Author: Serkadis

New Mexico regulators have given the state’s largest utility another three weeks to turn in a filing that spells out how it will incorporate renewable energy into its portfolio. Public Service Company of New Mexico was supposed to file its plan …

Filed under: Apple, Apple History

As we mentioned a few days ago, CNBC will air Welcome to Macintosh tonight at 9:30Pm Eastern/6:30 Pacific time. Welcome to Macintosh is an indie documentary that provides an intimate look at Apple’s history. It’s been shown at different times and places over the past year, and you can also buy it from iTunes [link], but now you can watch the documentary for free.

Then tomorrow night, Tuesday January 5 at 10PM, CNBC will be airing another Mac documentary, MacHEADS, a film that explores the fanaticism and loyalty of Apple users.

Finally, don’t forget to set your DVRs for CNBC’s third Mac feature, Planet of the Apps, airing on January 7th at 10PM ET/PT, the only CNBC original of the three where they take a look into the “app-economy.”

Is it just me, or does January 2010 seem to be Apple’s month?

TUAWReminder: Welcome to Macintosh airs tonight on CNBC, more docs to follow originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While 2009 continued a downward trend as one of the worst recessions in U.S. history, the decline for venture-backed mergers and acquisitions has not been as severe as the dot-com bust in 2001 and 2002.

New figures from the National Venture Capital Association show that in the last quarter of 2009, M&A hit $7.8 billion, up from the previous year’s mark of just over $2 billion. Overall, 2009’s total of $12.6 billion could not equal 2008’s $13.6 billion total.

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Mergers and acquisitions totaled over $68 billion in 2000, only to fall below $8 billion by 2002 following the bursting of the dot-com bubble. In contrast, 2007’s M&A total of $29 billion has declined to just over $12 billion in 2009 – a much more smooth rate of decay which has begun to flatten out.

Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA, says they expect to see continued improvement throughout 2010. “Clearly, we have a long way to go towards a full recovery but we are encouraged by the increasing acquisition values and the number of companies that have filed a registration with the SEC to go public,” he says.

A late boost in the fourth quarter of 2009 has helped startups from reliving the experiences from earlier in the decade, the largest of which came from Amazon’s July purchase of Internet shoe seller Zappos for $930 million. This acquisition helped internet specific purchases climb to $2.2 billion in Q4 2009 – a near seven-fold increase from 2008’s final quarter.

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Intranets are becoming a higher priority for organizations. Intranet teams are growing in size, and the best of them are embracing new trends such as mobile accessibility and social networking.

These are some of the findings from Jakob Nielsen’s annual report on the top intranets for 2010. Companies that made the list this year include General Electric, Trend Micro Devices and Walmart.

Nielsen is recognized as one of the world’s foremost usability experts. His findings appear solid, though it is apparent that Intranet development is just on the verge of becoming a central communication environment for enterprise collaboration.

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This year, Nielsen says, top companies on the list had a median size of about 6,300 employees, which continues a year-to-year trend toward smaller businesses. He attributes it to the increase in availability of small-company-friendly intranet technology.

In addition, intranet teams are growing, up to 14 people, 27% higher than the average team size in 2006. This is not a big surprise. The need to develop the best possible internal communications environments now cuts across multiple platforms, ranging from the web to mobile devices. More resources are required to keep these platforms synced and accessible to the employees in the organization.

Mobile Intranet Sites

The best intranets had a separate mobile site for its employees. Of the companies polled, only 30% actually had a dedicated mobile site. Expect this to change in the year ahead. People are still getting to know how to use smart phones. It’s still rare for companies to launch application environments for users, but at least one company did: an iPhone web app. Soon, though, users will expect to have access “anytime, anywhere,” to their organization’s network.

Social Features

The social Web is finding its way into intranets. Nielsen cites two trends:

• social features for employees as individuals
• workgroup support and other features that encourage work-related connections

He cites Walmart for its discussion and profile pages and Trend Micro’s TrendSpace, which includes the capability for employees to create their own content. Trend Micro goes as far as offering an elaborate system of reward points that accrue to employees when they contribute to the intranet’s community features.

It’s noteworthy that social features are still just emerging in intranet environments, especially with the advent of enterprise collaboration services. Companies still have the chance to be recognized as innovators in this space, especially if they implement real-time update capabilities and mashup environments.

