’s not even going. It has simply gone universal and is now open to a vastly expanded range of contributors. This is very likely to be a good thing for American and world culture, an opening to new ideas, talents, and energies. And America’s ambient culture is being enriched by foreign imports ranging from soccer to sushi, not to mention energetic Ph.D.’s in material and biological sciences.
America is sure to remain a leader in cultural power, but there is a difference between being a cultural leader and an easy, almost un-self-conscious cultural dominance. Our research universities are the envy — and model — for the world. So too are our high-tech, biotech, and nanotech genre Silicon Valley-type firms, with their multinational, multiracial, and monocultural workforces of the bright, ambitious, educated, and driven. And there is also a powerful emergent American cultural force best represented by Barack and Michelle Obama: America might yet develop new meganarratives to succeed the world of modernity that will seize the world’s hearts, fears, longings, and energies. But no matter how creative its creative people become, as in the realms of economic and political power, America is unlikely to remain the cultural hegemon, the overwhelmingly dominant source of cultural memes.
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As it turns out, that Dragon Age: Origins expansion rumor that turned up earlier this week was true. EA made the official announcement for the expansion, called Dragon Age Origins: Awakening, today.
Tribune Company today announced the appointment of Geoffrey Melick as SVP/Health, responsible for developing advertiser solutions and new advertising and marketing products related to the healthcare industry.
He will also oversee Healthkey.com, the company’s website devoted to healthcare issues. Melick’s appointment is effective immediately.
“Spending related to healthcare issues, products and services is exploding, and our newspapers, television stations and websites need to be getting an increasingly larger share of it,” said Randy Michaels, Tribune’s chief executive officer.
“Geoff has tremendous talent and experience and will lead our efforts to develop better targeted advertising and marketing solutions related to the healthcare industry.”
Melick joins Tribune from Corbett Accel Healthcare Group (CAHG), an Omnicom Company, where he served as EVP/Interactive Marketing and eInnovation.
He also served as managing director at Kinect Interactive Digital Communications, where he was responsible for the development of multi-channel strategies and the creation of online and digital communications.
Melick has extensive experience in developing online advertising and marketing products and was one of the founding members of McCann Erickson’s Interactive Group in 1989. While at McCann Interactive, Melick was a member of the MIT Media Lab, one of the leading interactive think tanks in the world.
In 1995, he left McCann to found Two Way Communications, focused on pharmaceutical, financial and eCommerce marketing. His clients at Two Way Communications included Eli Lilly, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson.
“Tribune has great brands offering a unique opportunity to create world-class advertising and marketing solutions for healthcare clients trying to reach a variety of audiences across different media platforms,” said Melick.
“During the last couple of years Tribune has developed some very innovative advertising approaches for healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical companies and consumers/patients–but there is a lot of opportunity to do even more.”
About the Tribune Company
TRIBUNE is America’s largest employee-owned media company, operating businesses in publishing, interactive and broadcasting. In publishing, Tribune’s leading daily newspapers include the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, Sun Sentinel (South Florida), Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, Morning Call and Daily Press.
The company’s broadcasting group operates 23 television stations, WGN America on national cable and Chicago’s WGN-AM. Popular news and information websites complement Tribune’s print and broadcast properties and extend the company’s nationwide audience.
At Tribune we take what we do seriously and with a great deal of pride. We also value the creative spirit and nurture a corporate culture that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Government/Legal
Shelby, whether good or bad, has a knack for staying in the news. Unfortunately, the latest item to come across our desks is not about an upcoming variant of the Ford Mustang, but rather a lawsuit involving the limited-edition GT500KR built in 2008. According to papers filed in Vermont, Plasan Carbon Composites, the maker of the carbon fiber parts on the car including the hood, front spoiler, and mirror covers, is suing Shelby for non-payment of the components as well as a bonus promised by Shelby if the parts were delivered on time.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story is that the lawsuit reveals the cost of the carbon fiber parts. Remember that whole fiasco in which Shelby was charging nearly $18,400 for a replacement hood? According to one of the documents in the lawsuit, a set of 200 carbon fiber components costs $760,000. Do the math, and that’s just $3,800 for all the carbon fiber parts on the car. But straight division doesn’t work here.
