Author: Serkadis

Yesterday it appeared a lot had happened in Copenhagen. World leaders arrived at the Bella Centre in a flurry of convoys, and addressed the Conference of Parties and the world with aims to move forward. No sooner had they arrived and delivered their speeches, than they had disappeared again. As the dust settles the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ appears and as I read the text with no targets I realise that our future is not in their hands, but in ours.

Today we will pick up the pieces our leaders couldn’t put together and tidy the mess they made and didn’t clean up. Today youth from around the world will begin the world of educating on climate change and greening the global environment. Today we will decrease carbon emissions by empowering individuals and communities around the world. Today we will educate people with logical solutions to decrease carbon emissions and dependency on fossil fuels.

Am I disappointed by what was put on the table? Yes, but I am not surprised. Nor am I disheartened by it. That’s because today we will go further and make sure, top-down and bottom-up, that we will address this global challenge. We will empower everyone and, together, secure everyone’s futures.

Yesterday, when a call went out to the leaders of the world to lead on tackling climate change, no-one put their hands up.

Today I put my hand up.

Filed under: Aftermarket, Ford, Design/Style

At the LA Auto Show this year, Ford showed off several North American-market Ford Fiestas. The cars themselves received a warm reception, as did the customized versions on hand to show off the possibilities. One Fiesta in particular caught our eye: It was a fairly stock-looking white car with some outrageous black graphics on its flanks. We came to learn that this wasn’t just a one-off. It was, in fact, part of a new Ford program to allow buyers to similarly customize any Ford in the vehicle lineup.

The generically-named Ford Custom Graphics are a series of vinyls that can be used to add a little extra something to your blue oval beauty. Ford says the graphics are scratch-resistant and weatherproof, and retain the car’s 3 year, 36,000 mile warranty. They will be sold exclusively through Ford dealers. Although the Fiesta designs are the only pages open right now, there are previews of other planned graphics on the FordCustomGraphics.com website. We’ve assembled some of them here for you in the gallery below. The lower camo on the F-150 is particularly eye-catching, but there are similar treatments for every single vehicle in the Ford family brochure. Check ’em out.

[Source: Ford]

Fancy a camouflage F-150? Graphics for entire Ford lineup coming soon originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Museums and Collections

The first question people tend to have when they hear about the mummers museum is “what is a mummer?”

Imagine a roving group of drunken masked revelers, demanding food, drink, and a singing match: these are mummers.

The term “mummer” meaning a “disguised person” dates back to medieval times (and probably before, most mummery involves a mix of Christian and pagan traditions that go back to pre-Roman times) and references costumed performers of some kind, though it is unclear exactly what kind of performances mummers gave during these times. Connected with a type of folk play, the common aspect of mummery was the use of masks and elaborate disguises as well as generally rowdy performances. These “mummer plays” and associated customs spread throughout Europe gaining a slightly different tradition and meaning in each area.

Among the many mummer traditions, there were feast mummers who provided entertainment and performed acrobatics at feasts, Newfoundland Mummers, drunken men who dressed up in extravagant drag and demanded booze, the Marshfield Mummers who paraded through town to the sound of a bell to receive donations of whiskey, Aristocratic mummery, which was a sort of English precursor to Masquerade balls, and most entertainingly, a kind of competitive Christmas carol mummery, known as “Social Mummers.” These masked groups would sing to a lord, or aristocrat, who would then be required to match them verse for verse. If he failed to do so he would have to invite the masked mummers in, and provide food and drink.

As one can imagine, this social mummery became rather aggressive over time, with roving groups of drunken masked men performing lewd actions towards the lords who did not comply, and demanding food and more drink. Henry the Eighth even banned mummery for a while, and during this time the French masquerade ball took the over from the English mummery, at least in aristocratic circles. Later mummery was allowed again in Europe, though in 1861 in Newfoundland mummery was officially banned, after a man in St. John was murdered, allegedly by a group either disguised as, or actual mummers. The law stands, and Newfoundlander’s continue to break it each year as they perform Christmas mummery traditions.

In the late 1600s settlers from all over Europe, particularly from Sweden, began to settle in Philadelphia, and they brought with them their traditions of mummery. One of the traditions of the Swedes, almost all of whom carried firearms with them, was to “shoot in” the New Years, something we still associate with the holiday.

