Author: Serkadis

2009 notched the second largest issuance of municipal debt ever, but at the same time was an all-time low for municipal bond insurance.

One excuse is that aren’t many bond insurers left.

Yet at the same time, buyers didn’t seem too concerned about this lack of insurance either.

Bond Buyer: Just a year after financial crisis cast a cautionary pall over the market, municipalities closed out 2009 having floated $409.13 billion in debt, according to ­Thomson ­Reuters.

That represented an increase of 5% in volume over 2008. It was shy of the all-time record set in 2007 by about $20 billion.

…

Another “new normal” in municipal bonds was the volume of debt that came to market wrapped in insurance. According to Thomson Reuters, 8.6% of munis in 2009 were insured. That was the lowest penetration rate since Thomson started keeping track in 1982.

The financial crisis eroded many bond insurers’ capital cushions, forcing many of them out of the business. Only two companies, both run by Assured Guaranty Ltd., are writing new busines

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See Also:

• PIMCO Slams The Brakes On US, UK, And Corporate Bond Buying, Amid Massive Debt Binge
• The Junk Bond Rally Is Moral Hazard In All Its Glory, And Will Continue Next Year
• Jeff Saut: Bond Market Starting To Break Down, Turn Cautious On Stocks

Twitter apparently isn’t just for "microblogging" anymore. Co-founder Biz Stone would now describe it as an "information network." So there you have it: the activity you engage in on Twitter is now "information networking." Thankfully, everyone’s already calling it "tweeting" instead.

I can understand Twitter’s ambition to become an all-encompassing framework for "what’s happening right now," and changing Twitter’s "what are you doing?" prompt to "what’s happening?" made perfect sense in that respect. And by now almost every vendor in our Collaboration & Community Software evaluation research has added some sort of "microblogging" service. So, of course, Twitter would like to emphasize they’re on to something bigger than that.

This is nothing new, of course. Over the past decade, we’ve had web content management and document management vendors rebrand themselves enterprise content management (then back to web content management, and now on to enterprise web content management). Or search vendors become business intelligence and information access. Blog software gets re-labeled web content management. Forum software morphs into social CRM. Wikis get rebranded as "collaborative platforms." All of this reflects what vendors want you to think of them — it’s wishful thinking on their part, and doesn’t necessarily correlate with the actual product, or how their customers are currently using it.

We try to stick to nomenclature that we think our customers will find clearest. As you can imagine, sometimes our way to classify a tool isn’t in synch with how a vendor or an open source project aspires to be perceived. We call a spade a spade, even if we’re repeatedly told it’s not. Because it’s a "garden organizer," ideally suited for landscaping; or it’s a "multifunctional implement," because you can do a lot more things with it than just dig holes. But whether a spade is a bloody shovel is debatable enough, so there really is no need for additional confusion.

And "information networking"? That’s not going to help describe what Twitter is (or what it wants to become). Information networking is something you do — like gardening — and Twitter is a tool you might use — like a spade. Don’t pretend the spade in itself is going to provide you with beautiful landscaping.

So, sorry Mr. Stone. Even though this particular microblog service is getting bigger and bigger — I’m going to stick with the "microblogging" label for now.

A few weeks back, we noted how some were freaking out over the fact that patent applications were down, without bothering to look behind the numbers at why. Instead, they jumped to the conclusion that innovation in the US was dropping. johnjac points us to an article where folks at Cisco suggests that it might just be tech companies realizing that patenting everything is a waste of time and money. In fact, the story states that Cisco recently changed its patent strategy from trying to patent everything to trying to focus on things that it believes is really innovative, rather than everything it can possibly get a patent on.

I can already hear the usual crowd of patent holders in our comments. They hate Cisco and pretty much any big company. They’ll interpret this statement as meaning that Cisco has become less inventive and is more focused on “stealing” inventions. Of course, what’s amusing is that they’ll never present any evidence for those accusations (though, I’m sure they’ll accuse me of being on the take for Cisco even though we’ve never done any business with Cisco in any way whatsoever).

