Author: Serkadis

Filed under: Technology, Videos, Toys/Games

New Gran Turismo 5 trailer – Click above to watch the video

Are you starting to wonder if Gran Turismo 5 is ever going to see the light of day? We are, but at the very least we understand why it is taking Polyphony Digital over five years to release the latest edition of its standard-setting racing series. Every video we see shows more detail, more tracks and greater diversity of motoring types. The newest video comes courtesy of the Asia Gaming Expo 2009 show, and it provides a glimpse at some of the many race tracks coming our way when GT5 finally graces us with its presence.

Hit the jump to watch some pretty amazing footage that was unfortunately shot by a consumer grade-camera capturing images via projection. Most of the 1:45 video isn’t in-game footage, but it does show some pretty amazing new courses and some breathtaking rally shots. There is footage from Madrid, Rome, Indianapolis and Tsukuba, plus NASCAR, Super GT and more. Among the shots that make this video worth the watch is footage of a race at the airport that features a large passenger jet following close behind a pair of LeMans racers. Wow. The video is bad and the audio cuts off after about 30 seconds, but if you’re dying to get your hands on GT 5 we’re sure you’ll click through to watch the video. Thanks for the tips, everyone!

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading VIDEO: New Gran Turismo 5 trailer confirms new courses, general awesomeness

VIDEO: New Gran Turismo 5 trailer confirms new courses, general awesomeness originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Chevrolet, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan, Toyota

The most tumultuous year in the history of the auto industry draws to a close this week with two-of-three U.S.-based automakers having gone through bankruptcy, all all three have been battered by a down market. Through the first half of the year, annualized sales hovered at around the 9 million level, the lowest in more than two decades. That’s a tough threshold for any company to make money at, and almost no one did – including the mighty Toyota.

Heading into the second half of the year, the prospect of a government funded “Cash for Clunkers” program helped spur auto sales, although the benefits were certainly not spread evenly among all segments. The final numbers for the year are expected to hit somewhere in the 10.5-million region, but the 16 million sales mark of just a few years ago isn’t likely to return for several more years, if ever.

The top 10 best-selling vehicles for 2009 contain mostly familiar nameplates, although a few positions have been juggled. Click here for the full list.

Charting the Top 10 Best-Selling Cars and Trucks of 2009 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As the day draws near for an expected but rumored Apple tablet announcement, more details regarding this mythical beast are surfacing. This time it’s news of Innolux, a subsidiary of Foxconn (whom we all know produces the iPhone for Apple), making the touch screen panels for the upcoming tablet — rumored to be the iSlate. According to Digitimes, another Foxconn subsidiary, G-Tech Optoelectronics, will be in charge of strengthening the glass for the device and Taiwan-based Wah Hong Industrial will be providing other components. And of course, we can expect Foxconn to get these tablets into production soon and into our eager hands!

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DJ Earworm decided to put together a mash-up of all the Top 25 Billboard hits of the year. Of course the mix features Beyonce’s huge hits Halo and Single Ladies.

SolarReserve, a developer of utility-scale solar thermal power projects based in Santa Monica, Calif., is planning to tap public and private money to finance the development of two new projects, each backed by recently signed long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Last week,  SolarReserve announced that it had inked two separate PPAs (… and see here ): One for a 100-megawatt project to be developed in Nevada, and another for a 150-megawatt facility in California.

SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith tells GER that the two power plants are each expected to cost about $500 million to develop.  One financing option being considered by the developer is to back the debt required to develop each project with Department of Energy loan guarantees. The government program could cover as much as 80 percent of the project costs, Smith told us in a phone interview. The balance of the cost would come from company equity.

The DOE loan guarantees were enacted as part of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. From the start, the funding stream was hampered by rigid regulations that, among other things, gave the DOE first priority lien on the collateral of a failed project. That made it nearly impossible for clean energy projects to structure a financing package that included private backers since they were pushed down the food chain if the project went bust.