Intranet Design is Maturing

Overall, Nielsen comes to the conclusion that intranet design is maturing. In many respects, the Intranet has come of age.

In the year ahead, intranets will change even more. Mobile usability and social networking features will continue to evolve, especially as teams begin to experiment with the wide variety of enterprise collaboration services now available.

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Continue reading IPEVO Tubular wireless speakers aren’t quite totally tubular, still slightly rad

IPEVO Tubular wireless speakers aren’t quite totally tubular, still slightly rad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Logitech working on “ground-breaking” Android device according to job posting originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been closely following Battlefield Bad Company 2, you know that EA has been slowly trickling new multiplayer-centric information since the game’s announcement. A few days ago, I got some hands-on time with two new multiplayer modes: Squad Deathmatch and Conquest — up until this point, I’ve only seen the Rush multiplayer mode on the Arica Harbour and Port Valdez maps.

For a quick recap, there are four playable classes this time: Assault, Recon, Engineer and Medic. Battlefield 2 veterans will be happy with the Medic’s return; he still throws down health packs and can still use a defibrillator to both revive allies and kill foes at melee range. The Medic’s defibrillator and the Engineer’s power drill will now compete for the title of “most humiliating to be killed by.”

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Filed under: Car Buying

2009 was not a good year for car sales. No surprises there. An interesting side effect of lowered sales last year, though, is that the total number of vehicles in the overall U.S. car fleet dropped. There were 250 million cars here in 2008, and only 246 million at the end of 2009. We may have been buying fewer cars than we usually do in a year – there were around 10 million sold in 2009 – but we still got rid of 14 million units.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, will be speaking to reporters Wednesday about why he thinks these numbers mean that “America’s century-old love affair with the automobile may be coming to an end.” Part of Brown’s reasoning is that he sees the shrinking U.S. fleet trend continuing through 2020 thanks to market saturation, economic uncertainty and a “declining interest in cars among young people who have grown up in cities,” among other factors. The end result? Brown believes the shrinking fleet “will also largely eliminate the need for building new streets and highways, and will set the stage for increased investment in public transit and high-speed intercity rail.” Is Brown on to something, or will a widely-expected rebound in new car sales due to pent-up demand render his argument spurious? Check out the EPI’s press release after the jump, then be sure to leave your thoughts on the matter in ‘Comments.’

[Source: Earth Policy Institute | Image: kodiax2 – C.C. License 2.0]

Continue reading Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 – is America’s love affair ending?

Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 – is America’s love affair ending? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Celebrities

No, really. If you didn’t know, U2’s front man and Africa activist Bono is a regular columnist at The New York Times. And he (too) has a top 10 list to kick off the new decade we now find ourselves living in. Bono first smartly apologizes for burdening our collective eyes and minds with yet another such list, before then presenting his.

Items found on his list include: a cap and trade system taxing every individual’s right to pollute, protecting the intellectual rights of movie and television studios, a rock star teleportation scientist and eradicating rotavirus. All good and/or interesting stuff, no doubt, if not a little, um, predictable. Which may very well be why Bono stuck his car-related concern up on they very top of his list. That concern? “Return of the Automobile as a Sexual Object.”

In short, Bono thinks modern four-door sedans are lame looking and laments the fact that minivans and SUVs are so widespread (and dull). He meditates on the decline of the sexy family car, pioneered during the U.S. auto industry’s design heyday, circa 1946 to about 1971. Where are the curves, he asks, before stating, “In Ireland in the ’70s, it was the E-Type Jag that made sense of puberty.” A line, we should add, that we’ll be stealing.

Bono then goes on to muse that the problem with modern car design might the practice of “design by committee,” noting that, “rarely does majority rule produce something of beauty.” We’re with him so far, but then he gets a little fatuous. Essentially, Bono says that since the Obama Administration, “still holds the keys to the big automakers,” they ought to be injecting some, “style fascists into the mix.” Among those mentioned, Marc Newson, Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive, Frank Gehry and Jeff Koons. Luckily, we’ve got some insider knowledge about that last little bit. Make the jump for a slightly NSWF explanation of why this writer thinks that Bono’s wrong.