That said, I do find some of the comments from Cisco odd and somewhat unsupportable:

“The arms race approach doesn’t pay off,” he says. “It doesn’t do you a lot of good to have a lot of patents.”

Why? The patent landscape has changed dramatically. Patents often land companies in court as they fight over who invented the idea first. Lawsuits still might involve competitors, but increasingly Cisco finds it is battling what Chandler calls “non-practicing entities.” These are companies that exist only to acquire patents and then seek to extract money from big companies for infringing on them. The more patents you hold, the more likely one of these companies will sue you.

The first part is true. Lots of companies find themselves being sued by non-practicing entities, but it’s not because of the number of patents they hold. The NPEs (patent trolls, patent hoarders, whatever you want to call them) aren’t suing those who have the most patents. They’re suing whoever has (1) products on the market and (2) a large bank account. Cisco could have no patents at all, and it would still be getting sued just as much by NPEs. So, frankly, I don’t buy the claim that the more patents you have, the more likely you are to get sued. Instead, my guess, is that Cisco has realized that getting patents (especially in such large numbers) is an expensive process, for little benefit. It may help in some lawsuits against competitors (when Cisco can threaten to counter sue over other patents), but you only need so many patents for that. So, it looks like Cisco is building up a stable of defensive patents, and has realized that you don’t need the largest number. That’s a good thing, but the claim that more patents makes you more of a target just doesn’t make sense.

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Android has become an increasingly active platform over the past year or so and 2010 promises to be its best year yet, but who is using the Android platform? Who is the average Android user? I asked the Android community to complete my short survey and they responded.

So what has the survey shown? The average age of an Android user is 32 ½ with over 50% of responses to my Android User Survey aged 30 or over. Another statistic shows that 94% are male which begs the question, is Android out of reach for female users or do they just hate filling in surveys? 69% of Android users are from the US with 19% from Europe. Perhaps one of the most revealing stats is that 35% are using the G1 but there are already 24% using Droid/Milestone. This shows how quickly good Android devices get taken up. Who knows what the stats will be once the Nexus One gets into people’s hands. The survey also showed that 61% of users buy apps from the Android Market which shows that people are willing to spend money if the app is good enough. The average Android user spends around $5.30 a month on apps.

So the average Android user is 32 ½ years old, male and lives in the US. They buy apps from the market and spend over $5 a month on them. They will probably use the G1 as their main Android device.

So there you have it, now you know what to expect from an Android user. This survey was a great success and I want to thank everyone who completed it. Now the big question is would a more comprehensive survey be of use to anyone? Would it be helpful to know more about the average Android user? Please leave any suggestions or questions.

To see all the stats visit my blog http://darrenrichie.blogspot.com for a more comprehensive breakdown of the survey.

There's a major dilemma facing any renter who lives in a skyrocketing housing market.

Miss out on a historic rally and you could be priced out of your dream home forever, or that's at least the fear.

Bloomberg: Li originally planned to buy his own place when he got married, but after watching Beijing real estate prices soar, he has been spending all his free time searching for an apartment. If he finds the right place -- preferably a two-bedroom in the historic Dongcheng quarter, near the city center -- he hopes to buy immediately. Act now, he figures, or live with Mom and Dad forever. In the last 12 months such apartments have doubled or tripled in price, to about $400 per square foot.

“This year they’ll be even higher,” says Li in the Jan. 11 issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

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• Michael Pettis: China Has No Idea How Vulnerable It Is To A Trade War
• China's Mercantilist Policies Are Screwing Us Out Of 1.4 Million U.S. Jobs
• 2010 Will Be The Year Of China -- And Not In A Good Way

The banners aren’t even officially up in Vegas yet, and already we’re catching a drift of what all will be unveiled in the days to come. Take this Wireless Media Stick for example, which is HSTi’s way of telling you that a dedicated storage drive beside your Blu-ray player or media player is completely unnecessary. Put simply, this device (and the accompanying software, we presume) plugs directly into any USB-enabled disc player or media streamer that’s connected to your television; from there, you can easily stream media that’s already shacked up within your main PC to your TV-connected device(s), which cures the problem of having your media fragmented between varying drives. We’re still waiting to hear exactly what kind of technology this thing relies on (we’re guessing 2.4GHz), but hopefully we’ll find out more (along with a price and ship date) real soon.