As we learned when Shelby announced it would drop the price of the carbon fiber hood to $9,700 (dealer cost), it’s not about the exact end cost of the components, it’s about the development and testing. The GT500KR is the first U.S. production vehicle to get a full carbon fiber hood and the amount of energy, resources and testing involved in bringing it to market far outweighs basic production costs. Making the hood – along with the other assorted tidbits – involves all the extensive OEM-level, Tier One testing that every automaker has to endure to meet federal crash standards. In short, it’s not cheap and the price reflects that.
Complicated math and pricing aside, Jim Owens, Shelby’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, told us that Shelby has already paid Plasan over $8 million and that the lawyers are hashing out the details as you read this. Expect an update in the coming months.
Gallery: 2008 Ford Shelby GT500KR
Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2009 Weblogs, Inc.
[Source: MustangHeaven.com]
Shelby sued over non-payment of GT500KR hoods, true price of parts revealed? originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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With a new day comes new tablet rumors, the latest being a new date for the Apple Event, January 27. There’s also a new time frame for shipping the tablet, March, maybe some new specs, and, hey, why not an SDK for iPhone OS 4.0, too.
While previous rumors put the Apple Event on the Tuesday of the last full week in January, Digital Daily cites “sources in a position to know” calling for a day-later launch of Wednesday. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. That’s an oft-used locale for many Apple Events, including the launch of the Apple TV in 2006. Like the Apple TV, which shipped several months later, the Apple tablet is not expected to be available for purchase until March. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, that’s a rough time frame, as the “ship date hasn’t been finalized and could still change.”
Whether that means sooner or later is not known, nor exactly why the date may change. That may come down to something the WSJ describes as “material finishes for the device.” Metal? Chrome? Plastic? The WSJ doesn’t know, but speculates it could mean multiple models with different price points. Multiple models could bolster the crazy rumor of an OLED display, especially since WSJ cites analysts who cite sources that say that the tablet could cost as much as $1,000.
More certain regarding the display, at least as far as the Wall Street Journal is concerned, is the physical size, 10 to 11 inches. This also coincides with yet another rumor, this from the French site Mac4Ever. Its sources suggest the Apple Event will also include a beta of the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK and a “simulator” for working with different resolutions. That rumor coincides with whispers from sources “very familiar with the situation” to Engadget that state the obvious. The tablet will have a substantially larger screen and a higher resolution display than the iPod touch and iPhone.
So, is there anything about the tablet that is not a rumor? Not really, but there is a kind of conventional rumor wisdom concerning the tablet that will likely prove (mostly) right.
While outliers suggest a screen size as small as seven inches, based upon the reports to date 10 inches is the safe bet. Likewise, the resolution will be higher, at least double the iPhone. 960 x 720 would be a good guess. If the tablet runs iPhone applications without modification, expect them to see them in a 480 x 320 window. There will be native applications for the tablet itself. As for price, $1,000 is crazy high. Most rumors put the price at around $600. Finally, the one thing you can be certain of today: don’t buy anything from Apple in the next three weeks unless you have to.
Fretting that the Sony Ericsson X10 won’t be gracing your local Canada wireless provider? Rest easy, friends.
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Wade Roush wrote:
After Google acquired mobile advertising network AdMob in November for $750 million, the chief marketing officer at Waltham, MA-based Quattro Wireless, an AdMob rival, told me Quattro wasn’t worried about having Google as a competitor. “We actually think [the Google-AdMob deal is] great for the industry, because it really shows the importance of the mobile advertising market, and how important it is for advertisers and publishers to have access to mobile specialists,” said Quattro’s Lynn Tornabene.
As it turns out, Quattro executives may have known they had their own ace in the hole. Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsD blog reported last night that Quattro is being acquired by Apple of Cupertino, CA. According to Swisher’s sources, Apple is paying $275 million for the startup, which has raised about $28 million in venture backing from Highland Capital Partners of Lexington, MA, and Globespan Capital Partners of Boston.
