Author: Serkadis

Forget about other features, about the only thing going for the new Nintendo DSi LL right now is its size, which based on the displays found in Japan…

Filed under: Motorsports, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Renault, Citroën

It used to be that a racing driver would pick his form of motorsport at the beginning of his career and stick with it for the duration. Sure, there have been a few notable exceptions – especially among the Finns – but these days, it seems as if the exceptions are gaining on the norm. F1 drivers like Juan Pablo Montoya are moving to NASCAR, WRC aces like Sebastien Loeb and MotoGP champs like Valentio Rossi are trying their hand at F1, while F1 champs like Michael Schumacher are checking out motorbike racing. But the latest trend has a growing number of current, active Formula One drivers contesting rallies on the world stage.

The most notable is Kimi Raikkonen, who has driven a few rallies behind the wheel of his own Punto Abarth. Now that he’s looking to sit out of the next F1 season, all indications are that the departing Ferrari driver will find his way into the WRC. While downplaying the lingering prospect of the 2007 Formula One champion racing for the newly-christened Mercedes Grand Prix team next season, his managers are reportedly hard at work to get him a WRC drive for 2010. The most likely scenario would place Raikkonen with Citroen: Both the French rally team and the Finnish driver are sponsored by Red Bull, and the rapprochement could could pave the way for Kimi to return to F1 in 2011 for Red Bull Racing.

Even Red Bull’s current F1 ace, Sebastian Vettel, has reportedly expressed interest in trying his hand at rallying, although his team principal is reportedly against the idea. After winning the Nations Cup at the Race of Champions together with Schumacher three years running, the young German has certainly demonstrated the versatility of his talent.

Meanwhile, the highly-rated Robert Kubica is preparing for his second rally since leaving BMW Sauber for the Renault F1 team. After a dismal first attempt, the Pole is set to return to the wheel of a Renaultsport Clio R3 Maxi for the final round of the French Rally Championship at Var next weekend. If Kubica manages to finish this time around, we could yet see more F1 drivers following him onto the rally scene.

[Sources: Autosport and F1-Live | Image: Clive Mason/Getty]

Universal Soldiers: F1 aces Raikkonen, Vettel and Kubica lured by rallying originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It could be because he loves video games, or it could be because he’s taunting gamers with an evil grin on his face. Whatever the reason, Uwe Boll i…

In America, it is time for Thanksgiving and family time, in the tech world it is about time for Black Friday. Black Friday is a day created by big companies to liquidate all things electronic and get you to spend as much as you can while your in their store. This year big companies are adding phones to the Black Friday list of sales, and that means discounted Windows Phones.

In my area the best deals are from Wal-Mart, Bestbuy, Target and Office Max. I was recently reading the discount list and I spotted some droids and other Windows Mobile phones I do not remember. If you are currently residing in the US and want to check out the long list of discount visit Gottadeal  and remember, happy shopping.

Warning: Last year a man was killed while trying to enter a Wal-Mart for Black Friday shopping, so be safe out there.

Filed under: Aftermarket, Convertible, Performance, Europe, Porsche, Misc. Auto Shows

9ff Speed9 – Click above for image gallery

If you love the spirit of SEMA but tend to lean towards more European tastes, Essen is the show for you. The annual aftermarket show in Germany always brings out an enticing crop of European tuner cars, and 9ff isn’t about to let it go by without making its mark.

The Porsche tuner is hitting Essen with the Speed9, a slick speedster inspired by the legendary 356 (circa 1955) and based on the latest 997 Turbo cabrio. Naturally, 9ff started in the rear, boosting the 3.6-liter twin-turbo flat six from 473hp stock up to a whopping 650, all by tweaking the ECU and swapping out the air filter, exhaust and catalytic converter. The tuners have also fitted adjustable stabilizers front and rear with double springs at each corner, coupled with upgraded brakes.

There’s no word yet on what effect the mods will have on performance, but you can’t miss the body kit 9ff has developed. They’ve done away with the rear seats to give the cabrio a speedster-like profile, while fitting a new front air dam, side skirts and rear apron. No word on price either, but you can expect it to be commensurately expensive, with much of the range customizable to order.