HSTi Wireless Media Stick nixes the need for dedicated storage drives originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS’ UL30Vt-X1 was largely hailed as the CULV machine to get when it finally went on sale just a few weeks back, and it has a Core 2 Duo CPU alongside a switchable graphics solution to thank. Still, the main two gripes on it were the inability to choose a color and the (comparatively) lackluster battery. Thankfully for those who managed to hold off, ASUS has quietly pushed its UL30Vt-A1 onto Amazon’s pages, complete with a silver paint job, a capacious 5,600mAh battery (good for “up to 12 hours” of usage) and an asking price that’s $50 higher than the X1. All other specs have seemingly remained constant, from the 1.3GHz Intel SU7300 CPU to the 4GB of DDR3 RAM to the 500GB hard drive. You’ll also get a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium and an NVIDIA G210M (512MB) + GMA 4500MHD GPU setup, but there’s no telling when your order will actually ship. Here’s hoping for sooner rather than later, yeah?

[Thanks, Paul]

ASUS UL30Vt-A1 pops up on Amazon for pre-order: silver, 5600mAh battery, $849 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why did RealNetworks buy Varia Mobile, a software company best known for producing a MP3 player no one bought?

To work on a mysterious cloud computing project, which has something to do with mobility and entertainment. That’s per Techflash, which reported on the deal Sunday.

Probably best not to make too much of this one. Given that Real didn’t announce the deal (let alone report it to the SEC), it can’t be for much money (note that the last purchase Real bothered to announce was for $4 million). And LaLa deal aside, you can “acqhire” a group of engineers without laying out a lot of cash these days.

But it is a good reminder that RealNetworks (RNWK) wants to make itself a player in the next phase of entertainment — the one where you buy or rent the stuff you want to consume over the Web, and consume it wherever you want.

That’s at least part of why CEO Rob Glaser is still wrangling with Hollywood over his “RealDVD” system, which is supposed to let you rip copies of DVDs you already own. Because once you’ve done that, the next logical step is moving the file to your iPod, or your tablet,  or just to different rooms in your house.

The problem, of course, is that everyone else wants to play there, too. And many of them are already are, in some form.

There are the hardware guys like Sony (SNE), who are selling TV sets and game consoles with Web connections, and cable guys like Comcast (CMCSA), who already control the pipe that brings the stuff to your living room. And telcos like Verizon (VZ), which want to do the same thing. And, of course, retailers like Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX), who are already selling digital entertainment. Etc, etc.

During the first Web boom, it seemed Real would be in this list as well, since its back-end technology and its Real player were commonly used to move entertainment around the Internet. Now it’s best-known for its Rhapsody music service and its collection of casual games, but it doesn’t have pole position in either sector.

You’ll hear plenty more about this stuff over the next week at the Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off Wednesday. But Real will probably be mum.

The company doesn’t have any announcements planned, and isn’t renting space at the convention’s main show floor. Not a terrible idea to lay low at CES, where lots of people make a lot of noise about stuff that never comes to pass. But at some point it will be interesting to see how Real plans to compete.

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BoomTown is back from a lovely holiday vacation and am gearing up for the Consumer Electronics Show that starts later this week in Las Vegas, but I have been struck by the $1 billion-plus haul that tech-heavy “Avatar” has brought in over that time.

Does that mean movies in theaters are holding their own against online incursions?

It would seem so, according to box-office reports for the year. Tallies for the U.S. alone were up 10 percent to close to $10 billion for 2009.

Or is there trouble behind this success, since another key revenue stream is weakening?

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal today:

Last year was the first since 2002 that U.S. consumers spent more money buying movie tickets than buying movies to watch at home, underscoring the changing economics of Hollywood…

The figures indicate that studios will likely have to continue looking for ways to survive in a marketplace where they can’t count on hefty home-entertainment revenue to offset giant production costs. Those costs often more than eat up the studios’ half of the box-office receipts, which are split with theaters.