Known as the New Year’s Shooters and Mummers Association, the group would travel around during Christmas time, sing and be rewarded with food and drink. Mummery was essentially the drunker, rowdier, firearm carrying, masked, and pagan ritual infused precursor to Christmas carolers. It would be the Victorians (particularly Dickens and Washington Irving) who would transform the raucous mummers into the respectful Carolers we think of today, but not in Philadelphia. A common Philadelphia mummer chant went

Here we stand before your door,
As we stood the year before;
Give us whiskey; give us gin,
Open the door and let us in.
Or give us something nice and hot
Like a steaming hot bowl of pepper pot.

In 1839, a witness wrote of men “disguised as clowns, shouting at the top of their voices and shooting guns.” By the 1870s mummery was still in full swing having become based around two groups: the Comic Clubs, and the Fancy Dress clubs. According to a local report in 1881 “parties of paraders” made the street “almost like a masked Ball.” By 1901 the mummers parade was an massive parade event and the city began officially supporting the mummers parade.

Today mummers, and the mummers parade, is less about roving groups of revelers, and is a parade event on par with Mardi Gras (which originates from a totally different historical tradition) with over 10,000 marchers and clubs include the Wench Brigade (female mummers), comic, fancy, fancy brigade, and string band each with a different tradition of dress and performance. Unlike Mardi Gras there are no brass instruments in the Mumers parade, only strings and percussion. Many of the mummers are working class Philadelphians, but that doesn’t stop them from dressing drag, extravagant sequined body suits, or other outfits that would generally put Cher and Madonna to shame.

This year however, the mummers parade may be in danger as the Cities financial crisis has left them without enough funds to help support the mummers. The site

This is the season when pundits feel compelled to make annual forecasts. I will make mine, as I traditionally do, in the first letter of January. But already we have seen a wide range of forecasted outcomes. Are we going to grow at 5-6% or at 1-2% or dip back into recession? Why such disparity? I think part of the reason is a basic disagreement on the nature of the just-lapsed recession. Today we explore that issue. Then I point you to a way to help those who are desperately in need and only wish they had our problems. For those interested, I enclose a picture of my new granddaughter.

And finally, I start the process of getting ready, after ten years, to actually buy some stocks. Yes, it is true. Am I throwing in the towel and becoming a bull, or do I just see an opportunity? Stay tuned.

It’s All About Deleveraging

I did a very interesting one-hour show this week with Tom Ashbrook on his National Public Radio syndicated radio show called On Point. About 20 minutes into the show, Professor Jeremy Siegel of Wharton came on, and we had a pleasant debate and lively Q and A with listeners. Jeremy of course was the bull, expecting that next year the US will grow by 5-6%. I was the “bear,” expecting growth in the 1-2% range. You can listen in at http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/12/an-economic-warning. It’s also available as a podcast on iTunes (“On Point with Tom Ashbrook”) for a few more days.

I have liked Jeremy the times we have been on the same platform, and we have traded emails over the past few years. He is a consummate gentleman. He is also the author of Stocks for the Long Run. His thesis is buy and hold. Long-time readers know that I find such thinking to be wrong, if not dangerous. I believe that stocks go in long cycles (an average of 17 years) based on valuations, and that we are still in a long-term secular bear phase. I want to see valuations come way down before I suggest that the index-investing waters are once again safe. That day will come. Just not for a while.

In the meantime, Jeremy has given us the reason for his very bullish call. Paraphrasing, he said, “Look at past recoveries from recessions. They were always strong in the first year. Suggesting 5-6% is not all that aggressive.”

And I would agree with him – if the past recession was a typical recession. But we have just gone through a recession that was unlike any other we have experienced since the Great Depression. Typical recessions are inventory-adjustment recessions, caused by businesses getting too optimistic about sales and then having to adjust. You get temporarily higher levels of unemployment as inventories drop, and then you get the rebound. It is not quite as simple as that, but close enough for this letter’s purpose.

This recession was caused not by too much inventory but by too much credit and leverage in the system. And now we are in the process of deleveraging. It is a process that is nowhere near complete. While the crisis stage is over (at least for now), there is still a lot of debt to be retired on the consumer side of the equation, and a lot of debt to be written off on the financial-system side. And this is true in Europe as well, and maybe more so; but today we will look at some data in the US.