[Source: The New York Times | Image: William West/AFP/Getty]

Continue reading PSA: Bono wants cars to bring sexy back

PSA: Bono wants cars to bring sexy back originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Fed’s MBS Shell Game – John Dalt – … The ‘twins’ can buy MBS to force the market down, relieving the Fed of intervening. Even more nefarious they can sell their bonds for less than face value and book a loss to the taxpayer. They can also write down mortgages for troubled homeowners, and send the bill to the Treasury.  This allows the Fed to act as if they are withdrawing from supporting the markets. Just like a shell game, when you watch one shell there is mischief occurring with the other shells. Classic. … Conclusion: Treasury will use the ‘twins’ to hold interest rates down, … more – Seeking Alpha

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Interesting home statistics for the day – Tim Iacono – read the numbers – conclusion – … There is clear message here for the U.S. government. If they really want home prices to go back up, they need to drastically increase the tax credit. Maybe they should double it to about $15,000 next summer and then move it up to $25,000 or so in 2011, increasing the tax credit regularly as needed to keep home prices rising. … – The Mess That Greenspan Made

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2010: Walking away will gain cachet – Rolfe Winkler – … Financial self-interest is likely to be contagious. A study by three economists suggests that when a few borrowers in a neighborhood just say no, others are likely to follow.  … Until now, borrower guilt has helped protect bank balance sheets. That is likely to change. If it does, the next chapter of the financial crisis could be a painful one. … – Reuters Blogs
————

U.S. mortgage bond issuance jumped in 2009 – … However, 2008 ranked as the slowest year for new U.S. MBS issuance since 2000, said Matthew Toole, an analyst in the deals group at Thomson Reuters.  Nearly 89 percent of all U.S. MBS this year were backed by government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, he said … – Reuters
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Who Launched the USS Fannie Mac? – Submitted by Bruce Krasting – … Fannie was told what to do by the Administration. For Mr. Bush to have suggested that this was somehow the “underpinnings of good capital” speaks for itself. That statement makes no sense. But, none of this made sense. The audience of mortgage bankers cheered loudly however. 
This was the battleship USS Fannie Mac headed for the levee. It just took six years for the crash to happen. – interesting thoughts – Zero Hedge
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Property Values: The Numbers Still Say 30% Down 30% Left To Fall – by Michael David White – It’s very nice that values achieved a gain of .013% in October, but we still have a 30% fall ahead of us and, as you know, we have a 30% fall behind us. Better send in your mortgage payment. – New Observations.net
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predictions – Real Estate 2010 — Will It Be Better? – By Peter G. Miller  –  covers Foreclosures  & Modifications , Option ARMs, Interest Rates, The Courts, Unemployment, Looking Ahead – RealtyTrac

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Manipulating mortgages – by Edward Harrison –  The dust has settled a bit on the Treasury’s recent decision to give Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a green light to nationalize our mortgage problem. Calculated Risk says the move was not necessarily done on Christmas Eve to escape notice. And it was not done to socialize future losses via Fannie and Freddie. It is just a precautionary move … I take a more negative view.  I see Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a means of manipulating interest rates and distorting the allocation of resources and funneling precious capital investment into a housing sector which suffers a dreadful amount of overcapacity. .. – Credit Writedowns

Filed under: Car Buying

2009 was not a good year for car sales. No surprises there. An interesting side effect of lowered sales last year, though, is that the total number of vehicles in the overall U.S. car fleet dropped. There were 250 million cars here in 2008, and only 246 million at the end of 2009. We may have been buying fewer cars than we usually do in a year – there were around 10 million sold in 2009 – but we still got rid of 14 million units.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, will be speaking to reporters Wednesday about why he thinks these numbers mean that “America’s century-old love affair with the automobile may be coming to an end.” Part of Brown’s reasoning is that he sees the shrinking U.S. fleet trend continuing through 2020 thanks to market saturation, economic uncertainty and a “declining interest in cars among young people who have grown up in cities,” among other factors. The end result? Brown believes the shrinking fleet “will also largely eliminate the need for building new streets and highways, and will set the stage for increased investment in public transit and high-speed intercity rail.” Is Brown on to something, or will a widely-expected rebound in new car sales due to pent-up demand render his argument spurious? Check out the EPI’s press release after the jump, then be sure to leave your thoughts on the matter in ‘Comments.’

