Mereja

Author: Serkadis

  • UC Dublin spinout developing genetic tests for thoroughbred horse industry

    Irish biotech venture Equinome, set to launch commercially in 2010, is developing genetic tests to optimize decision-making in the breeding and racing of thoroughbred horses. Although thoroughbred horse breeding is an international, multi-billion-euro business with more than 100,000 thoroughbred foals registered globally each year, breeding techniques have remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of years. Breeders combine successful bloodlines and hope the resulting foal will contain the same winning combination of genes. Until now, breeders could only determine whether those winning genes had been inherited by observing the racing and breeding success of the horse over a period of three to seven years after its birth. Equinome seeks to improve those odds by providing genetic tests for performance-associated genes in thoroughbred horses. The company — founded this year by Emmeline Hill, a horse genomics researcher in the School of Agriculture, Food Science, and Veterinary Medicine at University College Dublin, in partnership with Irish racehorse trainer Jim Bolger — was recognized as the winner of the 14th NovaUCD Campus Company Development Program. NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre, is responsible for commercializing IP from UCD research programs.

    Source: Business & Leadership

  • Top Gear builds Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust, an ER-EV to answer the Chevy Volt

    Filed under: , , , ,

    Click above to watch videos after the jump

    Many electric vehicle fans out there are constantly complaining about how long it’s taking automakers to bring plug-in vehicles to market. We’ve had commenters on this site claim that automakers should be able to bring EVs to the street in six months. Apparently even six months is too long for the crew at Top Gear.

    For those unfamiliar with the format of the show, most episodes involve the producers giving a challenge of some sort to hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. The most recent episode, aired this week on the BBC in the UK, included just such a challenge. The boys were tasked to build their own answer to the extended-range EV Chevrolet Volt.

    In a mere 18 hours they transformed a TVR Chimaera (interesting choice since a chimaera is a mythological creature composed of parts of a number of animals) into the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust pictured above. Once the i-Thrust was completed, it was turned over to Autocar magazine for an independent road test. As you might guess based on the photo, the results were not surprising and are a testament to perhaps taking all the time you need when developing a car. You can grab a copy of AutoCar’s full road test as a PDF or just watch the entire Top Gear segment and video of the Autocar road test after the jump.

    [Source: Autocar]

    Continue reading Top Gear builds Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust, an ER-EV to answer the Chevy Volt

    Top Gear builds Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust, an ER-EV to answer the Chevy Volt originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • New Final Fantasy XIII vid kicks serious ass

    Just when you think the trailer-teasing and scan-watching has gone old, Square Enix releases another awesome vid for Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360, PS3…

  • Far Cry 3 in development

    An Ubisoft scriptwriter has confirmed that work has already begun on Ubisoft Montreal’s follow-up to last year’s Far Cry 2 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC).Ubisoft…

  • Greed vs. Due Diligence: Another Case Of Startup Fraud?

    The world of startups can be a fast moving place, with lots of money thrown around quite rapidly at times. In such a world, it’s no surprise to hear stories of pure outright fraud mixed in with all of the real stories of actual startups. They seem to come along every year or so — and usually involve companies raising a ton of VC money and simply making up financial results, which the VCs never seem to check. Last year, it was Entellium who raised $50 million while totally making up revenue numbers. We wondered, at the time, how its investors never got around to actually auditing the company they gave so much money to. However, it really is par for the course for many investors to simply trust the management.

    The latest such case, as revealed by TechCrunch, appears to be Canopy Financial, a high flying startup that had raised $65 million, but apparently made up a bunch of its revenue, potentially even forging audit statements from KPMG. Amazingly, the company’s CEO is claiming he had no idea this was happening, which is either untrue or an incredibly damning statement on what sort of CEO he is. Once again, though, you have to ask what the investors were doing, and how they handed over such large sums without ever doing any serious due diligence.

    These sorts of scams are pretty depressing for all those legitimate startups out there, who work hard to build real businesses, and sometimes even lose out on being able to raise money from these same VCs who were totally snookered by the scammers (though, honestly, would you want those same folks to invest in you really considering their ability to get taken in such a scam?). There’s a lot of good things that happen in Silicon Valley… and a lot of money thrown around. Unfortunately, when that happens, it’s inevitable that some bad characters jump into the game as well and just cook the books.