Under the new rules released earlier this month, the DOE said it will decide on a project basis whether its loan guarantees will have first priority or whether to back a project on an equal-basis lending.

If SolarReserve qualifies its two projects for loan guarantees, one obvious advantage is that the government will step in to repay creditors if the project were to fail. Smith says it plans to engage in serious discussion with project finance banks early this summer.

The two projects will use solar power tower technology, which uses a large field of flat mirrors called heliostats to focus solar energy on a receiver that sits at the top of a tall tower in the middle of the field– see drawing below. Heat transfer fluid passes through the receiver, absorbing the solar heat and reaching temperatures of over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The system can either direct the hot fluid to a steam turbine for electricity generation, or to a storage tank for use later, making it possible to meet electric demand even after the sun sets.

Each SolarReserve system consists of an approximately two-square mile solar field and 600-foot tall tower. The systems use solar salt for the heat transfer fluid, which both has good energy storage properties, and is more environmentally friendly than the fossil-based fluids used in some other solar thermal technologies. The salt does pose design challenges to minimize corrosion of metal components throughout the system.

SolarReserve’s 100-megawatt Tonopah project is backed by a 25-year PPA with Nevada power utility NV Energy. The Rice project will be developed in Riverside, California, with Pacific Gas and Electric agreeing to purchase the output of the 150-megawatt plant. The projects’ storage systems will use energy storage technology initially developed by United Technologies.

Both PPAs have to be approved by Nevada and California regulators. In the meantime, Smith says, development on the projects will continue. Tonopah is expected to begin operating in 2012 and the Rice facility in California sometime in 2013.

SolarReserve raised $140 million in a second round of funding a little more than a year ago. Does it plan to return for a Series C? Smith tells GER that, funding-wise, the company is in good shape, having invested less that half of the capital so far. “The Series B takes us well into 2011,” he explains. The company does plan to raise more capital, but it would be to on a project basis and would not be done at the corporate level.

Company investors include Argonaut Private Equity, Citi, Credit Suisse, Good Energies, Nimes Capital, PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund, and US Renewables Group.

Picture Credit: Mike Johnson, Las Vegas Review-Journal;
                The Breakthrough Institute

In what is being touted as the first time humans have remotely controlled insects, University of California at Berkeley engineers successfully implanted radio-equipped, “miniature neural stimulation” systems into flying beetles–most notably, the “elephant” beetle Megasoma elephas (pictured above), which can grow up to 20 cm (about 7 + inches) in length.

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Who was the first person to follow you on Twitter? According to the app FirstFollower.com, mine was someone I never followed back until today! Chances are you’re already following your first follower, but you probably don’t remember who they are and it’s interesting to find out.

Built by Russian developer Victor Babichev, FirstFollower appears to perform a function that’s relatively simple but in a much faster way than you can do manually. You could scroll back page by oddly numbered page through a person’s Followers list, but now this handy little app will do it for you. It’s also a very interesting way to find people who are close friends in real-life of Twitter users you admire.

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It’s hard to know for sure how accurate the service is, particularly since Twitter changed the way it displays followers earlier this year, but Twitter founder @ev is said to have been followed first by @dom, one of the handful of people credited with creating Twitter in the first place.

The first person to follow @barackobama? Cori Schlegel, a contract web developer who’s worked on several projects for tech journalist Steve Gillmor and probably a good guy to know.

See also: The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Heroes on Twitter

Did you know that Mary Hodder was the first follower of both chronic innovator Chris Messina’s new Twitter account and our own Alex Williams? That’s enough to make you think that anyone Mary follows in the future deserves a close look.

Fun and useful! What more could you ask for from a lightweight little Twitter app? This is just a small example of the kind of social graph analysis that’s made possible by Twitter’s relatively open user data.

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Unless you’ve been living offline for the past year, you’ve undoubtedly heard and/or seen “I’m On A Boat,” Lonely Island’s mock hip hop song/video. Today brings a response to it in the form of a group of Apple fanbois rapping about their love of using Apple products. They even have one character autotuned up, just like T-Pain in the “I’m On A Boat” version. No word on if they used the I Am T-Pain iPhone app to get the effect, but a major plus if so.