Total consumer debt is shrinking for the first time on 60 years. And the decline shows no sign of abating.

Credit card companies have reduced available credit by $1.6 trillion dollars. And for good reason. My friend and London partner Niels Jensen sent me the following charts from UrbanDigs.com. Credit card delinquencies are hovering near all-time highs. Bank charge-offs for credit cards are going to rise as the unemployment numbers get worse:

And the strain is also in the housing sector. Residential delinquencies are up 1.2% just in the last quarter, and now stand at a stunning 9%. (For whatever reason the heading did not copy, but this is residential delinquencies.)

Frank Veneroso noticed something unusual in the latest Federal Reserve Flow of Funds report. They changed their methodology for analyzing housing prices to a model more like the Case-Shiller index, which most believe to be more accurate. That meant they deducted another $2 trillion from household net worth than in the previous quarter. They just caught up with reality, so no big news there. But there is some big news if you look closely.

About one-third of the homes in the US have no mortgages. Typically, these are nicer homes, as the “rich” have paid off their homes. So you can estimate that to be somewhere between 35-40% of the total value of US homes. Writes Frank:

“So now the flow of funds accounts tell us that the total value of residential real estate is $16.53 trillion. The share owned by households with a mortgage is probably $10 trillion to $11 trillion. Total mortgage household debt now stands at $10.3 trillion. In effect, for all households with a mortgage taken in the aggregate, their loan-to-value ratio is now close to 100% and perhaps close to half of them have a zero to negative equity.”

The biggest single factor in foreclosures is negative equity coupled with unemployment. That makes sense, because if you could sell your house and get some equity, you would.

As I have written in past letters, we are going to see a significant increase in mortgage resets in 2010, which will result in even more foreclosures. There is a lot more pain to come. This is not an environment that is typical of past recessions. There is a lot of deleveraging to be done, both as banks write off bad debts on homes and as consumers walk away from mortgages badly underwater.

Commercial Woes

The coming debacle in commercial real estate loans is well-documented. Total loan delinquencies at banks are rising precipitously every month, just as total loans to commercial and industrial customers are falling at an unprecedented rate, over 17% in less than two years!

While Obama is urging banks to lend, bank regulators are telling banks to raise capital and shore up their balance sheets. One way they do that is to lend less to consumers and businesses and invest in US government bonds.

Given the high rate of delinquencies and charge-offs of all sorts of debt, it is unlikely that we are going to see growth in loans in 2010. Further, the surveys I read suggest that consumers are working hard to reduce their debt. The New Frugal is part of the New Normal.

Past post-recession expansions have been built on growing credit and leverage. That will not be the case this time. We are going to see reduced lending and borrowing. Even though the federal government is running massive deficits, the stimulus portion of the debt will be running down in the latter half of 2010. There will be little political will to continue with massive stimulus and deficits. While this is good in the long run, in the short run it will reduce GDP.

All of this suggest to me that while there will be growth in 2010, it will be tepid by past post-recession standards. And with that thought, I will end my 2009 writing about the economy. When I next write in 2010, we will look at what the year may bring us.

John Mauldin, Best-Selling author and recognized financial expert, is also editor of the free Thoughts From the Frontline that goes to over 1 million readers each week. For more information on John or his FREE weekly economic letter go to: http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/learnmore

To subscribe to John Mauldin’s E-Letter please click here:
http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/subscribe.asp

To change your email address please click here:
http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/change.asp

If you would ALSO like changes applied to the Accredited Investor E- Letter, please include your old and new email address along with a note requesting the change for both e-letters and send your request to [email protected]

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Don’t Worry About Government Debt, America Knows Exactly How To Deal With It
• David Rosenberg’s Last Thought Of The Year: Time To Freak Out About Sovereign Debt
• Mission Not Accomplished: All We’ve Done Is Increase Our Debt Load

Article Tags: Christopher Booker, Copenhagen Conference, Headline Story

The Copenhagen summit achieved its main aim, to maintain the carbon-trading system established by the Kyoto Protocol.