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  • BREAKING: Toyota to recall 3.8M vehicles to reshape and replace pedals

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    Toyota has announced that it will recall some 3.8 million cars and trucks to reshape and/or replace their accelerator pedals. The action is the result of fears that loose floormats may cause the accelerator pedal to stick, increasing the risk of an accident. The recall will be the largest in the Japanese automaker’s history, and it will cover a wide range of vehicles from the 2004 model year through 2010 – a complete list is available after the jump. The move comes after an earlier action where Toyota announced it would recall 3.8 million vehicles to only swap floor mats.

    Working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Toyota will effect the recall by sending letters to owners of its Avalon, Camry, and Lexus ES 350 models by year’s end. Five other models, including the Prius, Tacoma, Tundra, and Lexus IS 250/IS 350 will receive similar notices sometime in 2010.

    The plan includes training dealer service representatives to reshape gas pedals, and Toyota will develop and ship redesigned gas pedals beginning in April. Those customers who have elected to have their pedals initially reshaped will still be able to have the pedal replaced when the updated unit becomes available. Vehicles fitted with Toyota or Lexus-made all-weather floor mats will also receive a new set of redesigned front mats.

    Interestingly, Toyota will also install a a brake override system that will turn off the engine if both the accelerator and the brake are depressed simultaneously. According to Automotive News, this update will occur on “involved Camry, Avalon, and Lexus ES 350, IS 350 and IS 250 models ‘as an extra measure of confidence.’” This action appears to be limited to vehicles that employ Toyota’s push-button start system, but interestingly its hybrid-only Prius has apparently been excluded.

    For its part, Toyota says the cost of the action will come entirely from its dedicated recall fund, a $5.6 billion dollar stash, and therefore, the recall will have “no effect” on its business. The news come on the heels of yesterday’s announcement that Toyota will recall 2000-2003 Tundra pickups over frame rust issues.

    A complete list of vehicles covered under the action and both NHTSA and Toyota’s official press releases are available after the jump.

    [Sources: Reuters; Automotive News; NHTSA; Toyota]

    Continue reading BREAKING: Toyota to recall 3.8M vehicles to reshape and replace pedals

    BREAKING: Toyota to recall 3.8M vehicles to reshape and replace pedals originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Mockups of the Future Identity-Management Features in Firefox

    The web is shaping up more and more as an extension of our identity. Social networks, wikis, even the search engines, know a lot more about ourselves than we realize and everything is becoming more catered and more integrated. It’s no surprise then that there’s a battle brewing for our online identities and two players are standing out, Google and Facebook. There’s definitely a need for a standard and unified online identity, but should this fall into the hands of one company, any company? Mozilla doesn’t think so and wants to tackle the issue at the browser level.

    Mozilla’s user experience head Aza Raskin has some thoughts on the issue and has released some mockups of a possible way to handle logins and everything that has to do with identity inside the browser. He proposes that the entire login and signup process should be done by the browser, providing a unified and consistent experience across any number of services and sites.

    “Most current solutions involve lots of redirects or iframes, which leads to a confusing and phishable experience. Besides the poor user experience, we are seeing market-moving effects of the identity/log in problem. Facebook Connect and Google’s Friend Connect both let you use your pre-existing identity and social graph to super-power other websites. … (read more)

  • Improved Forecast For U.K. GDP

    While economists recently dinged U.S. third quarter growth to 2.8 percent from a previously reported 3.5, the opposite happened today in England. New data show the U.K. GDP shrinking by 0.3 percent in the third quarter, less than last month’s estimate of 0.4 percent.

    Not much, but it’s welcome news.

    UK GDP3

    Among the sectors showing third quarter improvement was the service industry, which shrank by 0.1 percent compared to a fall of 0.6 percent in the second quarter. The worst hit sector was oil and gas, which shrank by 4.7 percent compared to 0.6 percent in the second quarter.

    Read more at the U.K. Office for National Statistics.

    Join the conversation about this story »

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  • Up the Learning Tree by Marcia Vaughan, illustrated by Derek Blanks

    Young Henry Bell’s master insists that “he’ll take an ax to the finger of any slave who touches a book.” But before his father was sold away, he told his son that “book learning” would provide the way out of slavery.