It’s pretty standard stuff: Love Macs, love iPods, love iPhones — hate PCs, hate Zunes, hate drivers and viruses, etc. Fairly well made, this isn’t nearly as bad as the Bing Jingle, but it’s still a little cringe-inducing. Sample line: “I’m pluggin girls, you at work pluggin in devices.”

These guys clearly have an agenda as they run the site Switch to Mac — you can probably guess what that’s about. This video is technically the follow-up to their “Mac or PC” rap video.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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As readers of GeekTonic know, we’re fans of the e-Readers – and the Kindle by Amazon is one of the most popular options.  It appears that Amazon has had a stellar holiday season and the Kindle was their number one seller this year.  I watched as many of my co-workers received or gifted the Kindle – many of which never shop online.  I also observed that many on twitter and facebook received a Kindle or Nook this season.  So for those of you who received a new e-Reader – particularly a Kindle, what do you do with that thing?

The Kindle (and any e-Reader) isn’t for everyone.  Some just want the smell of the old books or the nostalgia of holding that book in your hands.  Or you’re one who trades your paperbacks among your friends.  For the rest of you, you are going to love your Kindle, Nook or Sony e-Reader.  Here’s a few things to know about your new Kindle:

1. Instant gratification.  You’ve probably already discovered this, but shopping for a book through your e-Reader or computer is super easy, fast and painless.  No need to trudge out in the snow to buy the next book in that series and it’s always in stock.  The ability to browse and purchase a book 24/7 from the comfort of your favorite reading chair (or from the airport) is very nice indeed.

2. Kindle without the Kindle – iPhone App.  The Kindle app for the iPhone and iPod Touch is a great app by itself.  But if you have a Kindle as well the iPhone app makes that book even more mobile.  Waiting in line at the store or waiting in a doctors office but don’t have the Kindle with you?  Pull out your iPhone, select the book you’ve been reading and it automatically takes you to the farthest point in the book you’ve been reading.  It’s not as nice to read from your iPhone since it isn’t the comfortable-to-read-on e-ink screen and quite a bit smaller screen.  But it’s a great way to always have your book with you.

3. Finding Free Books – There are many ways to find and save free e-Books on your Kindle.  One of my favorites is Project Gutenberg.  Just save this url http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ to your Kindle web browser and you can search, browse and download free e-Books right to your Kindle without a computer.

4. Kindle Covers that Work.  One of the first things you should get to go with your Kindle is a good cover.  We’re not fans of the standard Amazon cover because it’s difficult to lock into place and if you drop it, the Kindle is still exposed to the fall since the cover doesn’t latch into place.  Here’s a few of the best covers in my opinion:

• Kindle “Silicone Skin Case + Anti Scratch LCD Screen Protector Shield (9 Colors) – This is the cover Mrs GeekTonic uses.  It protects the Kindle without changing it’s form – no extra weight and still easy to hold – like a book.  Plus the price is right.  Purchase at Amazon (affiliate) for 12.50
• M-Edge GO! Genuine Leather Kindle Jacket with Hinge – This is one of the popular covers by M-Edge.  My dad uses this cover with his Kindle and likes the leather cover feel, the straps that hold down the right side of the Kindle to the cover and the fact that M-edge makes the LED light
• Zippered Covers – The Belkin Neoprene Kindle Case & the Patagonia Kindle Case are the two most popular covers that provide a completely enclosed case to protect your Kindle with.  $25 and $40 at Amazon (affiliate)
• Oberon – Want a unique cover for your Kindle?  Oberon makes leather goods including Kindle covers that have a very craftsman feel to them.
• For a premium cover, check out the Cole Haan Hand-Stained Leather Kindle Cover – It’s beautiful and expensive.  I think this is the same cover Len Edgerly of theKindleChronicles uses $99 at Amazon (affiliate)

5. Book Light? – We don’t have one for our Kindle, but my Dad’s Kindle sports the very popular M-Edge e-Luminator2 Kindle Booklight for $25

6. If you’re into Podcasts, be sure and add theKindleChronicles to your list.  Len Edgerly has one of my favorite podcasts that focuses on the Kindle and e-Readers in general.  It’s enjoyable to listen to and I amazingly learn something new each week.