Swisher reported that an announcement about the deal might be forthcoming today, but so far there’s been no official word of the alleged acquisition. Tornabene did not immediately reply to my request for confirmation and comment.
Quattro, which has doubled in size from 70 employees to about 150 in the last year, is in the business of helping major consumer brands create and place advertisements that are specialized for mobile platforms such as smart phones. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Ford, Netflix, and Kmart use the company’s ad network to place promotions that can range from banner ads in mobile website to entire mobile microsites and even dedicated mobile applications.
Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices are a major venue for Quattro’s clients—in fact, “iPhone” and “Apple” are the two most-used tags within Quattro’s company blog. If Apple is in fact acquiring the company, it’s probably for the same reason that Google bought AdMob. Both companies want a share of the growing advertising revenues being generated via their mobile platforms (Android phones in Google’s case).
The reported Quattro acquisition would, for the first time, make Apple a direct broker of mobile advertising. Given Apple’s mixed track record of success working with developers of third-party iPhone apps—there’s a widely held perception that the company’s process for vetting mobile apps is slow and arbitrary—it’s unclear how advertisers who want to reach consumers through mobile channels will feel about being dependent on Apple for ad placement.
The Boston Globe’s Scott Kirsner is reporting this morning, based on a conversation with a source close to Quattro, that the Apple deal closed in 2009 and that Quattro CEO Andy Miller will report directly to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Both Miller and Quattro chief technology officer Eswar Priyadarshan are alumni of m-Qube, a Boston-based mobile marketing company acquired by VeriSign for $250 million in 2006.
Marvell’s ARMADA chips hope to power everything from Blu-ray players to ebooks to smartbooks to digital picture frames, but the most interesting are the 600 series smartphone chips with a strong claimed 3d performance.
Says Sascha Segan:
According to a Marvell press release, the ARMADA 610 can render 45 million 3D triangles per second and control four displays at 2k x 2k pixel resolution each. That makes it more powerful than the PowerVR SGX 530 core used in the Motorola Droid and the Qualcomm graphics core in the QSD8250 Snapdragon, which handle 14m and 22m triangles respectively.
Noted.
In the market for a 2010 model year minivan? Well, don’t head to a Nissan dealership because the automaker has confirmed that its Quest minivan will skip a model year or two. The pause is due to a change in the production location of the Quest.
While production of the Titan and Armada will remain at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi plant, the Quest and the QX will head over to Japan to make room for a new commercial vehicle based on the NV2500 concept.
An all-new Nissan Quest is expected to debut in roughly a year’s time. The model will take design cues from the Nissan Forum concept.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: Automobile
Looks like we’re about to see Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon platform finally start to take off this year. One of the first devices out of the gate will be Lenovo’s unique “Skylight” smartbook.
It’s a netbook-ish computer that weighs less than two pounds, sports 10-hour battery life, and an interface (Linux, presumably) full of continuously updating widgets. Wi-Fi and 3G connections are built in and the computer will be sold directly from Lenovo and through AT&T starting in April. There’s also a unique integrated USB stick that swivels out and detaches for taking your data with you elsewhere.
The price tag is going to be a sticking point for some people: $499 unlocked. These Snapdragon smartbooks are supposed to be priced around $200, right? Subsidized units sold through AT&T ought to be priced more aggressively. At any rate, you get a 10.1-inch screen at 720p resolution, HD playback, and a relatively spacious keyboard. We’ll take a closer look at CES but here’s a demo video in the mean time.
Lenovo Skylight [Press Release]
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If you’re going to buy that new USB 3.0 hub, you might as well have something to plug into it. Why not the new WD MyBook 3.0? I mean, it’s damn fast, not that expensive, and looks sick.
The drives will be available in both 1TB and 2TB flavors for $180 and TBA. Just like the other USB 3.0 drives we’ve seen, these are 5.0Gbps-capable on a USB 3.0 system. It’s also backwards compatible to 2.0 ports, but don’t expect that type of speed. But for an extra $20, WD offers the drives with a USB 3.0 card. Pretty reasonable in my book.
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Here’s a striking chart from David Rosenberg this morning. It should be pretty self-explanatory.
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