    When Master Simon starts school, Henry is sent along to walk him to and from the schoolhouse. Henry finishes his work as quickly is possible so he can climb the nearby sycamore tree and hear Miss Hattie read to her lucky students. Henry learns quickly, even from a distance, carving the letters into the tree’s branches.

    While delivering Master Simon’s assignments when he falls ill, Miss Hattie catches Henry trying to sneak a discarded book out of the garbage. “‘I don’t believe in slavery or in keeping people ignorant,’” she tells Henry. “‘If you’re willing to take such a big risk, then I am too.’” And the learning begins in earnest. “‘In all my years of teaching, I’ve never had a student as determined to learn as you,’” she tells the eager Henry. Even when their lessons come to a sudden end, Henry is determined he will keep learning, no matter what. “I got it in my head ain’t nothing going to stop me.”

    The “Author’s Note” explains that literate slaves could “write their own passes to leave the plantation and escape to freedom in the North.” As clever as young Henry is, one can only hope that escape and freedom are in his future beyond the final page.

    Up the Learning Tree proves to be a memorable, inspiring story about the desperate desire to learn; it’s also quite the reminder that even in the 21st century, new forms of slavery keep too many children trapped in ignorant darkness.

    Readers: Children

    Published: 2003, 2009 (paperback re-issue)

  • iPhone Coming to Tesco Supermarket in the UK, Virgin in Canada

    If you wanted to buy the iPhone, once upon a time you had to get it direct from Apple or from the Mac maker’s partner network providers. Nowadays, there are more and more places you can pick one up, including, soon enough, at the supermarket while you restock the bread and milk in the UK. In Canada, a budget provider of UK origin will soon join everyone else as an iPhone carrier, too.

    UK retailer Tesco will offer the device for use on the O2 network exclusively, and it will be selling both the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS. Tesco Mobile, Tesco’s cell phone subsidiary, will begin offering the device both in store and online via Tesco Direct. Tesco Mobile has its own branding and pricing structures, but is actually a joint venture between the retail giant and O2, and uses O2’s network.

    As for a release timeline, a Tesco spokesperson says the store plans on stocking the device “in time for Christmas,” which is fast approaching. The peak of the holiday shopping season in the U.S. is this Friday, widely known as “Black Friday.” Thanks to a globalized economy and the increased use of international online retail, Black Friday deals can now be found in many other countries, too.

    Tesco hasn’t revealed its pricing for the iPhone yet, but maintains that it will be “competitive.” I’m beginning to just assume that when service providers use that word they really just mean it’ll be priced exactly the same as it is with every other company that offers it. That’s certainly been the case here in Canada.

    Both Bell and Telus began offering the iPhone in addition to the first carrier Rogers/Fido, within the last month. Both the new providers built out new GSM networks to be able to provide the device, since their existing networks were CDMA, which Apple has recently reminded us is something it doesn’t do. Virgin Mobile just announced it would begin offering the iPhone 3G and 3GS “in the coming months.”

    If you’re thinking that having four or five providers all offering the same high demand device would lead to increased competition and better deals for consumers, you’d be wrong. As is always the case in the rigidly controlled and regulated Canadian mobile communications industry, all providers are offering pretty much exactly the same deal, and none wants to budge to try to sway fence-sitting customers one way or the other. The problem is, the pie is big enough that each is more or less happy with its share of the pie, and so we exist in a consumer-screwing stasis.

    I’m all for having the ability to choose between carriers, which is better than being stuck with one, as people are in the U.S., but if that’s the only outcome of increased iPhone availability, I’m not sure I care that much.

  • REPORT: Renault delays new Lada products to focus on improving quality

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    Lada Concept C – Click above for high-res image gallery

    All eyes have been on Renault since acquiring a 25% stake in Russian automaker Avtovaz. The French carmaker headed by the venerable Carlos Ghosn beat out Fiat and General Motors to acquire the interest in Lada’s parent company, but then the economy tanked and Ghosn was left holding his hat.

    Original plans centered around new product launches to re-invigorate the Russian automaker, starting with the Concept C unveiled at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show. But Renault has reportedly now changed its strategy, putting new Ladas on hold. Instead, they’ll be showing the Ruskies how to build the cars they already build, but better. The plan is apparently taken out of the Volkswagen playbook, as implemented after the German group’s acquisition of Skoda, which has apparently been working pretty well for them so far.