7. Check out this list of Kindle tips & tricks for other tips on making the Kindle work for you

If you have a tip of your own regarding the Kindle let us know in the comments

The second batch of 150 tickets to attend the Crunchies Awards are on sale now, courtesy of Eventbrite. Balcony seats are $45 (orchestra is sold out.)

Remember that voting is open through midnight PST, Wednesday, January 6. Everyone is eligible and encouraged to vote daily for their favorite people, products and companies of the year.

The Crunchies Awards celebrate the best tech accomplishments of 2009 and will be held at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco on Friday, January 8, 2010 at 7:30 pm PST. Along with our co-hosts, GigaOm and VentureBeat, we will announce the winners from 18 different award categories live on stage.

Orchestra and balcony tickets include access to the after party hosted across the street in City Hall’s Grand Rotunda through midnight. There will be a sponsor-hosted bar, savory nibbles and desserts, music and a game room, featuring a mix of traditional and online games to play. Check out more party photos from 2008 and 2007.

There are plenty of ways to sponsor and support the after-party energy. Contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde if you’d like to sponsor: card-game tables, demo tables, photo booths or walls, drinks or food, giveaways and prizes and the like. We have creative packages available in all shapes and sizes. Room for award benefactors and entertainment sponsors for the ceremony too.

Hope to see you there.

FINALISTS: If you haven’t already, please contact us asap so we can get you set up with your two complimentary passes to attend.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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Florida, US | Hoaxes and Pseudoscience

Cyrus Reed Teed was an eclectic physician whose experiments in alchemy often involved dangerously high levels of electricity. In one such experiment in 1869, Teed was electrocuted so badly that he blacked out. It was during this period of unconsciousness that Teed insists a “divine illumination” occurred.

In this alleged mystical experience, Teed believed that God, in the form of a beautiful woman, divulged all the secrets of the universe and urged him to use his scientific knowledge to interpret the Bible. Though many believed that Teed’s experience was more a result of brain damage than divine intervention, Teed dramatically changed his life to fit his new calling.

In the years that followed, Teed changed his name to Koresh, the Hebrew name for Cyrus, and began building the fundamental theories for his new religion, Koreshan Universology, or Koreshanity. Of Teed’s pseudoscientific theories, there was one that became the core tenet of Koreshanity: Cellular Cosmogony, the belief that the universe exists inside a giant, hollow sphere.

Similar to other Hollow Earth theories, Cellular Cosmogony posited that humans lived inside — rather than on the surface of — the Earth, and were held there by centrifugal force, not gravity. Moreover, Teed believed that the universe also existed inside this sphere, and that the Sun was an electromagnetic battery-operated helix.

For the next few decades, Teed formed small Koreshan Unity groups around New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Even still, Teed fantasized about forming the “New Jerusalem,” a utopian city built on 400-foot wide streets and consisting of 10 million citizens . Eventually, Teed decided to build his utopia in the small town of Estero, Florida, and he and his followers moved south in 1894.

Unfortunately, the “golden age” of Koreshanity was between 1903-1908, at a maximum membership of only 250 people. During this time, however, the Koreshans built extensively, erecting a bakery, printing press, and their own “World College of Life.” Additionally, the Koreshans created their own political party and built their own power plant, providing electricity to surrounding towns years before the technology was available to the region.

Teed died in 1908 after being pistol-whipped during an altercation with locals. For days, the Koreshans left his body in a bath tub in hopes that his spirit would be resurrected. Though reincarnation was a central belief in Koreshanity, Teed’s spirit never rose, and local health officials eventually demanded a proper burial.