The ongoing decline in home-entertainment revenue has already fundamentally altered the way studios do business, forcing them to place big financial bets on hoped-for mass-market blockbusters at the expense of features that cost less to make but that also have smaller earnings potential.

Since online purchase and rentals are nowhere close in terms of revenue (see chart below), declining DVD sales could be a worrisome trend for Hollywood.

We’ll see what happens in 2010. Until then, here are videos of the top 10 most-viewed trailers of 2009, according to Yahoo (YHOO)–which garnered many tens of millions of views on its popular movie site.

Most–but not all–of them track on the big box-office winners, although the group includes an unusual one: “Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus,” starring Lorenzo Lamas, which was not exactly a hit.

Here they are:

No. 10 UP

No. 9: AVATAR

No. 8: MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS

No. 7: STAR TREK

No. 6: G.I. JOE

No. 5: HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

NO. 4: TERMINATOR SALVATION

No. 3: 2012

No. 2: TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

No. 1: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON

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The fourth quarter, the period when Spotify was supposed to launch in the US, is gone and still there’s no sight of the free music streaming site. The delay was expected after talks with the music labels failed to reach a mutually-appeasing compromise. New rumors are surfacing though which claim that the two parties are getting closer to a deal, but one that doesn’t look too promising for the actual users. It sounds like there will be a free version of the service in the US, which the music labels have been against, but it will be available to only a small number of people.

At least that’s what TechCrunch is claiming, citing people close to the matter, but how exactly this will work out is anyone’s guess. It might mean some sort of invite system which would definitely limit the number of people which could actually use the free service.

Spotify has been invite-only in the past in Europe as well, but this was mostly during its beta period and it benefited from a lot of well-deserved hype. Spotify may very well be shooting itself in the foot by going for an invite system in the US. But it may employ other kinds of limitations and we’ll just have to wait and see what it comes up with.

Another, much more interesting but a lot sketchier rumor, though, is a supposed deal with Google which want… (read more)

As the year changes, the web is chock full of “top” lists. The best movie of the year, the worst dressed of the year, blah blah blah. It’s time for a truly important list: the 25 Hottest NFL Cheerleaders of 2009, put together by the folks at Bleacher Report.

While we don’t necessarily agree with all of their picks, here are some truly worthy candidates.

Morgan, a cheerleader for the San Francisco 49ers, goes to prove that no matter how disappointing your season may have been, a hot cheerleader can always make things better:

The New Orleans Saints have a secret weapon to thank for their outstanding season – Carly:

Tatiana may be a rookie cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins, but something tells me she has staying power:

Check out the entire top 25 hottest cheerleaders list at Bleacher Report.

Related posts:

1. The Fine Cheerleaders of the Pac-10
2. Who Are the Hottest Women of Country Music?
3. The Hottest Women in the Fastest Cars

According to a memo obtained by WardsAuto, Hyundai Motor America wants its U.S. dealers to section off a special area in their showrooms for showcasing the automaker’s new luxury sedans including the Genesis and the upcoming Equus.

The memo said that the move is in keeping with Hyundai’s “aggressive product cadence.”

Joining the Genesis sedan and the new Genesis Coupe will be the large Equus luxury sedan in fall 2010. The Korean automaker will change the name for the sedan when it comes to the United States. The final name, packaging, pricing and specifications will be announced when it goes on sale at the end of 2010.

According to Hyundai Motor America’s CEO John Krafcik, having dealers create a section in the showroom for the Genesis and Equus will be the lowest-cost alternative to selling through an entirely separate channel like Toyota does with Lexus.

“That’s a good way to go,” Krafcik told Ward’s at the New York Auto Show last year. “That way, dealers don’t have to spend $5 million, $10 million on a new luxury brand. Sectioning off the brand, that’s the Holy Grail.”

– By: Omar Rana

Source: WardsAuto

Kia Borrego isn’t quite a successful model in the United States and, as a result, the South Korean manufacturer might drop this particular vehicle for the 2010 model year. According to a report by thecarconnection.com, the weak sales recorded by the Borrego in the United States are representing the main reason for the decision, despite the fact that it’s quite new on the market – Kia officially introduced it in late 2008 as model year 2009.