[Source: 9ff via WCF]

9ff speeds into Essen with Speedster-inspired Speed9 originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Imagine the wholesome fun of Pokemon and mix it up with a twist of Grand Theft Auto. Just when you thought that the two are about as compatible as n…

It is already a common fact that Hulu is not willing to make any exceptions when it comes to other companies embedding its content, and the latest site to find this for itself is Rippol. Therefore, it is not only Boxee and TV.com that were forced to remove Hulu videos from their platforms, and probably Rippol will not be the last one either.

What’s more, this project is so recently launched that it still has the “Beta” label displayed on its webpage and it was based on complex algorithms integrated with user recommendations to provide visitors with relevant video suggestions that are most likely to interest them.

Regardless of how interesting this seems to be, Hulu representatives have reacted within a few hours from the official launch and informed Rippol that they were not allowed to embed any of the Hulu videos on their website, because they were violating the Terms of Service (ToS) of Hulu (which clearly states that all its content is exclusively for private, non-commercial usage). The response was that Rippol does not intend to publish any type of advertisements within the streams or around them, but it seems that the mere fact that the website plans to generate revenue comes in contradiction with the ToS.

As a solution to the entire situation, Hulu offered them the possibility to link… (read more)

Filed under: Spy Photos, Budget, Hatchback, Chevrolet, GM

Back in August, in the wake of General Motors emergence from its pre-packaged bankruptcy, the automaker gave select members of the media a preview of several upcoming products. Among those was the next Chevrolet Aveo, which will take up the B-segment mantle to battle the new Ford Fiesta, Mazda2, Honda Fit, and Toyota Yaris. Unlike the current Aveo, which is built in South Korea by Daewoo, the new model will be built at the Orion, MI assembly plant north of Detroit.

While there had been speculation that the ungainly-looking Chevy Viva from Brazil would be the Aveo replacement, that is an entirely different car – although it will likely share some mechanical bits with the Aveo.

At the August preview, GM design manager Bob Boniface confirmed to us that the Aveo moniker would be retained because, in spite of the baggage the current model carries, it does have recognition and launching a new nameplate has been deemed too expensive a proposition. Of course, that was three months ago and the Aveo is still a year or so away from launch, so things could change. Whatever it’s called, early spy shots from Brenda Priddy and Co. suggest that it’s shaping up to be a better-looking car than the current model, with a wider stance that looks less tippy.

[Source: The Detroit News]

Spy Shots: First look at the 2011 Chevy Aveo originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PhoneArena has weighed in with their review of the HTC HD2 and came to this conclusion:

There is no way a cell phone equipped with such a huge screen and powerful components would fail to appeal to eager high-tech buffs. The truth is, we see no reason not to recommend the HTC HD2 to anyone who feels overwhelmingly compelled to get a device with such a spectacular hardware. In terms of software and interactivity, it delivers everything that any self-respecting Windows Mobile smartphone offers and then some, adding capacitive screen and a lot of preinstalled applications, which make it not just head and shoulders, but light years away from its WM rivals today. The only WM smartphone that has a fighting chance against it is the Samsung Omnia II I8000. Personally, we´d go for the HD2 for its capacitive screen and better performance, but if we were predominantly focused on video playback, we would gladly sacrifice the extra 0.6 inches for the perfect video codec support of the Omnia II and its brilliant AMOLED screen – even if a bit smaller, its image quality is incomparably superior to any LCD display.

Ultimately, we say “yes” to the HTC HD2. This is a great handset that offers a lot with any respect. What´s more, considering the presence of the Sense interface, the HD2 escapes the fate of being qualified as just “another high-tech toy”, because it comes with functions in the forefront of today´s social networking, something that will certainly appeal to a good part of the now numerous people using various social networking services.

They do complain about in call sound quality and camera only gets a 7/10 but they still award an overall excellent 9 out of 10.

Read their full review here.

On Friday, oil refiner Valero (VLO) announced the completely shutdown of a plant in Delaware City, resulting in the loss of over 500 high-paying jobs.