    The focus of Renault’s attention in Russia will start on the existing Kalina, applying lessons which “the West learned over 40 years” on a quicker learning curve. Once Ghosn and company feel Avtovaz has got the quality issue down pat, then it will begin to roll out new products based on Renault and Nissan platforms, currently pegged for somewhere around 2012 to 2014. Better hunker down, comrades: this could take a while.

    Gallery: Lada C Concept

    [Source: Autocar]

    REPORT: Renault delays new Lada products to focus on improving quality originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • HTC’s director of user experience interviewed

    Feel free to ignore anything after the 22 minute mark in this Engadget show video, during which HTC’s Director of User Experience is interviewed regarding the evolution of HTC’s user experience on their handhelds.

    While the most striking feature of this video is Engadget’s bias against Windows Mobile, it is still interesting to see the ongoing design process in action, and see a glimpse of what’s to come in future iterations of HTC Sense.

    Via PDA.pl

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  • Fight Night Round 4 DLC – new fighters, game modes, updates

    As previously announced, EA Sports dates and schedules their huge rollout for Fight Night Round 4. By huge, i mean new fighters, new game modes, and …

  • The Garrett, Watts Report (Thanksgiving, 2009)

    garrett-watts1

    To Our Clients, Colleagues and Friends,

    · Lots of you wrote in about the video of that monster wave, with many of you identifying it as being on beach in Maui .  For those who missed it, go here. Also, about 30 of you wrote it to correct us on how many years it was since JFK was shot.  Our only mea culpa is that it’s hard to edit your own writing.  And finally we got lots of comments on those 10 things you’d want people to learn in school.  Most simply pointed out that there were 11 rules and not 10.

    • If you’re thinking of running for public office. think twice.  These photos show Arnold Schwarzenegger before and after going into politics.
      joe1

    The hair style has improved, but let’s not even talk about his waist.  Still, as the bumper sticker says, “My governor can beat up your governor.”  Sic gloria ex terminatorum. By the way, do you think that when Arnold and Maria are feeling romantic, he refers to himself as the Terminator, as in “Come here, Maria, and give your Terminator a big kiss?”