[Source: Earth Policy Institute | Image: kodiax2 – C.C. License 2.0]

Continue reading Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 – is America’s love affair ending?

Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 – is America’s love affair ending? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A weak economy is a solid time to sell a product that can save companies 30-60 percent on their energy bills. Computer energy software maker Verdiem, which passed the 1 million mark back in August for the number of government and business PCs that are running its software, has raised $4.71 million of a $5.93 […]

Just as Bono is claiming that the world should look to China’s success in censoring the internet as a good example of how other countries can fight unauthorized internet file sharing, the Wall Street Journal is reporting on just how badly China’s “war” against the internet is going, noting that the more it tries to censor, the more trouble it’s having in doing so:

The Internet has enabled more Chinese to have more access to information today, and given them greater ability to communicate and express themselves than at any time since the founding of the People’s Republic.

Because of that, even as China tries to crack down, it simply leads to more people figuring out ways around the barriers:

But for each critic the authorities stop, more rise. “There are simply too many people,” says Xiao Qiang, a scholar who studies the Chinese Internet at the University of California at Berkeley. “They can do that to a very small group … but the approach certainly is not good enough to intimidate all the voices online.”

Mr. Xiao points to the example of Liu Xiaobo, detained in December 2008 for his role in creating Charter 08, a sweeping call for political and legal reform in China. Mr. Liu was sentenced on Christmas Day to 11 years in prison for subversion. But since his detention, thousands more Chinese have signed Charter 08 through Internet sites that disseminate the document.

That’s not to say that the government hasn’t become good at cracking down on things it doesn’t like, and the article certainly notes just that the government is “losing,” not that it has “lost.” However, it also points out that rising voices of complaints are having an impact, noting how China’s “Green Dam” plan to install internet filters on all PCs was eventually stopped due to public protest over the idea. So, yes, the government has continued to censor the internet in China, and many users have more trouble reaching certain sites or types of information, but that does not mean that internet censorship works or that it’s been successful in suppressing opposition content and discussion online. No matter what Bono believes.

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Quick update to yesterdays post about the SiliconDust HDHR CableCard device.  I received confirmation today from a very reliable source of the following:

• SiliconDust does in fact have a HDHomeRun in development that is a CableCard tuner
• This device WILL be networked just as the current HDHomeRun works today meaning it requires no port on your computer.  Not sure if this would mean that it can be used on multiple computers in a setup or not given CableLabs limitations…

There are a few reasons I find this exciting news.  First it’s from SiliconDust who made Networked QAM tuners a working reality.  Second the fact that you can have CableCard tuners on a network could really make sense with the limiting Windows MediaCenter lack of softsled – that is IF you can use one of these with more than one PC.  And finally it’s a strong sign of life for CableCard when not long ago it seemed like technology that wouldn’t make it.  We’ll have to see if it’s a dual tuner or not – that would make this even bigger.

More details will flow this week at CES so stay tuned!

It feels like CES is starting a bit early this year, as Ars will be going on-site to the Google HQ in Mountain View to cover the launch of Google’s Nexus One phone. Beginning at 9:30am PT, we’ll be reporting live with specs, photos, and blow-by-blow coverage as the event unfolds. Sign up via the form below to be notified when the coverage starts.

If you miss the liveblog, you’ll be able to replay it after the event is over. Also, check out our post-event summary for more context and analysis.

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In 1983, U2 frontman Bono was a scrappy upstart on the world music scene, and he sang about how “nothing changes on New Year’s Day.” But the 2010 version of Irish rocker is a world-traveling, President-meeting, New York Times op-ed-penning factotum—and he’s demanding some New Year’s changes, especially from ISPs. Forget acting like “dumb pipes” or even the Post Office; ISPs must now take a lesson from China and start proactively filtering copyrighted content.

Bono’s NYT column offers up ten big ideas for the next decade. It’s an entertaining read, especially when he suggests that the US government use its current investment in car companies like GM to bring in designers like “Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive from Apple” to make cars “sexual objects” once again. (We’d love to see Ive’s take on that quintessential non-sexy suburban vehicle, the minivan, for instance.)

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