The membership quickly declined, led by roughly three dozen members for the next thirty years. The last surviving member of the Koreshan Unity was Hedwig Michel, who fled Nazi Germany and came to Estero in 1940. Michel spawned a brief Koreshan revival for the next two years, opening up a Western Union and a gas station; however, with only four members left by 1960, she ceded the three hundred acres of land to the State of Florida in 1961.

Today, the area is a historic site and state park. Many of the buildings are still preserved, including the “Planetary Court,” where Michel lived until her death in 1981. Visitors can see her grave, the only Koreshan grave on site, as well as browse the extensive landscaping on the grounds. A Monkey Puzzle tree, which drops football-sized seeds, and a number of Sausage trees are among some of the exotic plants that the Koreshans imported to Florida.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) recently teamed up with good50×70 to create a great collection of graphics depicting the climate change situation we are in today.

They are so great that I decided to share the news with you here.

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Salzburg, Austria | Memento Mori

The thing about skulls is that, it can be remarkably hard prove whos they were.

Of course, one can tell things like gender, age, sometimes history of disease or injury from a skull, therefore making a mismatch easy to identify. But if all those match up, it gets a bit more difficult to make a definite positive match. With the advent of DNA, in theory one should be able to scrap a little bone, run some tests, and viola: definitive proof of skull ownership… Alas, it is not so simple in the real world.

In 1902 the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria came into the possession of what was said to be Mozarts skull. Missing its lower jaw, this skull matched a historical record indicating that Joseph Rothmayer a gravedigger had taken the skull from the group grave in which Mozart was buried ten years after Mozart’s death in 1791.

Though often said to be buried in a mass or paupers grave, Mozart was actually buried in a grave with only four or five other bodies in it, a standard middle class burial procedure in those times. According to the story the grave digger attached a wire to the skull so he knew which one it would be when he went to retrieve it. (That he would have waited ten years to do so, though casts some doubt on this claim.) From there the passed through various hands, a sexton, a Dr. Hyrtl’s phrenologist collection — which excluding Mozart’s skull would go on to become the Mutter Museum’s skull collection — before ending up in the hands of the Mozarteum in 1902.

So it was with great excitement that in 2006, 104 years after acquiring it, the Mozarteum was going to prove once and for all that it was Mozart’s skull. The plan was to test the skulls DNA against the DNA of Mozart’s relatives, taken from his maternal grandmother and niece’s thigh bones. The results were dismaying.

Using Mitochondrial DNA, the results came back suggesting that not only was the skull unrelated to the family remains, but that the family remains were unrelated to each other, casting doubt on the authenticity of the remains of the maternal grandmother and niece as well. The result was neither fully negative, nor positive, but once more: inconclusive.

Perhaps the best case for the skull being that of Mozart’s is the evidence that it took a hard hit about a year before Mozart’s death. This would be consistent with the headaches that Mozart described in his last year of life and provide some additional explanation of his early death.

However, this too is ultimately speculative, and the mystery of Mozart’s skull will, for the time being, simply have to remain unsolved.

Still at the Mozarteum, the skull is no longer on display, as it unnerved a number of the docents. However with an advance request, a showing of the skull may be given.

Earlier in the morning (12:01 a.m. to be exact) Ford released all the details and images of the 2011 Ford Mustang GT that will make its debut at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show next month.

We now have a video of the 2011 Mustang GT showing off its new 5.0L V8.

Refresher: The 2011 Ford Mustang GT is powered by a 5.0L 4-valve Twin Independent Variable Camshaft Timing (Ti-VCT) V8 engine producion 412-hp with a peak torque of 390 lb-ft. Transmission choices include a 6-speed automatic, which helps deliver an estimated fuel-economy of 17/25 mpg (city/highway). A standard 6-speed manual is also available.

Follow the jump for the video.

2011 Ford Mustang GT:

2011 Ford Mustang GT in Action:

2011 Ford Mustang GT:

– By: Stephen Calogera

Junk bonds have been on fire this year, generating returns of over 50%. For this trade, the credit crunch appears over and it's pretty clear that Uncle Sam has your back if things turn south. Or at least that's the belief.