    • We wrote of a few lessons one should learn at college last week, and Jay Hughes of MGIC added #12:  “Don’t forget this college lesson that a cheese steak, eaten at approximately 1:00 PM the day after a rough night, makes all your troubles go away.”
    • We’re writing an article on the back-office side of hedging.  That is, a discussion of the controls you need if you’re going to sell on a mandatory basis and hedge your pipeline.  Even with one of the nationally known hedging services, you’ll still  need a series of controls to prevent any surprises.  Many of you remember Capital Commerce, one of the more spectacular examples of a guy in secondary hiding his trades and/or lying about trades he never made. For those who don’t remember, this guy drove a hugely successful company right into bankruptcy by lying about his position, with tens of millions being lost.  Whatever happened to Rod Pierce?  Does anyone know?
    • We plan to finish the article in a few weeks, and while we know the basic sine qua non on controls (this is Latin for “without which you are really screwed”), we suspect many of you have devised some of your own ways of staying on top of secondary marketing exposure and risk.  We’re very interested in what you might be doing, so send us a note about this.
    • The best writing about banking comes from Chris Nichols at the PCBB, and last week he noted that studies show that about 25% of customers leave their bank in the first year and 50% of those leave in the first 90 days.  Discouraging, right?  He also wrote that customers who sign up for two or more products are 37% less likely to leave than those with only one product.
    • We just listened to a Reggae CD that’s as good as anything Bob Marley ever did.  It’s Moment in Time by Beres Hammond.  If there’s any one minor criticism,  it’s that his voice might be too smooth, almost Frank Sinatra-Brook Benton smooth.  Hammond does a great job, but there’s something in his voice that says he could be a Las Vegas lounge singer, and a true reggae singer like Bob Marley would never be found at Caesar’s Palace and would never be accused of having a smooth voice.  But check out this CD.
    • Most amazing movie of the year: 2012. It was produced by the same person who did Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, but this one is much, much better, showing an apocalypse that is non-stop and unrelenting.  You’ll be sitting on the edge of your seat.  The scene showing California sliding into the ocean is just flat out jaw-dropping.
    • One of thing things we introduced in our FOCIS Reports awhile back was an analysis of Secondary Market Leakage.  If you build in 200 bps margin on your FHA and are only getting, say, 175, there’s a real problem there.  It could be from missing commitments, mis-coding occupancy status and a dozen other things that need to be looked into.  Leakage is rarely due to secondary marketing mistakes and is almost always the result of something going wrong in the operations, often doc draw or funding. Highly profitable companies have almost no leakage.
    • FHLMC said it may lose $500 million due to the bankruptcy of Taylor Bean. We think someone may go to jail on this one.  And his initials might be L.F.
    • Did you notice how Germans didn’t make a big deal about the November 9, 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall?  Hmm.  Maybe it’s because November 9, 1918 was when Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated, because on November 9th, 1923 Adolph Hitler staged his Munich beer hall putsch, or because November 9, 1937 was Kristellnacht, when Nazi thugs attacked Jews and burned synagogues throughout Germany .  Maybe November 9th is a date they’d just rather not think about.
    • For those of you who ask us about jumbo programs, we can’t  believe you’re not selling to SunTrust!  They offer (1)  loan amounts to $2 million, (2)  owner occupied 1-2 Units, (3) fixed Rates + 5-1, 7-1 and 10-1 ARMS, and (4)  LTVs to 75%.   What more could you ask for?
    • Good old Goldman Sachs has earned $8.5 billion for the first three quarters, and we just saw that they are paying their employees, on an annualized basis, an average of $717,000.   We know the senior people make millions, but it makes you wonder if it would be worth it to work there for a year or two as a janitor.
    • We once commented on the opening sentence to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, as being the longest sentence we’d ever seen.  We also remarked that we thought it was about the most over-rated book in history, so we were thrilled to see what Evelyn Waugh said when reading it, that “I am reading Proust for the first time, and it is very poor stuff.  I think he was mentally defective.”  YES!!!!  We’ve always thought that the best advice to give kids going off to college is to never take a class where you have to read Beowulf, and we need to add to that anything written by Proust.
    • Did you know that students in China do twice the amount of homework per night as kids in the United States ?  And looking at their overall economic strength, you need look no further than the Chinese phrase which is translates as “Hide your capabilities and bide your time.”  Does anyone  doubt that they will compete with us to be the #1 superpower of the future?

    We have attached a little piece on Thanksgiving.  We send it out every year, and we hope it resonates with you.

    Thanksgiving (1)

    Garrett, Watts & Co.

    Helping mortgage lenders increase revenues, control costs, and better manage risk.

    • Mike McAuley      281-250-2536
    • Corky Watts         408-497-3135
    • Joe Garrett         510-469-8633

  • Last.fm Gets 1 Million New Subscribers in One Week

    Music streaming services have been seeing a lot of interest lately but most of the focus has been on either newcomers or the failing ones. Last.fm, one of the oldest and still one of the most popular music services, has been staying quiet for the most part, but things are definitely moving forward behind the scenes. While others are still trying to get their business off the ground, Last.fm has made a very, very interesting deal with Microsoft to get its service on the company’s popular game console the Xbox 360.

    The deal was announced half a year ago, but things tend to move slower in the gaming world than in social media, so the Last.fm integration only came to fruition last week. And, the results are already beginning to show, the music streaming service managed to get almost one million new subscribers from the Xbox Live users which signed up for Last.fm. The CBS-owned company says that it was the biggest growth the site has seen since launch and that it broke the record for most users registered in a 24-hour period.

    They’re not just signing up, the new users are making the most out of the service and already 120 million minutes of music have been streamed from the consoles. It’s clear by now that the new social media features on the Xbox 360 are a hit and Last.fm should be more than delighted. Of… (read more)

  • Anti-Piracy Group In Spain Fined For Bad Faith Actions Against File Sharing Systems

    We were just talking about how the justice system in Spain seems at least somewhat more reasonable on the subject of file sharing, and here’s yet another example. A court has overturned injunctions on two file sharing sites and fined the anti-piracy group that brought charges against them in the first place for “acting in bad faith.” The case was dismissed because the court realized (yet again) that linking to infringing material is not infringing itself. But, the “bad faith” part involved the anti-piracy group, SGAE, tricking the operator of the sites into believing that two SGAE employees were representatives of the court and had the right to search his home and confiscate computer hard drives. We’ve seen such things allowed elsewhere, so it’s nice that the Spanish courts are letting private anti-piracy groups know that they are not law enforcement.