Edward Harrison of CreditWritedowns.com argues that the fact that Valero had to shutdown this plant — which was losing about $1 million per day — indicates that the real economy, where consumers actually buy gasoline at the pump (as opposed to the financial economy, where barrels of crude trade at elevated levels), remains quite weak.

The new CEO Bill Klesse came to Valero via Ultramar Diamond Shamrock (UDS), which Valero acquired at the top of the market in 2001. So, company ethos may be different than under Bill Greehey who was very committed to community. And Delaware City is an old Getty/Shell-Motiva oil refinery and a legacy asset of Blackstone-controlled Premcor, the company run by former Tosco head and Salomon Brothers commodities trader Tom O’Malley. So, it was not core to Valero’s operations. Valero already cut staff there in September. And the Shell-Motiva JV had serious operating difficulties with the asset before offloading it to Premcor.

Nevertheless, this was a refinery which has been upgraded significantly to process less expensive heavy, sour crude oil. The fact that Valero is laying off workers and shuttering the entire site tells you that the situation is bad. They are saying in effect “we cannot continue to operate at a loss through this business cycle.” If Valero can’t make money, no oil refiner can.

I see this in a macro context as a sign of cyclically weak end-user demand.  I do think peak oil is for real but the world is awash in oil and oil products right now. Read the whole thing >

He points to this FT Alphaville piece as a backup for the last part that the world is “awash” in oil products.

We feel it’s Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix who really expressed the matter best on Friday. As he wrote (emphasis FT Alphaville’s):

As per our Tuesday ad hoc note on floating stocks; on a crude equivalent basis all of the OPEC and half of the IEA estimated oil demand growth for 2010 is already parked at anchor in floating stocks and these idled cargoes filled with oil are getting more and more attention.

By the end of the winter there is likely to be as much distillates afloat as in the total US at the end of winter 2007 and we expect that it will be more and more difficult for some of the Wall Street commodity banks to avoid mentioning the subject and to continue to hide the floating storage fill-up as “demand from emerging economies”.

The ICE Gasoil contango is currently widening and this will not work towards the reduction of these floating stocks. In an environment of spare refining capacity the only solver to the growing floating stocks of Distillates is a sharp reduction in OPEC supplies [ahem…Daily Mail], but only lower prices would trigger that.

The only answer that we see to GOD (Glut of Distillate) is a flat price correction sharp enough to force more OPEC supply cuts.

Indeed, the realization that end-user demand is not all its cracked up to be has been emerging all week.

Our Vincent Fernando noted on Tuesday:

Last week was particularly worrisome for oil, since U.S. fuel inventories (distillate stocks) rose during a time of year when analysts expected a drop. The American fuel glut continues due to weak demand, and as shown below, is far worse than anything seen in recent years.

Even if U.S. fuel demand picks up with the economy, the U.S. will first have to work down its massive distillate stocks before needing more oil. This process will keep a lid on America’s contribution to world oil demand.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• America’s Growing Fuel Glut Could Torpedo Oil Prices (USO)
• Fitch: European Refiners Facing Worrisome Cash Flow Crunch
• Energy-Hungry America Drilling For Oil In Beverly Hills And Hollywood

Filed under: Motorsports, Motorcycle

Buell 1125R – Click above for high-res image gallery

Knee-draggers take heart: following the disappointing news that Harley-Davidson has killed the Buell brand, comes the announcement of its rebirth. Don’t go looking for any new street bikes, though; the Buell name will carry on strictly through racing.

According to the announcement, company founder and chairman Erik Buell will leave the Motor Company to head up the newly formed Erik Buell Racing. This spin-off will be supported by HDMC and based at the Buell factory in East Troy, Wisconsin. The racing outfit will likely retain part of the workforce that, until last week, was responsible for assembling the roadgoing sportbikes. Rather than building bikes for public consumption, however, the team at Erik Buell Racing will supply the Buell 1125R to racing teams for as long as the bike complies with current competition regs.