To give you an idea on how poor the Borr… (read more)

	Ten Plug-In Cars We’re Impatiently Waiting For In 2010 This could be one heck of a year.		Ten green cars to remember from the last 100 years Speaking of which, it wasn’t too bad of a century, either.
	Luxgen EV+, a 7-passenger electric SUV, displayed in Dubai Seat the whole family in quiet electric drive.	Other news: Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis giving away a Tesla Model S, if … Aptera newsletter explains search for new manufacturing facility Florida offering $5,000 rebates for plug-in hybrid Prius conversions… for 90 people

AutoblogGreen for 01.04.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No doubt seeking attention by making controversial decisions and statements, elitist social networking site BeautifulPeople.com says it has kicked out 5,000 users because other members signaled that they became too chubby celebrating Christmas and the New Year.

The social network, which prides itself in not letting ‘ugly’ people enter the site, claims these users had it coming by putting pictures of themselves celebrating during the holiday season, revealing that they ‘may have let themselves go’. The company also says ‘vigilant members, who take pride in the standards demanded by the site, called for action’.

Following complaints, BeautifulPeople.com moved to place thousands of users back in the rating stage, after which only a couple of hundred members got back in after review from existing members. According to the company’s statement, most people that got banned for being ‘overweight’ came from the US (1,520), UK (832) and Canada (533).

Is there a DespicableBehavior.com yet?

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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Sonic Solutions is announcing today a new generation of its CinemaNow movie downloading service.

The Roxio CinemaNow 2.0 will have more interactivity, high-definition video support, and 3-D viewing. CinemaNow is a movie service that lets you download films over the Internet to your TV or set-top box. It is used by Blockbuster and Best Buy as a movie downloading backbone for consumer electronics devices.

The 2.0 version is being shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas. The point is to deliver richer services for users with the enhancements, said Mark Ely, executive vice president of strategy at Sonic Solutions. The new version lets consumer electronics companies create storefronts on their connected devices with branding by leading retailers.

The enhanced storefront has contextual links for each movie that give users more content about things like the studio, director, writers and actors. Users can also view trailers, recommendations, and instant movie previews. The platform also supports downloadable and streamed HD video in resolutions up to 1080p. It will also be 3-D Ready, meaning it can support upcoming films that can be viewed with 3-D glasses. Lastly, the interactive content makes it possible to deliver streamed movies with features like you find on Blu-ray discs, such as multiple chapter points, subtitles, multiple audio streams, and other features.

CinemaNow was founded in 1999 and acquired by Sonic Solutions in 2008.

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With manufacturers across the world trying to leave behind a very troubled 2009 and look ahead to a better 2010, the first month of the new year will bring with it a wave of price cuts in the automotive industry, as carmakers will try and bring consumer interest back on track after the holidays.

Among the first to do so is Japanese carmaker Suzuki, which announced a (minor) price cut of AU$700 for the entry level Alto GL with manual gearbox (new price AU$11,790, as well as a majo… (read more)

The launch campaign for the new Volvo S60 has taken another step as the first footage of the sedan emerged on the Internet. No, we’re not talking about a mistake or any leaks from Volvo. The car manufacturer decided to upload video of the car on its youtube channel.

Pictures of the car were launched late last year on Facebook, a well known social network. No footage of the car was launched before, so you should check out the video below showing Volvo’s new S60 model.

… (read more)

Here’s what’s coming in economic news: The next employment report could show the economy adding jobs for the first time in two years. The next G.D.P. report is likely to show solid growth in late 2009. There will be lots of bullish commentary — and the calls we’re already hearing for an end to stimulus, for reversing the steps the government and the Federal Reserve took to prop up the economy, will grow even louder.

But if those calls are heeded, we’ll be repeating the great mistake of 1937…

Continue at the NYT >

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See Also:

• Martin Feldstein: Congress Blew The Stimulus, Beware A Double-Dip In 2010
• Google Shuts Down Popular Blogger John Hempton After Publishing Controversial Post
• One In 50 Americans Lives On Nothing But Food Stamps