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  • The Devil Wears Prada? Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making

    Published: November 25, 2009
    Paper Released: November 2009
    Authors: Roy Y.J. Chua and Xi Zou

    Executive Summary:

    Gandhi once wrote that “a certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help.” This observation raises interesting questions for psychologists regarding the effects of luxury. What psychological consequences do luxury goods have on people? In this paper, the authors argue that luxury goods can activate the concept of self-interest and affect subsequent cognition. The argument involves two key premises: Luxury is intrinsically linked to self-interest, and exposure to luxury can activate related mental representations affecting cognition and decision-making. Two experiments showed that exposure to luxury led people to think more about themselves than others. Key concepts include:

    • Luxury does not necessarily induce people to be “nasty” toward others but rather causes them to be less concerned about or considerate toward others.
    • Experiment 1 showed that when primed with luxury, people are more likely to endorse self-interested business decisions (profit maximization), even at the expense of others.
    • Experiment 2 further demonstrated that exposure to luxury is likely to activate self-interest but not the tendency to harm others.
    • Exposure to luxury goods may activate a social norm that it is appropriate to pursue interests beyond a basic comfort level, even at the expense of others. It may be this activated social norm that affects people’s judgment and decision-making.
    • Alternatively, exposure to luxury may directly increase people’s personal desire, causing them to focus on their own benefits such as prioritizing profits over social responsibilities.

    Abstract

    Although the concept of luxury has been widely discussed in social theories and marketing research, relatively little research has directly examined the psychological consequences of exposure to luxury goods. This paper demonstrates that exposure to luxury goods increases individuals’ propensity to prioritize self-interests over others’ interests, influencing the decisions they make. Experiment 1 found that participants primed with luxury goods were more likely than those primed with non-luxury goods to endorse business decisions that benefit themselves but could potentially harm others. Using a word recognition task, Experiment 2 further demonstrates that exposure to luxury is likely to activate self-interest but not necessarily the tendency to harm others. Implications of these findings were discussed.
    Keywords: Luxury goods, Cognition, Decision making, Self-interest.
    16 pages.

    Paper Information

  • Sony limits PSN content use on PS3s

    For those who download content from the PlayStation Store using multiple PS3s, listen up. Sony Computer Entertainment has revised their Terms of Ser…

  • Jobless Claims Drop 35,000, Hit Best Level Since September 2008

    Seasonally-adjusted initital jobless claims fell 35,000 from last week to 466,000. Yet they rose 68,080 on an unadjusted basis. This basically means they rose less than normal for this time of year.

    At 466,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, the jobless claims are now below 500,000 for the first time since January, when they were 488,000. They are also at the lowest level since the week of September 13th, 2008 when they hit 459,000.

    Department of Labor: The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Nov. 7 were in Puerto Rico (6.2 percent), Oregon (5.5), Alaska (5.1), Nevada (5.1), Pennsylvania (4.9), Wisconsin (4.9), Arkansas (4.7), California (4.7), Michigan (4.6), North Carolina (4.6), and Washington (4.6).

    The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Nov. 14 were in Florida (+1,313), Indiana (+607), Hawaii (+278), and North Dakota (+81), while the largest decreases were in California (-7,987), Texas (-4,710), Pennsylvania (-4,321), Wisconsin (-2,716), and Ohio (-2,486).

    Check out the official release here.

    job

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  • REPORT: China’s Changan delays plan to enter North American auto market

    Filed under: , ,

    Changan is coming to America, just not yet. Aiming to establish a base in Mexico with which to move into the U.S. market, the Chinese automaker signed a deal last year to build a plant south of the border. The familiar story of planetary financial catastrophe has encouraged Changan to tap the brakes on its plans, however.

    Said the company’s R&D head to Reuters, “We are still doing market research there. There won’t be any big investment for the time being.” As if the crisis weren’t enough, Changan, like other Chinese makers, is also looking at getting into the luxury market with a vehicle developed in-house, and that will divert potential resources from overseas expansion. That means we Americans won’t get to sample MPVs like the Changan Joice (shown above) for a while longer.

    [Source: Reuters]

    REPORT: China’s Changan delays plan to enter North American auto market originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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