So, while existing Buell retailers will sell off the remaining stock of street bikes, the name will live on (for a while, at least) on the racing circuit. Check out the fresh mega gallery of 1125R images (on and off the track) and the details in the press release after the jump.

[Source: Harley-Davidson]

Continue reading Salvation! Buell sportbikes reborn as Erik Buell Racing

Salvation! Buell sportbikes reborn as Erik Buell Racing originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jimmy Moore is a low-carb super star. The man pushes harder than most to crack conventional wisdom on his blog, and he just released a new book, 21 Life Lessons From Living Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How the Heatlhy Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew.

I’ve posted the piano thing before, but The Fun Theory is just too inspiring not to spread.

Want to strengthen your bones? Buy a jump rope. Want to weaken them? Become a cardioholic, drive your cortisol levels crazy, and prevent your bones’ uptake of calcium. Read more about a fascinating new bone study at the NY Times.

Sugar kills….worms!

Mummies are old, but not as old as Grok. Why is this important? Because scientists just discovered mummies with heart disease. These same scientists have not been able to confirm whether vampires and werewolves have heart disease, but it’s looking likely.

How Primal are business cards made of meat?

Recipe Corner

• Another great one from Free the Animal this week: Primal Chicken Pot Pie with Cauliflower Crust
• Just discovered The Recipe Zaar, a hub for posting and creating collections of recipes. ThatSouthernBelle has created a collection called Chez Grok’s Primal Recipes which includes 100!

Time Capsule

One Year Ago (November 15 – 21, 2008)

• Grain Pain – My battle with IBS and my personal story of giving up grains.
• Banish Bake Sales? – An age old tradition of local fund raising. I’m all for charity and community, but there has to be a healthier way to raise money.

Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts Delivered to Your Inbox

Related posts:

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Huge week for the PS3. For starters, firmware 3.10 is now live, spamming Facebook news feeds everywhere with Trophy information and a few PSN “purchas…

Filed under: Spy Photos, Sedan, BMW

BMW’s official unveiling ceremony isn’t until Monday, but a few authentic shots of the all-new “F10” BMW 5 Series are floating around cyberspace. These three low resolution images only give us a frontal glimpse of the upcoming 5 Series sedan, apparently as it does a dress rehearsal for its big show at the beginning of the week.

Our first sans-camouflage observation says it looks much like the 5 Series GT, its close sibling (nobody was expecting any radical styling departure anyway). Thanks to its “sport sedan” role, the new 5 Series four-door sports a slightly more aggressive flair to its front facade and side styling. In case you were wondering, the little black buttons just ahead of the front wheels are side view cameras, just like those found on the 7 Series. We’ll reserve further judgment until Monday, when they pull the rest of the tarp off. Thanks for the tip, Brandon!

[Source: 5post.com]

First official shots of new BMW 5 Series leaked online originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Will the Fed actually stop snapping up mortgage-backed securities (MBS)?

Maybe, but they better be on guard if they do, in terms of what will happen to the housing market.

Calculated Risk offers this interesting analysis.

Earlier this year, Political Calculations introduced a tool to estimate mortgage rates based on the Ten Year Treasury yield (based on an earlier post of mine): Predicting Mortgage Rates and Treasury Yields. Using their tool, with the Ten Year yield at 3.356%, this suggests a 30 year mortgage rates of 5.33% based on the historical relationship between the Ten Year yield and mortgage rates.

Freddie Mac released their weekly survey Thursday:

Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®) in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.83 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending November 19, 2009, down from last week when it averaged 4.91 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 6.04 percent.

This suggests morgage rates are about 50 bps below the expect level …

Read the whole thing >>

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Yow! One In Seven Homeowners With Mortgages Are In Trouble
• Mortgage Applications Plunge To 12-Year Low
• Rosenberg: No Chance Of A Rate Hike Before 2011

The Wii might be in unfamiliar territory, facing decline for the first time and all, but that doesn’t mean that the console is down for the count. A …

Perhaps this week you heard news reports about Venezuela bombing a couple of bridges that connected it with Colombia, and have been wondering what all the tension is about.