Heads of state: protesters at the Copenhagen world summit mask themselves as world leaders, including Australia’s Kevin Rudd, Germany’s Angela Merkel and President Obama Photo: Casper Christoffersen/EPA

As fairy-tale snow gently descended on Copenhagen, the great global warming conference degenerated through pantomime, boredom, chaos and anger to its entirely predictable conclusion – a colossal pile of fudge with a very hard and nasty rock hidden at its centre. The “world summit” on climate change was never really going to be about saving the world from global warming at all. Even if the delegates had got all they wanted, it would no more have had any influence on emissions of CO2 – let alone on the world’s climate – than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol before it.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Read in full with comments »   

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m Chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology.  In five years, NCWIT has become a prominent national organization helping encourage, inspire, advocate, and educate women (and girls) to get involved in computer science based on the following belief:

“We believe that inspiring more women to choose careers in IT isn’t about parity; it’s a compelling issue of innovation, competitiveness, and workforce sustainability. In a global economy, gender diversity in IT means a larger and more competitive workforce; in a world dependent on innovation, it means the ability to design technology that is as broad and creative as the people it serves.”

One of the disheartening things I’ve learned in the past few years from my involved in NCWIT is the abysmal state of computer science in K-12 in the United States.  It’s just awful – I’ve looked at some of the curriculum, the AP test, and some of the courseware and it’s so bad it makes me want to crawl under my desk and curl up in a ball.  Here are a few scary facts for you:

• More than 1.6 million students took Advanced Placement (AP) exams in 2009, but barely 1% of the AP exams taken were in computer science.
• The portion of high schools offering rigorous computer science courses fell from 40% in 2005 to 27% in 2009.
• The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that nearly one million information technology jobs will be added to our workforce by 2016, but U.S. universities will produce only half the computing graduates needed to fill the new jobs.

As one of its major initiatives, NCWIT is taking on reforming computer science education.  Help us out by making a tax deductable donation to NCWIT for our DC Campaign.  And help us spread the word – our friends at Google (great supporters of NCWIT) have sponsored an all expenses-paid trip to Australia to meet with the Google Wave team and have lunch in the Google Sydney office (ok – and three nights for two people) for anyone that forwards this message on.

Article Tags: Copenhagen Conference, Lord Monckton

The mountains shall labor, and what will be born? A stupid little mouse. Thanks to hundreds of thousands of US citizens who contacted their elected representatives to protest about the unelected, communistic world government with near-infinite powers of taxation, regulation and intervention that was proposed in early drafts of the Copenhagen Treaty, there is no Copenhagen Treaty. There is not even a Copenhagen Agreement. There is a “Copenhagen Accord”.

The White House spinmeisters spun, and their official press release proclaimed, with more than usual fatuity, that President Obama had “salvaged” a deal at Copenhagen in bilateral talks with China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, which had established a negotiating bloc.

The plainly-declared common position of these four developing nations had been the one beacon of clarity and common sense at the foggy fortnight of posturing and gibbering in the ghastly Copenhagen conference center.

Source: sppiblog.org

Read in full with comments »   

Article Tags: ClimateGate, Richard Treadgold

NZ climate scandal escalates: NIWA deceives us, but why?

NIWA have published misleading material on their web site and seems to have advised the Hon Dr Nick Smith, the Minister for Climate Change Issues, to misinform Parliament, according to the Climate Conversation Group and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition. The two organisations claim that NIWA’s response to their enquiries for simple information about the national temperature record has been unnecessarily defensive and obstructive.

Spokesman for the project, Richard Treadgold, said that claims from NIWA that they gave the information to the Coalition in 2006 are wrong. “They have quoted a private email from one of their scientists to a colleague. It was sent almost before the Coalition existed, when they hadn’t even talked about the temperature record, it mentions neither NIWA nor the Coalition and does not contain the information we asked for. NIWA’s assertion that that email contains the requested information is not supported by reading the email,” said Mr Treadgold, adding, “We invite them to release it, so everyone can see what it says.”

“To expect the whole Coalition to know that one scientist was sent an email several years ago suggests mere ignorance; but to refuse to resend that email or a copy of a paper betrays a reluctance to help, and that’s disgraceful. If any other government department gave deliberately obstructive answers to questions from their clients (much less Parliamentary questions), heads would roll.