By nature of providing financial breathing room for the entire private sector via low interest rates and easy money for the banks, while helping the less levered companies, you at the same time unavoidably provide a huge get-out-of-jail card to highly leveraged companies financed with high yield debt. In fact, the U.S. is prodding banks to lend more right now, which means easy re-financing for leveraged or operationally-challenged companies with debt maturing in the near term.

So is the junk rally over? Well given a historically awesome year for 2009, it's hard to ask for a repeat, but Citi's John Fenn thinks that investors will continue pouring money into high yield bond funds. Want to see moral hazard in all its glory? Then look no further than the junk bond market of 2009... and 2010:

After a record-setting year of mutual fund inflows, next year likely brings some respite, but not much. Even with high yield yielding 9%, the asset class is relatively attractive from a risk-return perspective, and the experience emerging from past recessions suggests significant inflows are likely to persist beyond one year. Certainly, $32 billion of retail inflows trumps the next highest year on record, 2003, by a comfortable $4 billion. However, during the period the size of the market has grown by roughly 40%. As Figure 13 indicates, on a percentage basis, retail flows in 2009 were less than 2003 and also a number of years in the nineties when the market was much smaller. The takeaway, in our view, is a repeat of the 2001-2003 period for high-yield mutual funds implies another $32 billion of inflows over 2010 and 2011.

We're not saying junk bond yields should rally, as in they're good value. The point is that money is likely to keep pouring into them. Until they get slaughtered and it's too late. Unless they're bailed out again.

(Via Citi Investment Research, High Yield - Outlook and Strategy, John Fenn, 23 December 2009)

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See Also:

• Investors Push Junk Bond ETF To Highs Of The Year
• Poor Americans Going Gaga For Fatty Junk Food
• The U.S. Junk Bond Bubble Is Accelerating

It’s not easy to migrate to Windows 7 from Windows XP. Core incompatibilities just make it inherently difficult.

In the next year, it is likely that the enterprise will face the challenges of this migration, especially as new workstations are purchased.

The challenge is compounded by the fact that Microsoft does not offer a clear migration path to Windows 7. Further, a number of legacy applications will not work in Windows 7, no matter how well the software is moved.

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Virtualization software such as that from ZInstall can make the process of switching to Windows 7 a bit easier.

ZInstall offers two “TV stations,” meaning the company uses virtualization so the user may see both Windows 7 and Windows XP on the desktop. This gives the user the ability to move to Windows 7 at their own pace.

ZInstall migrates all applications, settings and files from the old system to the new one, with no reinstalls.

The virtualization technology means every application works on Windows 7 just like on Windows XP.

ZInstall supports two main scenarios:

• Migration between two personal computers from one with Windows XP to a new one with Windows 7.
• Migration to Windows 7 on an existing personal computer.

Virtualization is proving to be highly popular in the enterprise. Companies such as Citrix and VMWare are making small fortunes selling its virtualization technologies. ZInstall is banking on this trend with its virtualization technology designed to take the headache out of switching from Windows XP to Windows 7.

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Rock Band is gearing up for another batch of country DLC this week. The “Going Country Pack 02″ will include many of the songs that were previously exclusive to the standalone Rock Band Country Track Pack disc.

Xbox 360 and Wii owners can start their downloads tomorrow, December 29. PlayStation 3 owners will unfortunately have to wait until Thursday, January 7 for their country western fix. Individual tracks are set for the usual $1.99 (160 Microsoft points; 200 Wii Points) apiece, while the seven-track bundle will set you back $10.99 (880 Microsoft points).

The full list of upcoming DLC follows:

• “Good Time” by Alan Jackson
• “Cry Lonely” by Cross Canadian Ragweed
• “She’s Country” by Jason Aldean
• “I Told You So” by Keith Urban
• “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers
• “This One’s For the Girls” by Martina McBride
• “Any Man of Mine” Shania Twain

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