If so you should run to read this report in UK’s The Independent about America’s role (surprise!) in fomenting tension. (via Forexlive)

As it turns out, Colombia is basically our last surrogate state in Latin and South America.

In the old days, sure, we had our various friendly puppet goverments, and we certainly wouldn’t mind having a few more (see: the brief 2002 Venezuelan coup). But for the most part, that’s over, and for Latin America that’s a much better state of things.

But Colombia — due to the drug war and thorough corruption — remains, and so the US is putting more and more chips on that spot. After all, the US gets about half of its oil from Latin America. We can’t just let the region go on its way.

The Independent: Indications of US willingness to envisage the stationing of nuclear weapons in Colombia are seen as an additional threat to the spirit of nuclear disarmament. After the establishment of the Tlatelolco Treaty in 1967, four more nuclear-weapon-free zones were set up in Africa, the South Pacific, South-east Asia and Central Asia. Between them, the five treaties cover nearly two-thirds of the countries of the world and almost all the southern hemisphere.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world’s leading think-tank about disarmament issues, has now expressed its worries about the US-Colombian arrangements.

With or without nuclear weapons, the bilateral agreement on the seven Colombian bases, signed on 30 October in Bogota, risks a costly new arms race in a region. SIPRI, which is funded by the Swedish government, said it was concerned about rising arms expenditure in Latin America draining resources from social programmes that the poor of the region need.

Much of the new US strategy was clearly set out in May in an enthusiastic US Air Force (USAF) proposal for its military construction programme for the fiscal year 2010. One Colombian air base, Palanquero, was, the proposal said, unique “in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from… anti-US governments”.

The proposal sets out a scheme to develop Palanquero which, the USAF says, offers an opportunity for conducting “full-spectrum operations throughout South America…. It also supports mobility missions by providing access to the entire continent, except the Cape Horn region, if fuel is available, and over half the continent if un-refuelled”. (“Full-spectrum operations” is the Pentagon’s jargon for its long-established goal of securing crushing military superiority with atomic and conventional weapons across the globe and in space.)

So you can understand why Colombia’s neighbors are nervous. Following the US plans, Venezuela warned Colombia it might prompt war, and indeed that’s already started to some extent. Even without war, it does, as noted by the think tank above, require other countries to beef up their military spending in kind.

Read the whole thing at The Independent>

(Picture via Flickr user Cosmowidgets)

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Brazil Is Reeling From Weakness In The Dollar (EWZ)
• Swine Flu Explodes In Latin America
• Sadly, CERA’s Optimism Over Oil Production Is Total Nonsense

Recent third quarter data from the World Gold Council showed that while gold supply fell 5%, demand (inclusive of investors) fell a much larger 34%.

Yet despite this negative disparity between supply and demand change, gold prices rose during the period.

Hard Assets Investor: Year-over-year demand has dropped in each of gold’s three market segments: for investments, off 46 percent; for jewelry, down 30 percent; and for industrial use, off 11 percent.

Gold prices, however, have risen universally. In key markets such as India and Turkey, gold prices spiked 15 percent and 33 percent, respectively. In dollar terms, gold rose 12 percent year-over-year, while euro prices rose 11 percent.

The bull market may have put gold out of reach for many consumers. That may account for some of the renewed interest in “the poor man’s gold”—silver.

Read more here.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Schiff: Roubini Doesn’t Get Why Gold Is Soaring
• CHART OF THE DAY: How The Old Gold Bugs Lost Control Of Gold (GLD)
• Gold Tanking (GLD)

Howard Chui from Howard Forums have published this brief video overview of the Samsung Omnia 2, currently available on Bell’s HSDPA network, and which will soon arrive on Verizon.

While the device appears to be very functional Howard does have a point regarding confusing navigation on the device, and it is slower than the 800 Mhz processor would suggest (for reference the HD2 loads the speed test page in 15 seconds).

Like all Samsung devices however the Samsung Omnia 2 is loaded with great included software and hardware which for many will more than make up for a little bit of lag here and there.

Do any of our readers have an Omnia 2?  Let us know your impressions in the comments below.