Source: climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz

Read in full with comments »   

Filed under: Performance, Government/Legal, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Plants/Manufacturing, GM, Saab, Earnings/Financials, Rumormill, Luxury

Less than a day after General Motors officially announced Saab’s euthanization, it looks like the storied Swedish brand might still have the faintest whisper of a pulse. Motor Trend is reporting that there are rumors swirling that the Swedish government will hold emergency meetings this weekend to try to save Saab. At least some government officials apparently feel that Saab is too important to fail… now where have we heard that before? With such a small population, the closure of Saab could have a major impact on the nation’s economy, much like the failure of GM (and Chrysler, to a lesser extent) was viewed as potentially catastrophic in the States.

Some 3,400 employees will be jobless when GM completes its planned “orderly wind down” starting in January. That estimate doesn’t include workers from the 1,100 Saab dealers that will also be shuttered around the globe.

Despite the failed selloff, things look like they’re picking up at The General. The automaker announced yesterday that they had paid back the first $1 billion TARP money they borrowed from us the U.S. government. BAIC, Koenigsegg, Spyker and others had attempted to jump into the Saab fire-sale, but all have come out burned. Well, BAIC at least scored tooling for the old 9-3 and current 9-5. With a new-for 2010 9-5 having taken the stage at auto shows around the globe in recent months and the 9-4X in the wings, we’d love to see all of the Saab faithful get an early Christmas gift. We’re definitely not holding our breath, but we’ll keep you posted through the weekend should anything materialize.

[Source: Motor Trend]

REPORT: Swedish government to meet with GM officials – could Saab still be saved? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

For older Americans, it’s a hard-knock life – By Lisa Shidler – … According to Golden Gateway Financial’s online survey of 300 people 62 or older, 30% of respondents said they have sold personal items to make extra money, while 25% said they have postponed trips to the dentist or optometrist to save money.  Some 27% said they haven’t been able to pay their bills due to unexpected medical expenses – Investment News

————

Most finance job-seekers open to pay cuts: survey – Nick Zieminski – A majority of job-seekers in the finance sector would consider taking a pay cut since their job searches are taking longer than initially expected, according to a survey by an online career management company. – Reuters

————

Potential Energy revolution – Nick Gogerty – … Here is perhaps the most interesting video on energy I have seen in the last 5 years.  If you are interested at all about energy it is worth the 20 minutes.  Here is the company  Sun Catalytix that has been formed to commercialize the technology from Dan Nocera.  Warning this is subtle and the impact won’t register with most. ht Paul Kedrosky. – Designing Better Futures

————

Bank robber: ‘I need to pay my mortgage’ – By Marcus K. Garner –  The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution  (Bet you hope your company does not hold his mortgage!)

————

Luxury-Home Owners in U.S. Use ‘Short Sales’ as Defaults Rise – By Kathleen M. Howley and Dan Levy – Homeowners with mortgages of more than $1 million are defaulting at almost twice the U.S. rate and some are turning to so-called short sales to unload properties as stock-market losses and pay cuts squeeze wealthy borrowers. – Bloomberg

————

Ben refis into a fixed rate – Looking a Little Deeper at Bernanke’s Floating Rate Mortgage – By Jon Hilsenrath and Mark Whitehouse – … Locking into a fixed rate mortgage looks like a sensible thing for any homeowner to do with long rates at historic lows now. Of course, Mr. Bernanke isn’t any homeowner. One has to wonder what the decision to refinance implies about his beliefs about where rates are going in the future.  … – Wall Street Journal Blogs 
(Do you remember a few years ago when Greenspan was touting ARMs?)
————

4.22 CITI SHARES FOR EACH PERSON IN THE WORLD – A comment on Zero Hedge today offered up an interesting stat — that there are 4 shares of Citigroup for each person on the planet.  Wow. – Bespoke Investment Group

Despite the overwhelming mass of shovelware in the DS lineup, there are quite a few that gamers might actually like. They happened to have made some noise this week, and if you’ve been looking for something to

Article Tags: ClimateGate, Lawrence Solomon, Wikipedia

The Climategate Emails describe how a small band of climatologists cooked the books to make the last century seem dangerously warm.

The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.

The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.

The Medieval Warm Period, which followed the meanness and cold of the Dark Ages, was a great time in human history — it allowed humans around the world to bask in a glorious warmth that vastly improved agriculture, increased life spans and otherwise bettered the human condition.

Source: nationalpost.com

Read in full with comments »   

Article Tags: James Maropoulakis Denney

The man-made global warming/climate change hoaxers have failed, for now. The much touted Copenhagen Climate Change Conference ended yesterday in a severe snowstorm, without a binding agreement. They did, however, achieve a minor propaganda coup by keeping the media snowed regarding the truth of the abject failure of the conference, as well as hiding the climate change email scandal and the fact that there is no such thing as man-made global warming or climate change.

Americans should pay close attention to these plans of the world elites to pass some sort of global “carbon dioxide” restrictions and tax, which will be discussed as part of this just finished Copenhagen Conference held in Denmark. President Obama attended.

Most Americans have always been conservationists, and are in favor of cleaning up the planet and guarding against real chemical pollution. Now, however, the “anti’s” have seized control of the issue, and have transformed it into yet another method of power-grabbing by the government; in this case, the United Nations. It is a power grab in at least three respects:

Source: examiner.com

Read in full with comments »   

Article Tags: Claude Sandroff

If you’ve misspent your youth conducting experiments, taking graduate courses in physics and chemistry, and know something about thermodynamics, molecular spectroscopy, fluid mechanics, modeling data and publishing scientific papers, the current debate over anthropogenic global warming can make you hurl.

While not faulting journalists and politicians for their stupendous ignorance when discussing most scientific subjects, I do condemn their utter lack of coherence concerning basic scientific definitions, processes, and principles.

Specifically, the chattering classes have no appreciation of the following truisms: settled science comes only in the form of physical laws while the causes behind specific phenomena are sometimes never definitively settled. And the more complex the system being observed, the longer it takes to reach a consensus about the causal mechanisms.

Even Al Gore can probably remember being introduced to Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion in high school, F=ma. This is usually our first introduction to settled science. That’s why it’s called a law of physics. It didn’t matter that Einstein generalized its form in the theory of relativity or that in the 1920’s it had it be replaced with a new mechanics valid at the atomic scale. At velocities small compared to the speed of light and for macroscopic objects, F=ma is settled science.

Source: americanthinker.com

Read in full with comments »   

Filed under: Aftermarket, Audi

The Audi R8 is undoubtedly awesome. It is also undoubtedly low, as in to the ground. Not low enough to prevent you from getting around, but you pay close attention anytime the word “driveway” comes up. Cargraphic has engineered an airlift system to address the issue that can raise the car 72 mm (2.8 inches) in 15 seconds. The best part about it is that it doesn’t alter the dynamic performance of the car’s suspension.

The airlift places small bellows on the upper spring cup of the suspension. When the bellows aren’t inflated, the mounting point is rigid, so the suspension responds as normal. With the compressor, the total weight is just 3 kilos, and there are no hydraulics or fluid to deal with. And the system comes with a remote control, in case you want to show off your additional three inches when you’re not in the car. Full details are in the press release after the jump, and in the gallery of high-res images below.

[Source: Cargraphic]

Continue reading Cargraphic brings Airlift system to Audi R8

Cargraphic brings Airlift system to Audi R8 originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Good news for HTC Touch Pro 2, Diamond 2 and HD users.

Cobaltikus has discovered how to access the ZoomBar.

TouchLockPro *FREE* version 2.9 is the first locking solution, which uses this for unlocking the phone!

 Try the amazing *FREE* TouchLockPro version 2.9, which is different from the other locking solutions.

Featuring:

• No foreground window, like other solutions
• BattClock
• Supports a lot of sensors for locking/unlocking
• Very, very small in memory (38 Kb) and resource usage
• And now also supports the ZoomBar for unlocking via triple touch, slide left or right

Try *FREE* TouchLockPro version 2.9, more information and download here and discover the amazing ZoomBar unlock.

This post was submitted by ZuinigeRijder.

Sometimes information leaks in strange ways, especially about Windows Mobile.  Be it leaked ROMs or job postings, or projected work lists, as in the case of Crispin Porter, who published a picture of their real-time job management system, which also just happened to show two assignments, one for a phase 2 Windows Phone banner on the 4th January, and the other for a Windows Phone 03 Media refresh on the 8 January.

Windows Phone ads have been seeing pretty high media rotation in the UK, but unfortunately do not seem to show much about what makes Windows Phone attractive for a Windows user, such as Windows Live Messenger clients or push Hotmail.

Do you think Microsoft could advertise better?  Let us know in the comments below.

Gizmodo via WMExperts.com